Kaze Arashi ryu

A short video I did for the martial arts school of Kaze Arashi ryu in Mountain View, CA:

If you are curious about the school itself – visit their website.

For the technical video geeks, the footage is shot at 720/60p with a 1/1000 exposure. This made each frame crispy-sharp, with virtually no motion blur even for the very fast moves. Then I slowed it down in Apple’s Motion using optical reflow – that’s the secret behind the Matrix-like slow-mo effect.

The “talk” is the only exception: 24p at 1/48 with a long zoom and open aperture (about 2.0). This “tricks” the small sensor camera into a shallow depth of focus, making the background soft.

Oh, and by the way, the last fighting sequence is no special effect – all real, unrehearsed, actual speed. It looks a bit weird and “too fast” precisely because it lacks the motion blur. I found that not only it’s impossible to take the blur out once it’s there, it’s also quite hard to put it back in believably. So I didn’t 🙂

The entire clip was shot on a single Saturday morning and edited together in a couple of evenings. Having a great “cast” makes a world of difference!

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