We quietly launched www.crackcircuittv.com a couple of weeks ago. On CCTV we will focus on motion and video, similar like shuttercrack.com but then with moving images. We will launch it big in the next couple of weeks but the blimp we hired was hijacked by Mongolian airspace pirates (cargo ships are so last year). Anyway it's again a new and exciting channel to discover cool creative people. Christoph Schaarschmidt is one of those people, he uses the art of Tilt Shifting to convert everything to a 1:300 scale. And as he explains you don't need expensive equipment to produce high quality videos like he does. That's how we like it, inspiring people with inspiring methods who are not afraid to share their works and thoughts.
"I like timelapse videos, because it gives kind of structure to the chaos of everyday normal life. It shows a miniatureworld, where humans are like artificial moved figures"
Who's the person behind the videos?
I am a 26 year old media technology student at the University of Applied Sciences in Mittweida, a city in eastern Germany. I live in Chemnitz with my girlfriend. Before I started to study I made a trainee as assistant for multimedia. Already my grandfather, my father and my older brother loved filmmaking. My brother already made his hobby to his job. My passion for filmmaking and photography started 12 years ago when I went to school. There I used every possibility to make small movies for school festivals or for the lessons itself. Besides this I am a normal guy, who loves to meet his friends, makes music and loves to travel a lot.
If we had to put a label on you, do you consider yourself more as a photographer or a video guy?
Spontaniously I would say: both. I love to make films with my photo equipment. But I want to be more a video guy. During my study in Mittweida. I work on lots of tv-clips as camera operator and cutter. This is what I want to do in my future.
What's your approach for these series of videos. Do you do full research on locations or like a real trooper you fill your backpack with your equipment and some fresh sandwiches and see where the city takes you?
I prefer the second way :) In my free time, when the weather is good, I visit friends or make short trips to cities I like. There I use every possibility I can find. But I also visit the places in google earth before I go there, I look for viewpoints and interesting objects.
What kind of equipment do you use to produce your Tilt Shift scale work?
I use my Canon EOS 400D and an 18-200mm zoom lens. I am realizing more and more that my equipment reaches its limits. I am looking forward to buy a tiltshift lens, but I have to save some money first :) For postproduction I use Adobe After Effects at my university. Than I add a selective gaussian and radial blur to get this macro effect.
What makes shooting scale time-laps movies of cities so interesting?
I like timelapse videos, because it gives kind of structure to the chaos of everyday normal life. It shows a miniature world, where humans are like artificial moved figures. And with the tiltshift effect I can call the viewers attention to things, people or actions that are important for me. So I can show the daily run of people, but also special individuals.
In the Netherlands there is Madurodam, the largest scale city in Holland. Is that your mecca?
Unfortunately I never heard of it before. But when I was young I also built little model worlds for my train hill. So my videos are the second step of this hobby. In Germany we have little scale cities, too. The funny thing about this is, that in my video „Small Life around Dresden“ you can see the scale city in Rathen. Its in a huge garden, where a guy has build a little city with trains and everything.
What are the keyfactors that makes a scenery suitable for your works?
The first thing is that I have to find a high building, a balcony, a rock or something like that to have a miniature look on the places below. The second step are places near to it with much movement, for example streets, marketplaces, rivers and so on. The scenes I like most can't be planned at all. For them I was in the right place at the right time. It was luck and coincidence to film for example the urban climber or the bmx driver in my new clip.
Any plans for taking your Tilt Shift videos to the next level, maybe commericial? Nike did it recently for Amsterdam with the help of Nalden and Sartoria for the IAM1 Amsterdam Journey.
First I want to finish my study successfully, but I can imagine to do clips like that as commissional work. Actually I made this pictures for the local film contest "Swan Lake" in Mittweida. I uploaded each clip on Vimeo to see if the effect works and if people like it. Now I combine all the scenes together for the final clip. But I want to make more of it after this project, because I really enjoy it. So I hope there are many "Small Life" movies coming up next time.
What's the strangest thing that ever happened to you when you were out shooting ?
There is nothing strange at all. But always when I am out there lots of people ask me what I am doing. That stands to reason, when there is a guy who takes 500 pictures of the same scene. Mostly the situation is kind of funny. One time a guy meant, his camera also had a video function...
What can we expect from you in the future?
In a few weeks I am going to Southern France for my holiday. I hope I will find beautiful locations to make another „Small Life“ clip, this time with a little story. Also I am looking forward to produce a music video for the band I play bass in (myspace.com/billionairevsbear). My biggest dream is to illustrate a great event like sport championships or festivals with this style.
