The Brindabellas Mountain Range is a familiar sight from the Australian capital city of Canberra—and part of the inspiration for Glen Ryan and James van der Moezel of silver dory in their latest production. Rising to the west of Canberra—the "Brindabellas" separate New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory. Through the use of infrared camera technology, Glen wanted to showcase the range's diverse wild and plant life—in a new light. For the art documentary Brindabellas, Glen and James used a modified RED EPIC-X MYSTERIUM-X with an IR Pass OLPF to offer a unique perspective. The documentary highlights the Brindabellas Range in a five-part series—that follows the area through Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer again.
In an interview with RED, Glen told us about his setup and the footage they captured.
"In October 2013, the nature of filming changed significantly with the arrival of a modified full-spectrum RED Epic-X Digital Cinema camera. This was modified to remove the IR cut filter on the OLPF which allowed the capture of near-infrared motion at both normal and high-speed frame-rates (in 5K resolution) with filtration (of visible light) on the lenses. With the addition of faster frame rates, the emphasis turned to filming the smaller elements — rain, running water, snow, frost and ice of the Brindabellas."
A complete feature-length version of Brindabellas — Edge of Light was released today, September 30th, with a master version aimed to release over the next couple of weeks. Silver dory is producing both high-quality prints and 4K resolution video for the project.
Glen and James are also working on a new infrared motion project shot on EPIC DRAGON with a combination of full spectrum and near-infrared OLPFs. The upcoming project will highlight the NSW coastal landscapes—including a focus on interactions between light and water. With increased resolution (6K), greater dynamic range (16.5+ stops), and the DSMC IR Pass OLPF (Color), silver dory is continuing to create new and captivating footage in IR cinematography.
Glen also commented on silver dory's DRAGON upgrade, and how it has benefited their production capabilities.
"The massive change — and advantage — for us with the Dragon is the ability to interchange the OLPFs. This means we can shoot either full-spectrum or just near-infrared with different OLPFs but then easily swap from one to the other or even back to shoot änormal' footage if required... Interchangeable OLPFs are the main reason we set off down the Dragon upgrade path when it first became available as they offer so many advantages for the kind of footage we like to create."
We look forward to seeing more high resolution IR footage from silver dory in the future. For more information on the latest silver dory projects, visit their website www.silverdory.com and be sure to check out the individual episodes of Brindabellas, currently available on Vimeo.
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