A Peek Inside My Studio

For my latest commission I decided to get a little fancy. I got inspired by a filmmaker named Casey Neistat (he actually went to the same high school as me). Check out his YouTube channel here.  Here are two videos that you definitely should check out, Make It Count and Bike Lanes by Casey Neistat.  He has a lot of gratuitous time-lapses of NYC that are addicting to watch. (I say gratuitous because they are almost cliched at this point... how many times can you see the Empire State and Chrysler buildings at sunset, etc., etc.) Yet I can't look away! MUST SEE PRETTY COLORS AND TALL BUILDINGS NOW... 

I wanted to make a time-lapse with the equipment I had already and record me drawing this commission from start to finish. My materials: a Nikon D3100 DSLR camera, a couple of work lights, a package of wooden shims and 4 clamps.  (All of them became apart of the project at different times, I certainly didn't look at them all and I say "Hmmm. I can make an overhead rig out of this")

Here is how it started, the camera is hanging perilously above the desk from a tripod on the right and a work light on the left. I bought a small grippy tripod (advertised for trees and such) from Staples and that is how it is attached to the light.  I quickly realized that unless I wanted a broken camera I needed to fix this setup.

I organized a lot tools and studio supplies after watching a video about Casey's studio, but couldn't find a place for my tapes (Black Duct, Blue Painter's, White Artist's) so I use them as a pen holder on my desk!  (Work's fine until I need the bottom tape)

ALRIGHT!!!! NOW WE'RE TALKING!!  I have some scrap illustration board propping up the front of the camera, a shim holding up the right of it, and four clamps holding it all in place. Also, notice the tracing paper taped on the two lights to diffuse them and the sheets of foam core to the left and rear that help bounce the light (relatively) evenly across the drawing. Not the prettiest looking but it worked more or less!

Next time I hope to have figured out how to use the movie editing software on my computer and see if all the gigabytes of video I have will actually make a movie to show you... fingers-crossed.