American Cinematographer - August 2010 - 12

Short Takes
Kelly Slater shreds in superslow motion for a Quiksilver spot captured with the Vision Research Phantom HD camera.

Brain Farm Makes Waves with Quiksilver Campaign By Noah Kadner

Wyoming production house Brain Farm, which specializes in high-end action-sports cinematography, recently used the Phantom HD camera for an ad campaign for surfwear and boardsports manufacturer Quiksilver that featured a number of world-famous surfers catching waves in ultra-slow motion. Brain Farm came to Quiksilver’s attention through That’s It, That’s All, a snowboarding feature co-sponsored by Quiksilver and Red Bull, according to Chad Jackson, Brain Farm’s lead producer. James Tierney, a producer for Quiksilver, calls That’s It, That’s All “the best action-sports film ever made.” When Quiksilver was ready to launch its Cypher line of high-performance board shorts, he continues, “we wanted to showcase both [the Cypher shorts] and the top global surfers in a truly groundbreaking way. We wanted to show surfing like it had never been seen before.” As discussions began, director and Brain Farm President Curt Morgan showed the Quiksilver team what the high-speed Phantom could do. “That sparked a lot of interest on their part into how those ultra-slow-motion effects might look in water,” says Morgan. At that time, the Phantom had not yet been used for extensive water work, so no compatible underwater camera housing was readily available. “Before the project was even a go, we turned to Erik Hjermstad at Del Mar Housing Projects in San Marcos, California, to inquire about a custom housing for the Phantom,” says Morgan. “The housing took about six weeks to build and was completed maybe a week before the shoot.” With the housing in hand, the Brain Farm team was off to
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Oaxaca, Mexico, where they met surfers Dane Reynolds, Kelly Slater, Julian Wilson and Jeremy Flores. “Because of their crazy schedules, it had been four years since Dane, Kelly, Julian and Jeremy had all been on a trip together,” notes Tierney. “Having them all surfing together was huge, and they really pushed each other. We got a ridiculous amount of footage in two days of surfing.” Brain Farm brought in Australian cinematographer Chris Bryan to handle operating responsibilities with the Phantom rig. Morgan recalls, “We were set up to take shots from the beach and right in the water with the surfers. The very first shot we got was even cooler than we thought possible. The waves, the water droplets — everything was moving so slowly, and you saw so much detail. We instantly felt like kids in a candy factory who’d just been cut loose by our parents!” “Even on a small monitor, we could tell right away we had something special,” adds Tierney. “You can really see the subtleties of surfing: the way a board flexes when it lands on the wave after an aerial, the way riders weight and un-weight during turns, the way water drops fly off the rail. It was like seeing our sport with new eyes.” To maximize shooting time on the beach and avoid having to frequently re-open the underwater housing to change lenses, Morgan shot mostly with a single Zeiss Ultra Prime 8R rectilinear lens. “It gives you a wide-angle shot with no barrel distortion,” he explains. “It’s a really funky look that added a lot to the image.” The latest iteration of the Phantom camera, the Gold, can shoot at speeds exceeding 1,000 fps, depending on the resolution that’s selected. As Morgan points out, however, the camera’s frame rate also affects the aperture. “When you’re shooting at 1,000 fps, as we were, you’re typically at T2.8, even when you’re outdoors in

American Cinematographer

Photos and frame grab courtesy of Brain Farm.

American Cinematographer - August 2010

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