Why I Pull Stills From Motion : Visual Harmony
6K Blackmagic BRAW frame - Iain Philpott
Some years ago while shooting a skincare film in Cape Town (4K RED camera), I was forced into extracting the still images from the motion footage, due the models time constraints, for the first time.
It was a turning point for me that I now truly embrace. There is a profound sense of creative power pulling stills directly from motion footage. While there are very good ‘time and budget’ reasons there are extremely fantastic artistic reasons too. Stills from motion is a bridge ensuring the soul of the moving image translates flawlessly into the stills.
Originally as a health & beauty photographer I remember shooting an ad for L’Oréal off the back of the TV commercial. I never saw the commercial until the commercial ran and I felt a real disconnect. Shots didn’t ‘match’, colour grade was different, the ‘texture’ was different - there was no connection between the two aside from the strapline!
There was no real answer until RED came along with 4K RAW footage. Files that we could work with in the same manner as stills. They weren’t interlaced like video had been. They were individual frames. At long last advances in tech has allowed stills and motion to become facets of the same creative expression.
I have been working, and perfecting the art of, extracting stills from motion ever since. It’s not about lazily grabbing frames during the edit. It’s curation. Which single frame truly encapsulates the soul of the scene? In shooting beauty in slow motion, 120fps gives you a lot of choice, what point in the models smile breaking out has that certain magic? Shooting that shot as a still image is very time consuming, and if you are already shooting motion for the campaign, why shoot stills as well?
Certainly 50% of what I shoot now we extract carefully curated stills, for the client, from the motion footage as part of our post-production process. Always after the final grade but sometimes not until we have sign off on the film so we can choose frames that particularly reflect the same messaging.
If you are wondering, ‘what’s the quality like’? Well, I’ve seen my ‘stills from motion’ on billboards. There are certain scenarios that I’d rather shoot the sills on a dedicated stills camera but overall it’s a no brainer.
Pulling stills from motion footage has transformed my creative process. Ultimately, it’s not merely a technique, it’s not just efficiency, it’s not just budget friendly, it guarantees authenticity and preserves the fragile, beautiful truth of performance captured - once. Click here for examples!