Hiya folks,
First time poster here, I watched the Urzi video for the first time a week ago, as an amateur videographer I'm stunned at how long this guys video has been doing the rounds and everyone hailing it at stunning.
He is using a tichnique called "forced perspective", in his videos you see that he is filming from a "velux" window, this is also a giveaway.
I believe he places the velux on a horizontal plane and then on the glass he places a small shiny button (he is a fasion designer hence the button theory).
He wouldn't have the object and the clouds in focus at the same time doing that. Auto focus cameras will focus on the glass, and not what's behind it. Especially in low light. If he's manually focusing, he still wouldn't have the object AND the couds in focus if the object was small and close. Maybe in bright light with an aperture closed down to increase the depth of field (like a pinhole camera). but not in this case. The lighting would be wrong also.
Also you can see that he's using the telephoto zoom by the way his small hand motions translate into big moves with the object. That would indicate it's far from the camera. You don't see the shaky hand held motions because he's bracing himself on the window frame. So that kind of rules out that the object it stuck on the glass. If he was going to fake it like that, he'd probably use a tripod and some lights.
As far as the object being on the glass window... It's common to shoot things like jewelry on anti-glair picture frame glass, but you have to do that with a manual focus camera, and have the glass and lights at the right angle. That's certainly not anti-glair glass on the skylight window.
I wouldn't dismiss it that fast. When it's in the distance it looks quite convincing, especially as it moves back and forth. An object on a string will swing like a pendulum, plus have a lot of smaller oscillations, plus it's too far up.
That's my option based on 30 years in the graphics/imaging field, and growing up with an older brother who is now a professor of photography. I grew up with a darkroom in the house, and I've seen, and done a lot of tricks.
For the people that say it's a radio controlled device.... show me one that can do that. It has no visible propellers, and would have to have two sets running in opposite directions to stop it from spinning. Plus they make small jerky motions, and would have to have the speed slowed down to look smooth, and you can't really do that with a small hand held camera like that. It's hard to slow down video with out seeing artifacts.
I'm not saying I think this is real, but it's not an obvious fake to me either. I think it's kind of compelling.
It's hard to tell anything when the video has been compressed to hell and stuck on YouTube as a Flash video (ack!). I'd like to see the original. There's a lot of banding and junk going on.
If anyone thinks it's easy to fake this, then do it to see if you can get the same look. It's a shame that so many photos are faked these days, but I also see a trend that when a really good photo or video shows up, people think it's too good, and must be a fake.
