Time Slice Light Painting by Mitch Martinez

This is so freaking cool! Light Painting Photographer Mitch Martinez has a tendency to “think of the most complicated and unrealistic thing that he can imagine – and then try to do it” When Mitch first decided to build his Time Slice Matrix style 48 camera rig he didn’t have a specific project in mind or even a plan of how to make it all work he just wanted to push his own creative and artist boundaries. After almost a year of development and problem solving he was finally able to get everything dialed in and start creating some incredible imagery. Check out some of this awesome 360° Light Painting work and the full interview below!

LPP ∇ Hi Mitch awesome work on this project! Can you tell me a little more about yourself and your photography background?

MM ∇ By trade, I’m a cinematographer and director of photography for film and video shoots. I’ve been in the arts in some form since 1993 – starting with music and graphic design then finally finding my way to the camera in 2003. Creating imagery is truly my passion and I film and photograph all the time whether I’m “working” or enjoying a day off. There’s nothing else that I’d rather do.

LPP ∇ How did you get into light painting?

MM ∇ My light painting experiences directly correlate with the time slice camera array. Since the majority of my work deals with motion imagery, cinematographers don’t have the opportunity to really do any long exposure imagery without it being a still photo, time lapse work, motion control, or stop motion animation. In 2013, I decided to put together the time slice rig and started dreaming up all of the visuals that simply couldn’t be done any other way. The three-dimensionality of the time slice rig opened a whole new world of possibilities of imagery that could be captured and created. Light painting was a very exciting aspect of visuals; to create long exposure visuals and integrate motion to see how everything looked from all angles in a 360 degree camera motion would be a wonderful merger of both worlds (still imagery and motion imagery) that is pretty much unattainable any other way.

LPP ∇ Is the Time Slice Light Painting for something specific or is it more of an example to show the capabilities of the camera array?

MM ∇ The time slice rig was kind of like a Field of Dreams “if you build it, they will come” type of thing. I was at a point in my career where I really want to push to do something new and exciting unlike anything I had ever done before (and as much as possible, unlike anything I had ever seen). The light painting video we created with the rig was multi-purposed; in addition to showing people the possibilities of visuals that could be created with the system, I wanted to create some great art, explore new techniques and try things out that I’ve never done. It’s also amazingly fun and cool; every time I work with the rig, I’m smiling and laughing with everyone that’s in the session. I really enjoy it.

LPP ∇ Its incredibly cool, can you tell me more about the technical side of things. Exactly how many cameras, how much space does the entire set up take, how on earth do you get them all lined up. What are some of the challenges?

MM ∇ For the light painting set up with the time slice rig, I currently use 48 DSLR cameras on the 360 degree rig. There are a total of 154 cables which handle all camera triggering, power, setting control, and data retrieval. I have several trusses for the system but the most common light painting support is approximately 15′ diameter.

Camera registration was a huge hurdle to jump – especially since there’s no published methods that I could find on how to get 48 cameras to line up. As a result, there was a lot of trial and error testing sessions in our one team member’s basement. I now owe him an eternal life debt for letting us test and develop there over the course of many months. We couldn’t leave the rig set up permanently for testing so we had to set up and break down the rig each time we did a test session.

Set up time varies a little bit but usually ranges between four and six hours. Over time, I’ve developed the preference of having a full set-up day to do prep shots with lighting, camera registration, and any troubleshooting that might be needed. Although the system is solid, there are a lot of variables in play that I like to do full testing for to make sure everything is good to go before any filming. This is largely due to our first studio experiences while the system was still in beta testing and not really stable; lesson learned: “plan to have something go wrong the day before the shoot so you have enough time to fix it before the shoot actually happens”.

LPP ∇ Can you tell me a little more about the lighting? What tools did you use, what was your favorite.

MM ∇ For the light painting, we’ve used almost everything that creates light: flashlights with and without various modifiers; kids toys from dollar stores; self-crafted plexiglass attachments (very much like those sold by Light Painting Brushes or Patrick Rochon’s LiteBlades); el wire; LED hoops/staffs/poi from FlowToys and SpinFX; very small flashlights, small LEDs from ebay; fiber optic tools; and larger, battery powered LED tools from a local hardware store. It’s hard to choose a favorite because like any tool, it’s really the right tool for the job at the time – evaluated by the positioning of the model, wardrobe, hair, etc. Each tool does something wonderful.

After we filmed the 360 light painting time slice shoot, I picked up a Pixel Stick from Bitbanger Labs and have been having fun with that. Programmable LED tools can do some pretty wild patterns. We’re still testing the way we feel is best to integrate the Pixel Stick with our time slice shots but will share examples in the near future.

LPP ∇ Were the models also lit by hand or with strobes?

MM ∇ I love a lot of the beautiful imagery that I’ve seen lit by hand but in our video, all of the models were lit with strobes. Due to the amount of time required by some of the light painting shots, I didn’t really like some of the ghosting effects that I got when I was testing the lit by hand technique. “Lit by hand” is also a lot more complicated when filming in 360 degrees – so we went with strobes to get a nice, sharp image of the models.

LPP ∇ What was something unexpected that you learned from this project?

MM ∇ I learned a lot from filming the time slice light painting video and continue to learn new things each time we work with the rig. The whole project has been a unique experience every step of the way. One of the biggest learning experiences was figuring out how to do light painting trails that wrap around and through the limbs of the model without majorly blocking any of the 48 cameras; you can’t just stand in front of the subject if the light won’t reach the camera behind you – so it’s a lot of crouching and reaching and shuffling along the floor to make sure the light can be seen from 48 cameras in the 360 degree array.

LPP ∇ What is your dream light painting time slice set up or scene?

MM ∇ I always have a tendency to think of the most complicated and unrealistic thing that I can imagine – and then try to do it. I currently have an idea that I need to develop test logistically in small-scale before moving it to a full-scale shoot. I can’t get too into detail about it at the moment but it’s something I’ve never seen done in a three dimensional way; And true to form, it is probably overly ambitious and wildly impractical – and I’m very excited to make it happen. 🙂

LPP ∇ Any other Light Painters that you would really like to collaborate with in the future?

MM ∇ I’m a big fan of Patrick Scherer, Tim van Vliet, Zolaq, and Tackyshack. There are really so many brilliant light painters out there and I would love to collaborate with many of them. Honestly, I discover new light painters every week that are amazing.

LPP ∇ How do we see more of your work?

MM ∇ The best way to see more from me is through my website www.mitchmartinez.com and instagram @mitchmartinez_dop.

LPP ∇ Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions and for sharing some of your knowledge with us!

MM ∇ Thank you.

P.S. Check out this awesome Inferno 360° Time Slice!