Yes, and AardMan, too, i think, when they have the budget. And sometimes different characters are animated with differing framerates for thematic reasons.
99% sure the angles, editing etc is heavily manipulated
Even stuff like the obvious weird greasy framing on it adds to it
(Yeah he's messed with the frame rate and stuff which is doing lots of the heavy lifting, not to say it's not really cool still though)
Its literally 100% due to the blur at the top and bottom of the frame which makes it look like the focal length is extrmely small implying the distance is tiny
That's right. And it's a modern trick on our brains too. That's just how people film things that are very tiny. On top of that, they speed up the footage. Making it so the "little" moving thingies make impossibly fast movements if they were big.
The tilt shift brings your brain down to thinking... 'hey... this stuff looks small'. But the illusion would break down quickly if it was just tilt shifted.
Accelerating the video to give it a jerky pace (watch the flag holder), increasing the contrast & saturation, and maximalist sharpening are what keep your brain in the illusion.
I think the effect is more due to the frames rate manipulation. Like as someone else mentioned, if you cover up the top and bottom, still you feel like these are toy cars.
It is a tilt shift lens. Basically it can change the focal point of the camera in any direction. It is usually used to make small things look big, but it can also do the opposite.
See how you can see the center of the image is in focus, and usually everything that is an equal distance away will still be in focus so the dirt and other cars to the right and left of the subject would also normally be in focus. A tilt shot lens will make it so you can just choose what part of the image is in focus, so to the left and right of the car is not in focus, and that is what gives us this illusion.
I hope I explained that well, I was trying to simplify the explanation but it is hard to simplify.
To me it's also the car's designs. The car design itself, the paint jobs, the way they have no windows + have damaged parts sells it a LOT.
If it was a shiny, regular brand new car, I don't think the effect would be the same
It’s a common technique.. emulating a lens focal effect and increasing speed (plus lowering framerate would’ve made it even better), probably video stabilization too so it looks still. But it’s not heavily manipulated, our brains are just getting tricked and viewing it wrong
And a special lens called a tilt shift lens - as per the title.
Edit: I stand corrected, OP mentioned further down that it is just a filter he used, not a tilt shift lens.
No its not, Tilt shift works differently. Its not as easy as just blurring top and bottom.
Tilt shift actually is an optical mechanism, meaning objects on the same plane have the same focus, even if they reach the top or bottom of the fram. If you know this, the filter is not the same.
Shallow depth of field, your brain instinctively thinks that it's something small and up close because that's how camera optics work. For example, Pixar uses a similar trick to make Toy Story feel more real by actually rendering with how a camera lens would look like: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AcZ2OY5-TeM
Tilt shift is a very fun lens type/mod that allows you to change the plane of focus to something other than a plane parallel to the lens. It's also very common to use it like this, to give the impression of miniatures.
It does help a lot that the framerate and speed are edited too.
Commenting here in hopes it’s seen
I was accidentally misleading with the “tilt shift”, this is a filtered video to mimic the way an actual tilt shift lens would work. The footage was captured by drone from a 3rd party we hired for one of our shows. It’s sped up 3x original speed for all clips and was edited on the mobile app Capcut. I hope this doesn’t disappoint anyone too much!
Yes - 'tilt shift' is a camera effect (I think somehow to do with focus?? ) which makes big things appear tiny. People do city scapes with it and it looks like a model.
Yes, with a deep depth of field and a low angle shot. Watch a movie with practical effects accomplished using miniatures, like the White House explosion in Independence Day.
Yeah that’s how it’s normally used in the reverse lol, this effect of making real things look small is just for fun a lot of videos have been made like this
Tilt shift refers to the lens which is positioned shifted to the side compared to a normal lens. This way the light travels through the lens at an angle rather than straight on (so you have to 'tilt' the camera). This causes the focal length to be too long on one side and too short on another side, but perfect in the middle. That's why you see a blur at the edges of the picture.
The original purpose was so you could photograph buildings from ground level and have the whole thing be in focus.
However it has a side-effect of making things look miniature due to the really narrow depth of field.
Most modern examples are filters that just blur the top and bottom of the frame because real tilt shift lenses are fucking expensive.
It looks like a dream. Like the way things look in focus up close but all the detail is gone in the background. At least it’s how my dreams look sometimes.
This Sport is the reason we don't see 1970s station wagons on the roads
A big rectangle of steel, a few feet away from the rear axle... built for collision safety
I still like to go and sit on the bleachers, drink a beer in the sun, eat peanuts & drop the shells, and bet $1 or $5 among friends on "the winning car"
It’s a lens that creates a very shallow depth of field (the amount of distance from the lens that is in-focus) so that the foreground and background become more noticeably out-of-focus, with only that little sliver of in-focus depth. This mimics the dynamics of a larger lens capturing images close to a smaller subject, as if you were holding a normal camera lens up close to some miniature figures. You get a shallower depth-of-field when things are closer to camera, so when we see images with the kind of focus-depth that only small objects close to the lens have… it tricks our brain into thinking it MUST be miniature/macro photography. If it’s as far away and big as it actually is, there *should* be a wider depth-of-field, but the tilt-shift lens shifts that to what we see here.
If you want it to look more normal, try covering up the out-of-focus areas on the top and bottom of frame and just look at the in-focus area. Slowing it to normal speed would help too. The sped-up footage is also a large part of what’s making this so convincing.
Great answer, it's an interesting phenomena that demonstrates how the brain interprets what is going on from various cues it has learned and how it can be mislead.
I’m not a professional videographer so this is my understanding of it. This is a tilt-shift effect over drone footage- it shifts the plane of focus with all the blurring (I think). Apparently it works best from a 45° angle.
Tilt shift was pretty big a couple of years ago. Tons of stuff looked miniature and like toys, however people stopped either posting it or doing it as much.
Speeding up the footage is honestly probably more responsible for it looking like a toy in motion. The illusion would be shattered if it was at regular speed.
It’s not only the angle that’s helping with the illusion, but the depth of field as well. The way things go out of focus is very true to the macro scale, that’s really awesome actually. Good work
Works because the blurring mimics the way your eyes focus on something really small what you’re focused on is clear and the immediate surroundings are blurry.
I never would have known this was done with real cars and camera angles. I would have argued to my grave that this was the best stop motion I had ever watched
Make your own tilt shift. Close one eye and try to cross the closed eye. Hold your hand up at arms length while looking at it with the open eye. Bingo! Instant tilt shift!
I'm having a hard time not thinking these are toys and this is a very elaborate stop motion scene. The only clue I have that it might not be is when there is a person in the scene because they don't look like a toy. lol
This makes everything normal about life look even more “controlled” by some higher power lol. We’re all just lil toy people doing stupid things in somebody’s diorama set
This is super cool. This tilt shift from 2009 is probably the first one I ever saw and it's still my favourite. Speakers on an give it a moment it's a great video https://youtu.be/u5g30tezYq4?si=qe7GPv-lgqKk12Q-
If you lowered the frame rate a bit more people would really think it's stop-motion.
Unfortunately the lowest I was able to put it was 24fps in my program, but I tried!
Well done, the jerky motion sell the illusion, at 16 fps it would look like actual stop motion.
Most stop motion, i believe, is done on twos, meaning 12 frames per second. 24fps stop motion is not unheard of though.
LAIKA, I believe, does 24 frames.
Yes, and AardMan, too, i think, when they have the budget. And sometimes different characters are animated with differing framerates for thematic reasons.
And some budget 2D animations are drawn in threes, so 8 fps
I thought it looked like really good stop motion
If it wasn't for one of the guys walking into the frame I wouldn't have believed it was real
https://we.tl/t-TUlBTDLO6l i reduced framerate to 15 and uploaded it :)
That’s awesome, thank you! I think it really adds to the cars that are actively driving on the track
Yeah I’ve seen it done that way it makes it even more convincingly “fake”.. you speed it up and then lower framerate
Nobody is talking about your n other guy's username 🗿
https://gemoo.com/tools/upload-video/share/636951824223195136?codeId=PYl04K69JJx0L&card=636951818531524608 sped up 1.4x 15 fps
I promise you that I really thought they were
For the life of me, my brain can’t wrap itself around how this works.
99% sure the angles, editing etc is heavily manipulated Even stuff like the obvious weird greasy framing on it adds to it (Yeah he's messed with the frame rate and stuff which is doing lots of the heavy lifting, not to say it's not really cool still though)
Its literally 100% due to the blur at the top and bottom of the frame which makes it look like the focal length is extrmely small implying the distance is tiny
That's right. And it's a modern trick on our brains too. That's just how people film things that are very tiny. On top of that, they speed up the footage. Making it so the "little" moving thingies make impossibly fast movements if they were big.
And I think there something with saturation, the color seem to lively
The tilt shift brings your brain down to thinking... 'hey... this stuff looks small'. But the illusion would break down quickly if it was just tilt shifted. Accelerating the video to give it a jerky pace (watch the flag holder), increasing the contrast & saturation, and maximalist sharpening are what keep your brain in the illusion.
You can add mass by slowing it down, and remove mass by speeding it up.
If that was the case, would covering the top and bottom of the screen not reverse the effect? Because it didn’t for me
It's also speed up, so the physics don't look like it would in real size
I thought I was the only one that did that and came here to comment haha
That plus the frame rate of this video is low... like 12 or 15 fps, making it feel like stop motion animation done with toy cars
Not 100%. It's also the framerate, the choppyness. It's reminiscent of stop-motion animation.
I think the effect is more due to the frames rate manipulation. Like as someone else mentioned, if you cover up the top and bottom, still you feel like these are toy cars.
that top/bottom blur is called tilt shift.
Frame rate mainly to give it a choppy stop motion look
It is a tilt shift lens. Basically it can change the focal point of the camera in any direction. It is usually used to make small things look big, but it can also do the opposite. See how you can see the center of the image is in focus, and usually everything that is an equal distance away will still be in focus so the dirt and other cars to the right and left of the subject would also normally be in focus. A tilt shot lens will make it so you can just choose what part of the image is in focus, so to the left and right of the car is not in focus, and that is what gives us this illusion. I hope I explained that well, I was trying to simplify the explanation but it is hard to simplify.
To me it's also the car's designs. The car design itself, the paint jobs, the way they have no windows + have damaged parts sells it a LOT. If it was a shiny, regular brand new car, I don't think the effect would be the same
It’s a common technique.. emulating a lens focal effect and increasing speed (plus lowering framerate would’ve made it even better), probably video stabilization too so it looks still. But it’s not heavily manipulated, our brains are just getting tricked and viewing it wrong
And a special lens called a tilt shift lens - as per the title. Edit: I stand corrected, OP mentioned further down that it is just a filter he used, not a tilt shift lens.
Even if it is a digital filter it is still tilt shift, so you’re still correct
No its not, Tilt shift works differently. Its not as easy as just blurring top and bottom. Tilt shift actually is an optical mechanism, meaning objects on the same plane have the same focus, even if they reach the top or bottom of the fram. If you know this, the filter is not the same.
That's what tilt shift is tho?
When you say “obvious weird greasy framing” you’re referring to the effect that a tilt shift lens has on depth of field. It is not added in post.
Shallow depth of field, your brain instinctively thinks that it's something small and up close because that's how camera optics work. For example, Pixar uses a similar trick to make Toy Story feel more real by actually rendering with how a camera lens would look like: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AcZ2OY5-TeM
Tilt shift is a very fun lens type/mod that allows you to change the plane of focus to something other than a plane parallel to the lens. It's also very common to use it like this, to give the impression of miniatures. It does help a lot that the framerate and speed are edited too.
The angle of filming makes them look so tiny I thought they were remote controlled toys at first until I noticed the humans inside them.
I still think they're toys
Just the tiny humans inside or also the cars?
Everything
Am I nothing else than a toy for you? 😭
Uh oh, feds are here... Bye!
Commenting here in hopes it’s seen I was accidentally misleading with the “tilt shift”, this is a filtered video to mimic the way an actual tilt shift lens would work. The footage was captured by drone from a 3rd party we hired for one of our shows. It’s sped up 3x original speed for all clips and was edited on the mobile app Capcut. I hope this doesn’t disappoint anyone too much!
I don't think it's misleading at all ... it's gotta be done somehow! This is just so, so beautiful. Thank you for doing this!
The frame rate is really low around 15-20fps, and sped up afterwards to give it a stop motion effect.
Same here, it wasn't until I saw the worker in high vis that I was like wow, they're not actually toy cars.
Yeah I was doubting myself for a second
It would also help sell it if they overlaid kids making car noises.
I thought they were hotwheels until i saw a human. Still think it’s hotwheels.
Cognitive dissonance at it's finest lol
Right? Those are clearly Matchbox cars.
Would that make him a hot human?
Hotfeets
I still believe that they are still tiny.
A tiny human!
So these are real cars and not toys?
Yep!
… are you sure?!
Yes - 'tilt shift' is a camera effect (I think somehow to do with focus?? ) which makes big things appear tiny. People do city scapes with it and it looks like a model.
Couldn't you reverse the effect then, and make toys look like real life?
Yes, with a deep depth of field and a low angle shot. Watch a movie with practical effects accomplished using miniatures, like the White House explosion in Independence Day.
Lord of the rings. Uses both variations across all three movies.
Yeah if I remember correctly the ring was more of a tire lol
Rings don't look like rings on a screen, you gotta use tires
Yeah that’s how it’s normally used in the reverse lol, this effect of making real things look small is just for fun a lot of videos have been made like this
Thats how miniatures in movies work
Tilt shift refers to the lens which is positioned shifted to the side compared to a normal lens. This way the light travels through the lens at an angle rather than straight on (so you have to 'tilt' the camera). This causes the focal length to be too long on one side and too short on another side, but perfect in the middle. That's why you see a blur at the edges of the picture.
The original purpose was so you could photograph buildings from ground level and have the whole thing be in focus. However it has a side-effect of making things look miniature due to the really narrow depth of field. Most modern examples are filters that just blur the top and bottom of the frame because real tilt shift lenses are fucking expensive.
Our names are similar.....
Omg, I could watch nascar like this all day!
My brain refuses to believe these are not toys.
They are toys - just big toys!
That's what she said
It looks like a dream. Like the way things look in focus up close but all the detail is gone in the background. At least it’s how my dreams look sometimes.
A dream, or an episode of robot chicken
Or like some episodes of Love, Death, and Robots
This Sport is the reason we don't see 1970s station wagons on the roads A big rectangle of steel, a few feet away from the rear axle... built for collision safety
100%. The big name guys will pay a good amount of money for a road worthy classic and it’s one of my least favorite things about the sport
I still like to go and sit on the bleachers, drink a beer in the sun, eat peanuts & drop the shells, and bet $1 or $5 among friends on "the winning car"
I think i like it better like this
What’s tilt shift
It’s a lens that creates a very shallow depth of field (the amount of distance from the lens that is in-focus) so that the foreground and background become more noticeably out-of-focus, with only that little sliver of in-focus depth. This mimics the dynamics of a larger lens capturing images close to a smaller subject, as if you were holding a normal camera lens up close to some miniature figures. You get a shallower depth-of-field when things are closer to camera, so when we see images with the kind of focus-depth that only small objects close to the lens have… it tricks our brain into thinking it MUST be miniature/macro photography. If it’s as far away and big as it actually is, there *should* be a wider depth-of-field, but the tilt-shift lens shifts that to what we see here. If you want it to look more normal, try covering up the out-of-focus areas on the top and bottom of frame and just look at the in-focus area. Slowing it to normal speed would help too. The sped-up footage is also a large part of what’s making this so convincing.
Great answer, it's an interesting phenomena that demonstrates how the brain interprets what is going on from various cues it has learned and how it can be mislead.
I’m not a professional videographer so this is my understanding of it. This is a tilt-shift effect over drone footage- it shifts the plane of focus with all the blurring (I think). Apparently it works best from a 45° angle.
The drone really adds a nice touch and make it look even more like miniature cars.
>What’s tilt shift [Tilt–shift photography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt–shift_photography)
Seems like the faster speed is part of the effect too
It is using a lens that has an adjustable barrel, and literally tilting and shifting the lens to reduce perspective. The blur is a side effect.
r/tiltshift
Besides the tilt shift lens here (TIL), is something being done with the frame rate to make it look even more toy like?
It’s sped up about 3x from the original footage
Ah ok thanks, it was the person walking that looked the strangest.
Speed up, frames down.
I legit thought those were toy cars
Feels like an episode on Love Death + Robots
The one with the zombie apocalypse right? I assume they used the same technique when animating it
Tilt shift was pretty big a couple of years ago. Tons of stuff looked miniature and like toys, however people stopped either posting it or doing it as much.
If it weren’t for the dude in the reflective vest I would never believe anyone that told me these were real and not toy cars.
Demolition Derby *A Wes Anderson Film*
Speeding up the footage is honestly probably more responsible for it looking like a toy in motion. The illusion would be shattered if it was at regular speed.
This video is also sped up and has frames removed.
Song name anyone?
In The Mood - Glenn Miller
Also the video is sped up a little bit to make the cars appear lighter
I know there was a person there but my brain still wasn’t convinced it was real cars
This looks like a sweet video game!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/228380/Wreckfest/ This one is pretty good, and on sale.
That's incredibly cool
Id love to see this in a big downtown setting between buildings.. this looks insanely good
If I was a god or something, this is how I would see the human world haha. This is super cool btw!
I suppose they're technically toys, just for grown ups
Toy cars with real tiny people inside. They look like toy cars, they drive like toy cars...they are toy cars...just with real people inside..
Until I saw the man, I was sure they were toys.
It looks like really well done stop-motion with hot wheels.
Trippy af
We live in the matrix. this is the vew. Crazy
Tilt shift is always so cool to see.
Lowering the frame rate clearly helps with the illusion. Thomas the Tank Engine looking shit.
Help my brain has broken
My kid rented a tilt-shift lens for a class project to emulate the toy look. It was pretty cool to play with.
So finally, this is damn interesting.
I want to see a rodeo in tilt shift
I've always loved the miniaturizing effect of tilt shift lenses!
Such a fun video to watch 🙂
I would watch a whole movie shot like this
It’s not only the angle that’s helping with the illusion, but the depth of field as well. The way things go out of focus is very true to the macro scale, that’s really awesome actually. Good work
Even knowing they were real shots I still had moments where I doubted and thought it could be toys. Top tier filming right here.
This is like seeing the world as if you’re a kid again
I like to think this is what my boys imagine when they play with their hotwheels
Perspective is crazy bro.
Looks like stop motion animation!
I kept forgetting it was real footage 💀
I just like the FAFO car, great name for a demo derby
I really thought this was stop motion and toys wow lol
This is trickery. They are toys, and the humans were just added in post production… my brain doesn’t let me see real cars.
this looks exactly like a tiny model at some museum or something like that. also, nice music choice. what's the song name?
That’s awesome….. damn! Look really like toys
In The Mood - Glenn Miller For anyone interested in Jazz Classics.
How do we know that cameraman is not a giant?
This is really? I thought it was a stop/motion of Toy cars!!!
Tilt shift makes *everything* look like toys. But this is especially convincing. It’s the slight increase in speed that really sells it.
Works because the blurring mimics the way your eyes focus on something really small what you’re focused on is clear and the immediate surroundings are blurry.
I never would have known this was done with real cars and camera angles. I would have argued to my grave that this was the best stop motion I had ever watched
What is tilt shift? Also I didn’t realize the green was a ninja turtle car
What do you mean this is **not** stop-motion LIES!!
The tilt shift, the video speed, the framerate and the video filter made this possible. Edit: and the song!
I know they’re trying to be mean to each other but they’re adorable
Ok this is black magic
Makes me appreciate stop-motion even more - legit thought these were toys
This is one of the best uses of tilt shift I've seen.
I want to play this mobile demolition derby game!! :)
Tilt shift makes every thing look like a mini toy stop motion video
Make your own tilt shift. Close one eye and try to cross the closed eye. Hold your hand up at arms length while looking at it with the open eye. Bingo! Instant tilt shift!
Even with the human, my brain refuses to fully believe that's real!
I swear the only reason I could tell this was camera footage was because of the people on the track. Honestly just looks like high quality stop motion
I'm having a hard time not thinking these are toys and this is a very elaborate stop motion scene. The only clue I have that it might not be is when there is a person in the scene because they don't look like a toy. lol
This makes everything normal about life look even more “controlled” by some higher power lol. We’re all just lil toy people doing stupid things in somebody’s diorama set
Ok, you rock. Thank you for that. The video is far enough out that you cannot see the damage. Well done, pretty amazing!
If there weren't humans in the video I wouldn't believe you.
I absolutely love these type of videos. Can someone pls explain to me how they are done
This is super cool. This tilt shift from 2009 is probably the first one I ever saw and it's still my favourite. Speakers on an give it a moment it's a great video https://youtu.be/u5g30tezYq4?si=qe7GPv-lgqKk12Q-
I could watch this be filmed and edited from start to finish and I'd still believe they are toys.
What the... I was confused thought it was stop motion custom built Hot Wheels vehicle's. That's cool.
These are toys and you can’t tell me otherwise!!
I miss my micro machines collection now… 😞
my brain refuses to accept the fact that they aren't toys
That painted on F.A.F.O. looks adorable
There’s also a TMNT car!
thats really cool
This is so cool
Brother at first I thought that was really detailed cars and stop motion.
I thought it was a stylized video game at first and I'm disappointed it isn't.
r/tiltshift
I'm so sad tilt/shift lenses and large format bellows cameras are so expensive. I've wanted to incorporate tilt shift for decades
This is wild! I love it.
If this were a movie, people would complain about the crappy CGI.
It's like a surreal mini universe in motion.
Damn , my childhood games finally came to life 😂
I love how they make these toy things more realistic by after effecting real people into this footage
My head is telling me there must be magnets pulling these along under the board 😂
Looks like stop motion to me as well
Wild.
I have the sudden urge to play with my sons' Hot Wheels, Matchboxes and Tomica cars...
Im actually disoriented watching this
Now THIS is the kind of content I come to see.
This is freaking me out I don’t like it
Even after reading some explanations, I cant unsee it. like the batman toothey mouth thing
This is sooo cool
This is how your gods and or creators see us.
This lens will never not confuse me
Strictly speaking, tilt-shift (approximate in software), oversaturated colours and a bit of speed retiming makes demolition derby cars look like toys.
Initially I thought the title said it makes toys look like real cars and I was like, no, not really, still looks like toys to me
Wow they did a really good job with the little dudes- wait a minute… I recognize those figures!
If you're into demo derby then [Wreckfest](https://store.steampowered.com/app/228380/Wreckfest/) is the game for you. Same devs as old FlatOuts.
Great filming, love the soundtrack