Fanø Frost

Please watch this video on YouTube in HD for best quality! It takes a while to load depending on your download speed. Just open it up and do something else until it’s fully loaded :) But if you really can’t wait, then check out the low quality version below:

Now, on to the story…

The 26th of December 2008, I visited my grandparents on Fanø – a tiny island in the southwestern part of Denmark. One morning it was especially freezing outside, and virtually everything was covered in beautiful ice crystals. I just HAD to capture it all, so I grabbed my Sony N1 point-and-shoot camera, and went outside on a journey through the breathtaking winter landscape. When I came back my fingers were almost completely numb, but it was worth it.

I shot everything in 16:4 wide screen format, which gives the images a sort of “movie-like” feel. I can definitely recommend experimenting with this format. It’s a nice change if you’ve been shooting 4:3 for too long.

Straight out of the camera the photos were too “warm”, so I did some little color correction in Photoshop to bring back that cold and slightly desolate atmosphere.

I made the slide show in After Effects. It’s got this very handy feature called Sequence Layers which basically arranges all the images that you’ve selected in your comp, and places them underneath each other. You can specify a certain amount of overlap and a simple cross-fade. On top of that, I added some film grain to the entire comp, to make the images less static and more vivid. You’ll be able to see the grain if you watch the HD version of the video ;)

The typeface I’m using for the intro / credits is none other than Trade Gothic.

Tycho (aka. Scott Hansen) was kind enough to let me use the track “Adrift” to accompany the slide show. In my opinion Adrift is one of the best tracks he’s ever done. It’s got that distant and melancholic feel to it that I love so much. Check out his site! It’s a great source to new music and of course great graphic design.

I’ve also made a version of the slideshow for the local TV station on Fanø (TV Fanø) which they agreed to broadcast. That version is 6 minutes long (the entire length of the track Adrift) and contains more photos than the YouTube version.