Smashing Wine Glass Hitting The Floor In A Super Slow Motion Stock Video

Sometimes you have to make a mess when you shoot still and video stock images. This was certainly one of those times. We used a Phantom HD video camera to shoot at 1000 frames per second to catch every nuance of this wine glass crashing to the floor in a burst of broken glass and splashing red wine. We did the shot five times...which, oddly enough, is exactly the number of wine glasses we had. In between each take we had to pick up the broken glass and mop the floor. Since we were shooting video and not stills, we couldn't use Photoshop to fix any problems. This meant a thorough cleaning of the floor between each take, and a careful cleaning the the glass as well.

Capturing Breaking Glasses In Slow Motion With The Phantom HD Video Camera

When capturing video in HD at 1000 frames per second you need a lot of light. We used a custom built soft box for our main light, with four 2000 watt tungsten lamps mounted inside. We aimed a 1000 watt light at the back of the impact area, and bounced another 2000 watt lamp off of the wall to the right. Even then we had to shoot with the lens almost wide open. We used capture software and hardware (high speed RAID system) developed by GVS Systems. It really made the capture process simple. It was actually simpler to set up and use the GVS solution with the Phantom than it is to shoot with my Panasonic HXV-200!

Stock Uses Of Breaking Wine Glasses On Kitchen Floors In Super Slow Motion

A breaking wine glass is a metaphor for many things. It can illustrate "accidents", "carelessness", "the unexpected", "Misfortune", "accident" or any number of other concepts. What makes this video footage particularly compelling is the super slow motion. When people have a chance to view something that can show them details they can never see in ordinary life, they tend to pay more attention. In fact, people want to watch this video over and over again to see how each fragment of glass and splash of wine reacts and moves. There is a kind of poetic hypnosis to it all. Our shoots actually took longer because we were so fascinated with what we were seeing that we tended to sit in a trance watching scenes over and over again!