Monday, July 14, 2008

Radiohead music video shot with lasers

THE latest music video from rock band Radiohead, shot using lasers instead of cameras, has been released on Google overnight.

The music video for House Of Cards, from the band’s 2007 album In Rainbows, was shot entirely by scanning systems that use lasers instead of lenses to capture the image.

Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke said the idea of filming people without using a camera captivated him.

"I always like the idea of using technology in a way that it wasn't meant to be used,” Yorke said.

“I liked the idea of making a video of human beings and real life and time without using any cameras, just lasers, so there are just mathematical points – and how strangely emotional it ended up being."

The video's director, James Frost of Zoo Films, created the unique visual effects by combining two laser scanning systems – one for the foreground and one for the background.

The close-up shots of Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke and other characters were recorded by a Geometric Informatics system which uses structured light to capture detailed 3D images.

The technology – used by game developers, animators and medical researchers – can “film” a variety of facial expressions such as smiles, grimaces and wrinkles, as well as textures like hair, fur, fluid, and fabric.

These close-ups were combined with highly detailed background images captured by a Velodyne Lidar system which used 64 lasers to take 900 shots per minute as it rotated around a 360-degree radius. This technology has been used for mining, surveying, robotics, and automotive security.

Last year, Radiohead avoided music labels by releasing In Rainbows  online for a user-defined price.

Now the band has side-stepped music television by launching the House Of Cards clip on Google.

Fans can also download a documentary on the video-making process, as well as the original scanner data so they can make their own music videos.

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