Recently I was hired to shoot All Saints Anglican School’s Guinness World Record attempt at the largest human star, part of their annual charity event Giveathon. This is my second time documenting a world record attempt (the first being a 100 x 100m freestyle relay, which still holds the record at the time of this post) and they are always a lot of fun, despite the stringent requirements set out by Guinness.
My role was two-fold: to record a timelapse of the entire event for documentation purposes, and to get a bird’s eye view photo of the entire star for publicity purposes. The second, of course, involves a helicopter. Marvellous.
The timelapse was a fairly standard affair, shooting on my Canon 600D with a 15-85mm to get the whole star in and using Magic Lantern as my intervalometer. The chopper (an R44, for anyone wondering) required more careful planning - as we only had a short flight time, I needed to be certain that I could get all of the shots I needed as fast as possible. In the end I flew with two 7Ds (chosen for their burst mode), one with a 70-200mm for close-ups and one with a 17-55mm for capturing the whole school. I was shooting in shutter priority to make sure I froze my movement.
With this setup getting the required shots was really quite simple. It helps if you have someone knowledgeable about aviation who can give the pilot detailed instructions. I am not, but the two videographers in the back were and they gave the instructions. They also captured some footage which is embedded below (includes my timelapse).
It was a really memorable shoot and a really great team, and the school was really happy with the results. They also did a great job at organising nearly 2000 students! Not an easy feat.
Update: One of my photos has been published in the Guinness Book of World Records 2013! Neat.
