Seemingly impossible drones in the bowling alley in Minneapolis amaze the best filmmakers

It’s not uncommon to see an advertising video in the bowling alley in general, much less a video that attracts the attention of millions of people. But that’s exactly what made a video for Bryant-Lake Bowl, a bowling alley in Minneapolis. The place not only went viral on social media, but it also attracted the attention of top Hollywood directors praising the cumbersome direction and camera work it entails.

The nearly 90-second footage begins with a drone camera hovering above the street outside the bowling alley before sweeping through the front doors and zooming around inside the building. It starts with ‘Okay, that’s cool’, but by half it’s clear it’s not working your average drone camera.

With impressive speed we are taken through small openings above the bowling alleys, back behind the pen machines, through narrow corridors that no one can ever see, under people’s legs, through people’s conversations, around the bar and theater, and finally the right slap stitch in the middle of some flying bowling pins. This is impressive.

So impressive, in fact, that it caught the attention of Lee Unkrich (director of the hit Pixar movie) Coco), which is the video of James Gunn (director of Guardians of the Galaxy), with both men sharing their gobsmacked reactions to it.

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The surprising film hit comes from Rally Studios in Minneapolis and was created by film painter Jay Christensen and directed by Anthony Jaska. According to Star Tribune, Christensen and Jaska made the short film to draw attention to struggling local businesses.

“When you think of all the small businesses and COVID, their business is obviously battered,” Christensen said. “I would go in there and see that it was pretty empty.” The couple reaches out to the bowling alley owner with the idea to showcase the uniqueness of the place.

The quick tour in, out, up and around the different parts of the bowling alley is dizzyingly cool, but the fact that it was all shot at once gives it the “incredible” feel.

“It’s a real one-off approach,” Jaska told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “There’s no CGI. It was interesting. But also its positive nature – people see the skill it takes and the unique ability it takes to master the skills of an amazing pilot, the technology of a drone and the story. to combine. it can actually be told by a one-off. ‘

The perfect hold was after 10 or 12 tries in a period of 2 hours. They shot the film after hours (for COVID safety) on March 2 and then added sound as the rumbling sound of the drone interferes with the natural sounds of the bowling alley.

According to the Tribune, Christensen has been doing a lot of work with FPV (first-person) drone camera work since last spring, but he has never shot inside drone footage before, making the performance all the more incredible. But just as remarkable as the camera work inside the bowling alley is, he said the hardest shot was actually the very first – to get through the front door. It was a windy day, he had to make sure there were no pedestrians, and he had to move around a parking meter where it just had to be the drone.

However, the hard work paid off. Todd Vaziri, a visual effects artist who has worked on feature films such as Star Wars, Star Trek and Marvel, tweeted: “This kind of amazing photographic innovation contributes to the language and vocabulary of cinema. Just beautiful.”

Director James Gunn not only praised the footage as “incredible” and “amazing”, but he also said he wants the duo to join his crew in London when they watch Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

Christensen and Jaska said they already had several directors to contact them, which was a surprise. When asked by the Tribune about the possibility of collaborating with James Gunn, Jaska said it “looks crazy, but who knows?”

Talent is talent, and sometimes it occurs in the strangest places. We look forward to seeing where these guys work their drones, while exploring future projects with the best in the business.