Further Up Yonder

***UPDATE 28/11***
18.6K views, that's crazy! I'm trying to answer to everybody who liked this video, bear with me if I can't get to you.
Your likes are still gold!
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***TO THE STARS!***

A timelapse message from ISS to all Humankind. - 2K version available on my blog: http://wp.me/p2fVm6-bv
Facebook page - Making of coming soon! https://www.facebook.com/furtherupyonder

I wanted to use pictures taken from the International Space Station to tell a story and share the message sent by the astronauts who worked on the station in the last 11 years.

They are working to open a Gateway to Space for all humankind, but people on Earth must understand that they have to get rid of the concept of borders on our planet if they want to follow the astronauts to new worlds in outer space. While the cosmonauts speak a day passes on Earth, from dawn to sunset, until the Gateway opens with a burst of light. The ISS then gains speed and goes faster and faster, the astronauts are leaving our planet which they see spinning faster and faster, merging earth, oceans and people together, ready to follow them, Further Up Yonder.

Making of

As a filmmaking student, this was my first attempt to craft a timelapse video. It has been a time consuming process, but it turned out as one of my most satisfying projects.

I focused my workflow on colours and harmony of movements, syncing every frame with the music and the voices of the astronauts. Every picture has been post processed individually before being imported in the NLE software, as I tried to take the most out of every image in terms of colours, contrast and neatiness.

Pictures were downloaded from the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center and edited with Photoshop CS6. Even if they were Hi-res images shot with Nikon D3S cameras, a lot of noise removal and color correction was needed, especially for those shots at ISO 3200, which was the highest ISO speed limit I've allowed myself to use, exception made for the last sequence of the spinning world, which comes from a sequenze of shots taken at ISO 12800. Daytime shots were taken at ISO 200. I've used Topaz Denoise 5 for noise removal, as it is very powerful and accurate when dealing with shadows and blacks.

Editing was made with Adobe Premiere CS6, with a 2K workflow, which allowed me to scale, rotate and pan image sequences whose native resolution is 4K. The video was downscaled to 1280x720 resolution for Vimeo. The original 2K version is available for download on my blog (link on top of this description).
Credits

Images courtesy of Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center, downloadable for non-commerical use from http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/

Music: Synthetic Truth, by digitalR3public - licensed under a Creative Commons - Attribution 3.0 License: http://soundcloud.com/digitalr3public/synthetic-truth

Audio messages courtesy of NASA: http://www.nasa.gov

En tant que citoyens du monde déployés en un de ses points les plus extrêmes

en tant que premier équipage en expédition à bord de la Station Spatiale Alpha

nous avons bien débuté notre voyage d'exploration et de découverte

tout en établissant une base solide pour les hommes et les femmes qui voyageront

et vivront au sein d'endroits très éloignés de notre planète.

Nous sommes sur le point d'ouvrir une porte vers l'espace

qui profitera à toute l'humanité.

Alors que nous orbitons notre planète toutes les 90 minutes

nous voyons un monde sans frontières et faisons le souhait

que toutes les nations oeuvrent ensemble pour la paix et l'harmonie.

Notre monde a changé de manière drastique,

pourtant, la Station spatiale internationale est la preuve concrète que les nations peuvent travailler ensemble en harmonie

et devraient promouvoir paix et coopération au niveau global et se fixer de grands buts, qui sont simplement d'un autre monde.

Cette nuit, nous aimerions partager avec vous tous

notre chance au sein de cette aventure spatiale

notre émerveillement et notre excitation alors que nous voyons toute la splendeur de la terre

et notre profond sentiment que l'esprit humain, pour créer, pour explorer, pour faire de nouvelles découvertes

ne connait aucune limite.

Les temps sont durs tout autour de notre monde

mais c'est un moment où nous pouvons tous réfléchir

à être ensemble et à chérir notre planète

et nous avons une belle vue de là-haut.