A short film made by Capetonian film maker, Tim Henny, has just been selected as a finalist for the San Fransisco International Festival of Short Films, from over 1 600 entries. The film, titled “Mini Cape”, has been selected for screening at the Short and Sweet London festival, and has also been submitted to various other Short Film Festivals around Europe, with the selection process still in progress. Check out the incredible video, and a brief interview after the jump!

2oceansVibe caught up with Tim during a gap in his increasingly-hectic schedule. This, from the man himself:

Mini Cape was filmed in February 2011 as an “extra-mural” project to capture a day in the life of Cape Town – in miniature. I was shooting a lot of commercials and corporate videos and wanted to do something a little closer to my heart. Then I saw this video that a guy called Sam O’Hare shot of New york portraying it as a miniature city and I was blown away. I thought, “well I can do an even better one of Cape Town!” I spent about a month shooting in-between jobs on my off-days in the pristine Cape Town summer, and I think that really adds to the colourful feel of the film.

So how did he do it?

It took a little time and experimentation to master the technique, but I’ll give you a short breakdown. I basically use a tilt shift lens effect to create a shallow depth of field, then boost the saturation a bit and speed up the footage. But it’s not that simple. The real skill is getting the right angle on your subject and knowing how to frame it properly. And that provides an obvious challenge: how do you get up onto all those buildings to get a load of different angles to make the film interesting? I sent out a mail to my contact list and everyone was very helpful in finding me access to rooftops and balconies all over the city. Then there were a few buildings that I really wanted to get onto, and just lied to security and sneaked up onto the roof. As far as framing goes you want to make everything look fake so you crop out anything that looks too real – a scruffy looking bush, powerlines in the foreground etc. I find the objects work best are things like boats, helicopters and construction vehicles, and they really give a sense of activity in a miniature world. There were still other buildings that I wanted to get access to that I just couldn’t organise. For instance, the control tower at the airport. For some reason they think that a stranger with a camera might be a terrorist. Some miniature aeroplanes would have looked awesome, but there will always be more opportunities. My goal is to make films like this in cities all over the world.

We are so lucky to live in such an amazingly beautiful city and it makes filming easier when your subject is just so hot!

Right you are, Timothy, right you are!

Tim Henny is a Director of Photography who started off in the photographic field, but in the last few years has moved more towards film. Tim just finished shooting a television series for DStv, starring Jan Braai, called Braai for Heritage. Jan, Tim and his team traveled all over the country building “gees” and celebrating South Africa by visiting heritage spots and braaing with a wide range of diverse South Africans. Episode 1 featured the Seth Rotherham burger which was braaied on the roof of 2oceansVibe.

Right now, Tim is working on the video content for A Year in the Wild. The concept was initiated by Scott Ramsay, and sees him traveling to over 30 National Parks around South Africa to document them through photography and writing. I am producing a video of each park highlighting their immense beauty.

Great vibe.