Sean Stiegemeier is a filmmaker and photographer from California. He received his Masters degree in cinematography from the American Film Institute and has been featured in numerous publications including American Cinematographer.

He has recently received international attention from his stop-motion film of Iceland’s volcano Eyjafjallajökull which has received neary two million views on Vimeo. It was shot on the Canon 5D MarkII on a stage zero prototype MILapse motorized dolly track built specifically for stop-motion. This trip to Iceland was pure self-motivation, paid out of Sean’s own pocket.

You mention that you went to Iceland to out-do the mediocre pictures you were seeing in the news. Amongst the comments left for the film you say that this trip was of your own accord, payed out of your own pocket, and I can imagine it was quite expensive. How were you able to justify this trip?

I had just finished doing some well paying jobs and thought why not?! Its like a vacation.

How soon after the initial eruption happened was your trip planned?

It was planned 2 days before I left.

Were you afraid that the volcano might not be as active when you arrived? Were you expecting as much inclement weather as you came up against?

I was afraid and honestly was not expecting much but I had to try. The weather was worse than I expected but at least the volcano didn’t die on me.

How many locations did you try out?

Not sure, I think everywhere I shot was pretty much in the video. I got some shots elsewhere on the island to just fill my time but they were not relevant to this volcano video.

Did you have any problems operating the motorized dolly outside in the cold weather?

Weather wasn’t a problem. The flights over were the problem. All the flights that I was redirected on caused a part on it to break and I had to salvage what I could. Luckily I got it working a little bit.

The plane near the end of the film appears to be in the middle of nowhere. How did you come across this? How much time did you have to scout out locations before shooting commenced? Were there any particular locations that you weren’t able to make it to?

Many locations that didn’t work. I just shot as much as the little amount of clear weather allowed. The plane was first seen in a Sigur Ros music documentary. Ever since I saw that I wanted to check it out. Luckily for me there was a giant cloud of ash in the background.

You’ve shot films through a variety of mediums: film, DV and DSLR. But it looks like you’re primarily heading in the direction of the 5D. Why did you choose to shoot this on the 5D instead of other mediums?

I am not at all heading in the direction of the 5D. In fact I have only shot one piece on the 5D in the video mode. This piece is all comprised of stills shot in RAW that look far far better than the video. If I had my way I would shoot anamorphic 35mm film, or 70mm film in a wild dream.

How much grading did you apply to the film?

Took a while to process the files. Some images are HDR some are not. Color correction helped match the difference.

I can’t imagine how many flash cards you must have required to be shooting a time-lapse film in RAW. How many gigs did the final project take up? How much time was spent rendering the project?

About 4 days of rendering. Cards I probably filled up about 300 gigabytes. That is a small amount compared to other shoots, haha!

Is another trip to Iceland in the works? If so, how soon?

Not sure yet but I sure hope so. There are talks of June and August.