Wow! It’s been an absolutely crazy ride these last few months. We’ve been swamped like never before, but I want to get back into the habit of sharing some of the things I’ve learned in my work, here on this blog. We’ll start with something simple.
Gear does not make a good photograph or movie, but the right tool for the job makes it a heck of a lot easier. I started using Think Tank products 18 months ago and love the design, quality and workmanship of these bags. We photoraphers/cinematographers carry tons of stuff with us to a shoot and it all needs to live somewhere. Hint: If everything has it’s specific place, when you’re packing up to leave a shoot you’ll notice what’s missing, just by having an empty spot in your bag.
“Facebook is a waste of time. I don’t need to know what you had for lunch today” is a common response that I hear when I speak with people about why I am involved in social media – hmmm, what did I have for lunch today … but back to the point of this post: I wanted to share with you how I got booked to shoot a video shoot from my facebook post in less than an hour.
I have been getting into shooting video over the last few months – you can check out some of my films on vimeo – and I have been seeing that there is a lot to learn from a photographers perspective. I purchased my first HDDSLR 3 months ago and got booked on my first paid video production last week, so I posted a blurb about editing this shoot on my facebook page.
I tagged my wife (the beautiful model in the photo) and left it at that. I also did not design the post to be anything special my comment on facebook merely read: “Spend most of the day editing a commercial movie project, while learning Adobe Premiere, incidentally the client was very happy with the rough cut :)”
I’ve been writing about an exciting project that I had the privilege of being a part or: a 5 day behind the scenes time-lapse and video shoot of the set up of Meridian Yacht’s ‘booth’ at the Miami International Boat Show 2011.
Now you know where you’re shooting from. You know how many shots your taken. You got the power and storage issues figured out. It’s time to pack. If you’re shooting a time-lapse sequence for fun, this will seem a little over the top just remember we’re talking about a commercial professional application. Redundancy is the name of the game, although I want to be able to walk into my time-lapse set up in one trip.
Everything I needed for this project fits on this one cart. I like this specific one, since it can double as a shooting table, once it’s unloaded. I’ll go through each bag in detail with everything that’s in it, but here is the overview: slung over the back of the cart (on my back when I go to location) isContinue reading »
I just finished shooting a four day time-lapse project at the Miami Boat Show for one of my new clients Meridian Yachts. Our goal was to show the 3 day set up process, which no one visiting the boat show gets to see. It’s fascinating to watch the Miami Beach Convention Center transform from an empty cavernous warehouse to the biggest boat show in the States. In my research I have found numerous video tutorials, examples, web posts, … on time-lapse projects; but I have not found one that speaks about the process of preparing to shoot one in detail. This blog post will talk about how I planned, produced and photographed a commercial time lapse and how I put it all together after all the pieces were been shot.
1. Plan it
Scouting the location
I’m gonna assume that you already have a project in mind. So the first thing I do is to scout the location that I will be shooting in. What is the subject that you’re going to be shooting? Where will it be? Are there vantage points that will become obstructed in the course of your Continue reading »
How many times a day do you need to show a client a file, concept, video, photo, …? If you’re anything like me, it’s all the time. Many of our files are pretty big or proprietary and confidential, so it’s hard to send them through email or over a social network like facebook (I mean do you really want to be discussing the terms of an upcoming shoot on your fb wall?)
Would it not be great to have one place that is like facebook, just secure? A social network for business that is more personal than LinkedIn? A timeline like Twitter that shows your whole team what is happening in your business? A place were you can work together with your vendors, clients and crew to produce, review, share and comment on the projects that you are working on?
Find out how you can do all this for free after the jump. Continue reading »
If you have not purchased your DSLR yet, this Emmy winning set of Webisodes is must watching. Zacuto, a film making accessories manufacturer, put together a test a few months back, in which they pit DSRL’s against 35mm motion picture film, which was screened in front of film industry professionals. The results may surprise you.
Webisode 1 tests the latitude of DSLR cameras and film, webisode 2 looks at ability to shoot in low light due to the increased sensitivity of DSLR’s and the final webisode 3 looks at the ability to have DSLR’s used with green screens and looks at resolution and color. You’ll need some time each episode is about half an hour long, but it’s worth every minute of it. It’s an objective test between DSLR’s and movie film cameras. In addition to this you get the feedback of industry professionals.
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
So now that you know which camera to buy (right), you gotta figure out how to move this – for us photographers, movement (and sound) are new challenges that we need to wrap our heads around, since my still photo does not move at all. I stumbled across Phil Holland video, in which he describes his DSLR rig. He does a nice job explaining why and how he uses the different components of this rig.
This is a great place to start learning about some of the things you’ll need want to have, when getting into video on your DSLR.
Can you hear me now?
Sound is the other dimension that I don’t think about. I was shooting for Mars a few weeks ago and the Creative Director that was on location with me stopped the shoot, when a plane went over head – something that did not even phase me – nor did it have to, since we were shooting stills. However in cinematography this becomes a major issue since at least half the content (speech and music are communicated non-visually). But the sound recording features on the DSLR’s are not really up to par with what you need to capture that ‘Hollywood sound’.
If you’d like to read a little more detailed review of external recorders that can be used with DSLR’s take a look at Jon Fairhurst’s series of video post on the Canon 5D tips blog. He reviews 4 different external recorders for your DSLR.
This post is a work in progress, I will continue to post articles, webisodes, blog posts, … that I find helpful in making decisions on what equipment to choose to create motion pictures.
How do I grow as a photographer? What do I do to push myself to create better work? My book looks like it did two years ago. While the images have changed the photography has stayed the same. I just finished watching another one of Chase Jarvis’ CJLive videos, where Chase and his guest speak about the need to constantly be creating work, on the one hand pushing the envelope while on assignment and on the other hand creating personal work when your not photographing for clients.
Traceur Nhan Du leaps from the wall onto a ledge.
However, I always seem to come up with a lame excuse for not trying something new: “I’m too busy, shooting.” “I’m not busy enough, so I need to … work on the website, call up that new client, learn that new technique, …” So as my 2010 new years resolution – ok so I’m a little behind in those - I’ve decided that I just gotta take the leap, jump off that wall. I have a few concepts in mind that I want to shoot, that I need to create, that I have to capture. Some piggy back on current clients assignment work (like the floral wholesaler, that I will shoot flower bouquets for – that I want to use to photograph some editorial bridal photographs) and some that will be completely my own.
Nhan Du walks around the corner.
I photographed one of those today: Nhan, a traceur, moving around some walls and corners as he practices the art of parkour for fun. Just as he has to commit to the jump all the way to reach his goal – in his case the wall on the opposite side – I must do the same. I must commit to stretch my photographic muscle, so to speak, otherwise my book next year, will look like it did 2 years ago.
We spend a lot of thought and time on advertising, promoting, website design, SEO, CRM, email marketing, … to be on top of mind of our potential client at ‘the moment of relevance‘, as Google calls it. So now you’re on the phone with him – what do you talk about? Obviously there’s the information you need about the production of the shoot, how many images, how they’ll be used, … but all photographers should be doning this. So what sets you apart? What makes you the guy or girl that this potential client is going to hire?
Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about my involvement in the photographic community in Miami. I am an active member in ASMP, and I attend events that are held in South Florida, but I asked myself: “What do I give back to the photographic community?” This introspective was caused by reading Chase Jarvis’ blog, who challenges photographers to share their knowledge of what goes on inside the ‘black box’ of photography with the world. In a recent panel discussion at Photo Plus Expo, Chase had a group of his photographer and blogger friends together in a pannel.
One of the members of the pannel in the end of this video is Vincent Laforet, who’s blog I’ve been reading for the past few days, where Vincent is interviewed by Marc Silber. Long story short Marc had this idea a few days ago about something he calls “Advance your Photography”.
Since I am looking for a way get involved in the local photography community in South Florida and Marc was looking for pros that were willing to launch the AYP (Advance your Photography) Club pilot with him, this seemed like a great match.
We will be launching the Miami Chapter of the AYP club soon and we’ve put up a facebook community page to encourage people to keep in touch with us on this opportunity. If you know someone, who is a photographer (amateur or pro) that want’s to learn from Marc’s library of interviews with the best photographers in the world, as well as have a commercial photographer critique their photography, with the intent of advancing their craft – please share this with them. I’m looking forward to our first meeting …
