Category Archives for "Cinematography"
There are tools, apps, gadgets that make our life easier, more productive and better organized. Let me share 9 gadgets that are (almost) always on me:
I love both worlds – the break neck pace of digital, with all the productivity it offers and the old school analog world of notebooks and knives. What are the gadgets you can’t live without?
Story is the most important part of any video. Great story trumps great visuals, amazing audio or an intricate edit every time. As a photographer you’ve been a visual storyteller for as long as you’ve captured still images, so I’m not gonna waste your time on how to craft visual content that tells a compelling story designed to change the viewers mind.
(If you want to learn more about that kind of story telling check out Alex Buono’s Visual Story Telling Tour that’s running through September 20th – don’t forget yourASMP member discount – or check out the How to Step Up Your Video talk I gave at WordCamp Miami this past May.)
I believe the philosophy behind creating a powerful visual story is simple. It consists of three basic steps that, when followed, make your story irresistible. These three ingredients are simple to learn, yet difficult to execute. I discovered them when creating my first documentary in Afghanistan, shared them in my TEDx talk called The Art of Changing Minds and try to incorporate them into all of my video productions:
Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others – Jonathan Swift
Without vision you have no story. Without vision you are literally flying blind. How are you going to tell a story, if you don’t know how it ends, where it begins and what twists and turns there will be along the way? By the way, it was Aristotle who wrote that every story has a beginning, a middle and an end.
Your vision is imperative to transform your viewer. Without vision it’s the blind leading the blind. True vision can not be manufactured, it has to transform you first.
(As an aside, if all you have is vision – you’re a just dreamer. Someone with a great idea, who’s afraid of going out on a limb with his or her idea. You need the next step to get the driving force to help you get your dream off the ground.)
If you don’t have a passion for what you do, any rational person is going to give up – Steve Jobs
Without passion your story is dull, boring, uninteresting and lame. Without passion your story is a carbon copy of someone else’s at best–a counterfeit clone at worst. How are you going to excite your audience, if you’re not sharing something that you deeply believe in? More importantly, where are you gonna get the strength to deal with the people who will discourage you from telling your story without having that fire in your belly? It’s easy to give up if all you hear is “No!” – unless you have passion driving your vision.
Your passion is vital to inspire your audience. Without passion you’re producing a story that’s gonna put everyone to sleep. True passion can not be faked. Passion has to inspire you first, before it inspires your audience.
(As an aside, if you have passion, without vision – you’re like a bull in a china shop. There’s a lot of noise, but nothing good is gonna come out of it. Shoot first and ask questions later does not work.)
Your aspirations are in heaven, but your brains are in your feet – Afghan proverb
Without action your story is going to die. I don’t care how transforming your vision is and how inspirational your passion is; without taking action, you will fail. It’s as simple as that. Without action your story never gets told and an untold story is worth as much as an unprocessed piece of film.
Your action inspires, or breathes life into, your story. Without action your story remains lifeless and dead. It stays buried inside your head or entombed in some dusty screenplay or faded storyboard, that’s never gonna get shared. Great stories need you to get your head out of the clouds and get going.
"On WIngs of Hope" the 2013 documentary film produced by Photography by Depuhl in Afghanistan won the Award for Excellence for cinematography.
Videographer Awards today announced winners for the 2015 international awards competition. Videoawards.com recognizes outstanding achievement by talented individuals and companies in the video production field.
Entrants include video production companies, advertising and public relations firms, corporate communication departments, cable and broadcast television operations, government agencies and other visual content producers.
The Award of Excellence, the organization’s top honor, adds yet another award to the accolades this video production has received in the past years. On Wings of Hope was won the award for excellent cinematography.
The August 7 deadline for sharing a 90-second (or less) video about your business as part of our ongoing Small Business Big Game contest is right around the corner — and it’s an amazing opportunity to showcase who you are and why you love running the show as a small business owner or self-employed professional.
But what if you’re not sure where to start?
We tapped OWN IT member and professional cinematographer Pascal Depuhl to share with us his top tips for creating a video you can be proud of — even if you only have a smartphone on hand.
Read on for Pascal’s great tips…
A great story shot on an iPhone is much better than
So you got a story, recorded sound and captured visuals. Editing puts them all together into the masterwork you’ve been working one (oh, and you can also hide some mistakes and goofs in the edit). Learn how to step up your video from the talk I gave at WordCamp Miami a few weeks ago.
I spoke at #WCMIA as part of a MarketingHack#6: Speak to influencers that your target market trusts.
Visuals are what we all think about when we think about video. As photographers we already know how to create them–I’ve been in the visual content creation business since high school. We need to learn to work some new tools and understand that visuals in video are not a split second in time, but we now need to create the whole moment. Learn how to step up your video from the talk I gave at WordCamp Miami a few weeks ago.
Next week we’ll dive into the last step of “How to step up your video: Edit“. Editing is were the story, the sound and the visuals all come together. This is the final piece in creating your video.
I spoke at #WCMIA as part of a MarketingHack#6: Speak to influencers that your target market trusts.
There are many components, that go into a successful motion shoot and as photographers the one we are most familiar with is the visual portion of video. We learn very quickly that we must master story telling, audio recording and editing as well, but we often take the visual crafting of an image for granted–until we turn on that first continuous light source and quickly realize, it has very little in common with the strobes we’re all used to.
This Move2Motion Video Lighting workshop will focus on the most commonly used lighting instruments in video production.It’s not designed to teach you how to light–we’re assuming you already know how to do that.
Then this workshop is for you. Join us and get ready to learn some theory, basic terminology and a hands on comparison of a variety of different continuous light sources. Bring your gloves – ’cause the lights get hot and your color meter – you do still have that, right?
We’re working on planning this workshop, but it will be held in Miami in the middle of October. Stay tuned for pricing info, exact time and location. Move2Motion is offering 3 events in October that will all focus on video productions for photographers:
A huge shout out to our friends at Magic2Lighting, who are supplying the bulk of lighting and grip gear for this workshop. Special Thanks to BlueShape Batteries that are going to power all the portable lights. Stay tuned for more sponsors and event details.