I am sitting on the plane headed to Las Vegas for Blogs with Balls. With me is Rob Baker of Kabimba Media (who designed this website) who is going to be helping out with the videos. Should be a fun time, with some work mixed in for good measure. My friend Chris, who is one of the organizers of the conference, has put together a good group of panelists and some fun events for the next few days and I’ll capture as much of it as I can. Read more…
Posts Tagged ‘EX-1’
Gloucester Gran Prix – A Cyclocross Film
Last weekend I went out to watch a friend race in the Gran Prix of Gloucester cyclocross race. I decided to bring my EX-1 and film the event. Lots of bikes, colorful jerseys, some beers in the beer garden, all made for a great day of filming. Read more…
Cameras, Bikes and Beers
Last weekend my buddy Keith invited me to spend the day watching his friend race in the Gloucester Brewer’s Cup cyclocross race. I figured it’d be a nice day of relaxing by the ocean, drinking beers, watching racers, and I thought it might be a fun event to film. I had never been to a cyclocross race, although I used to do mountain bike racing in high school. Cyclocross is like mountain biking but the bike is more like a modified road bike and they race on a shorter course with multiple laps. I don’t film a ton of sporting events (I don’t think I have done one since my Boston Marathon video back in 2007), although I do find them quite enjoyable. Read more…
It’s Heeerrree!
My shiny new Canon 7D camera is here! I pre-ordered it through Amazon about three weeks ago, but Amazon seemed to be behind the ball on shipping. I had been seeing clips posted online from people all over who had received THEIR cameras, and I wanted mine! So I called Calumet Photo in Cambridge and Newtonville Camera in Newton and got on their waiting lists. Sure enough, the next day (yesterday), I got a call from the fine folks at Newtonville that they had one for me. That was easy. Read more…
Interview Demo
I often get asked when applying for shooting gigs if I can shoot and light interviews, so I decided to put together a demo reel for this purpose. I have filmed literally hundreds of interviews, and it is an important skill for most shooters. All the samples here were shot with an EX-1 Read more…
Filming Interviews
I sometimes get asked when applying for a shooting gig if I know how to shoot and light interviews, so I decided to put together a little demo of interview samples just for this purpose. Filming interviews is a pretty essential skill for most shooters and I have done literally hundreds of them. I actually really enjoy shooting them, as it always offers a bit of a challenge. Every space is different and there are many looks you can go for, so there are a lot of options and challenges. The biggest challenge is usually the space, and the space is what can really make for a good looking shot a lot of the time. Read more…
Seeing RED
Last week I took a day off from working and, well, worked.
My friend was working as production manager for documentary filmmaker Alla Kovgan on a film they were shooting this week in New London, CT. They brought in a DP from Armenia (Mko Malkhasyan) who Alla had worked with previously on her STUNNING dance-film Nora, which they shot in Africa. I am a huge techno-dweeb, especially when it comes to cameras, and they were shooting on the RED One, a new-ish camera that I had only worked with for a tiny bit before but am planning to use on an upcoming project, Read more…
Gear…Renting and Buying
I feel somewhat fortunate that I entered this business in 2000 when the cost of entry, as far as professional level equipment, was considerably lower than ever before. The DV (digital video) format had emerged in the 1990s and was seen as a viable professional acquisition format. Sony was at the forefront of creating small “prosumer” cameras (notably the VX1000) with the miniDV format and, for that time, were able to produce quite lovely pictures that certainly looked better than would be expected from a camera that was only a few thousand dollars. Certainly large Betacam and DigiBeta cameras (costing tens of thousands of dollars) Read more…
URWA Trailer
I was hired as DP on this job, produced by Bill Parker of Hindsight Media. We made a 10-minute video for URWA (the Upper Raritan Watershed Association) and this is a 90 second “teaser” that we cut for them. URWA’s mission is to ensure the protection of the natural resources of Read more…
New Jersey IS Beautiful!
Last fall, I shot a video for URWA, an organization that works to protect and preserve the Upper Raritan Watershed in New Jersey. I was hired by my friend Bill Parker (of Hindsight Media) to DP the project. We went down to NJ on two trips for 2-3 days a piece, shooting interviews and beauty shots of the area. (I was, in fact, blown away by how stunning this area was. Being from Boston, I thought that NJ was basically a big strip mall or gross industrial plant.) This was the kind of job that did not really feel like work; walking around with my camera in late summer/mid-fall getting beauty shots of landscapes, rivers, animals, etc. It felt more like a vacation (I guess I shouldn’t let the client hear that). Read more…