Brotography

Inception was my favorite movie this year and easily in my top 5 of all time. Definitely the best movie I’ve seen in a while. The cinematography, the action, the special effects and especially the story line. Another thing that I loved though was the score and the sound design. Often overlooked in movies is the sound design. It plays such a huge role in making a movie believable. Below is a video documentary on the sound design in Inception:

“Inception” Sound for Film Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

For another fun Inception treat, Read the rest of this entry »

Light! Sweet, sweet light. As my friend, Rick Gayle once said,

Light is all a photographer ultimately has control over and the way he molds its qualities helps define objects and tell stories.

This video is intended to show us poor/hobbyist photographers that you don’t need all the equipment in the world to take a good photograph. You can take beautiful photos with just an iPhone 3GS. While I know that’s true, this video is a little bit contradictory considering he’s got thousands of dollars worth of lighting equipment. That point aside, I like to think of this post as more of a demonstration on how important light is in photography. And what I like most, it shows how he sets up his shots. It’s a great watch…


From the guys at fstoppers.com here is Lee Morris’ iPhone Fashion Photo Shoot:





For the hi-res photos from the shoot check out their blog post with more behind-the-scenes information.

(Planet Earth + Travis Rice) x (Sick Video Cameras) = That’s It, That’s All

Curt Morgan of Brain Farm Digital Cinema is a professional snowboarder turned hi-tech cinematographer after hurting his back and not being able to snowboard any longer. Beyond the Phantom HD Gold and the Red One, he’s managed to get government licensing to purchase a system to stabilize his video camera which was used by the government to launch smart weapons. This means it has 5 gyros which allows the camera to stabilize shots filmed from a quarter mile away without camera shake. The guy is filming snowboard tricks with U.S. military grade weapon technology! That’s sick.

I have the opportunity to work with the Phantom HD Gold this week for work. Needless to say, I am very excited.

Here’s the trailer, which has also earned the spot of my featured video:

If I’m goign to dedicate my whole life making films and imagery, I want to make it the best images I can get.
:: Curt Morgan

For a behind the scenes of film making of “That’s It, That’s All” via The Creator Project and Brian Farm’s equipment list Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently maintaining a blog is harder than I thought. I haven’t posted in over a month. My subscriber base must be so disappointed. So, let me apologize to all of you for not bringing the content. Sorry Chrissy.

I finally had the opportunity to take pictures of my adorable little niece, Emily. She is my brother’s first child and since they live in California I don’t get to take as many pictures as I’d like. We set up a mini photo shoot on the dining room table and here are a few of the best ones! Don’t you just want to squeeze her cute little cheeks?

We’ll start off with the family shot. My brother, Thai, his wife Linh and baby Emily. There was literally no space in my house and since the only lens I have is a 50mm or a 70-200mm this is the best I can do, so it’s a little tight. I need to buy a studio for my hobby is really what I’m getting at.

A couple more after the jump…

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About a year ago one of my good buddies (and groomsman!) asked me for help creating a video application to something called “The Best Job in The World”. The idea was to make a video that told them why they should hire you for “The Best Job in The World”. In short, it was for a position in Australia at the Great Barrier Reef being an “island caretaker” and blog about your experiences. Pretty sweet, I’d say. Back in college I messed around with filming, editing and “directing” (big quotes there) videos we had put together so Kyle thought I’d be a good resource to come up with some concepts.


I originally wanted to do one continuous shot with Kyle walking through our buddy’s house and giving his talking points but that became too difficult to pull off in the amount of time we had. Having watched many of the videos that were already posted by other contestants, I noticed one common theme: They all said the same things backed with the same facts that came from wikipedia in an attempt to display their knowledge of the island. That said, the only way we’d even get noticed is to do something completely opposite, which was to not have any dialog from Kyle and somehow hit home with the fact that Kyle is someone different. So, Kyle called up a bunch of our friends and conned them with beer and pizza to be a part of the video. The idea was that Kyle is just this cool/chill guy that a lot of people liked being around and the video would show him just strolling through a buddy’s house. All the while, not immediately obvious to him, his destiny would be revealed with references to Australia popping up around him. The hope was to show people Kyle is an interesting person people would want to follow.


In the end, it just turned into a video of a bunch of doods hanging out to a cool Amon Tobin song with an epic fight between our friend Derek and an inflatable alligator all in gratuitous slow motion. In hindsight, the beating up of an alligator probably was a poor Australian reference, not to mention un-PETA friendly… Oh well. Oh yeah, and we couldn’t get it submitted in time… Oops.


For the sake of sweet sweet slowmo, I asked for the help of my friend Dave who owns a couple Red Ones so he helped film, edit and color correct it.

I try and hunt down as many photography lighting tutorials as I can since I am learning from scratch and I don’t have extra money for real classes (This is how I learn most things actually…online video tutorials. It’s how I learned all the graphic design programs.). In my search, I came across a great instructional DVD called “One Light” by Zack Arias. If you’re just starting out and getting into strobe photography, I highly recommend the DVD. In it, he shows all the things you can do with just one light, hence the name. For me it really put into perspective the minimal amount of equipment you need to make a nice picture. Although it’s nice to have a ton of the best and most expensive gear, fortunately and unfortunately for me, talent plays a majority in obtaining a great photo. If you’ve got some extra cash, Zack also holds a workshop by the same title so you can get instruction in person.


Every year in Dubai there is an event called “Gulf Photo Plus” where professional and amateur photographers gather for workshops and seminars. This year, a few professional photographers were asked to participate in a shoot-out. Zack Arias, David Hobby and Joey Lawrence were given two models, any lights they wanted and 25 minutes to shoot. In the end they would pick one photo. Here is a fun video of what took place. It’s like a reversed version of America’s Next Top Model, instead of the models being challenged you get to see the photographers in action. These are my favorite types of videos. Professional photographers talk you through their thought process while showing you the technical requirements to pull off the photo. It always says a ton to me about a photographer who is willing to share their knowledge. It always tells me they’re not afraid of people stealing their ideas because they’re confident they have even better ones to come. Real progressive thinkers…


That said, I’ve followed David Hobby and Zack Arias for quite some time now and they deserve a GIGANTIC thanks for sharing their knowledge. As they say, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” And these guys are definitely making every one step up their game.

Just came across this Adobe Photoshop CS5 sneak peek of their new “Content-Aware Fill” tool and holy crap it is amazing! This would make my workflow at work so much faster in a lot of cases. Inevitably, there is always at least a burger I have to remove from a grill if we want to use the picture. Granted, that’s an easy example, but I can just think of so many cases where this would make a process so much easier both at work and in my own projects.


Awesome!

Chase Jarvis is one bad ass photographer. The guy is so in tune with his work and sharing his experiences. He is is also an avid blogger. He often shares his techniques and provides simple but nicely edited video behind the scenes of his work. He is a wealth of talent and experience. I wish I could just spend a few days with him to soak up the knowledge.

Chase is the author of the book “The Best Camera” which he says “is the one that’s with you.” In his case, it’s often his iPhone. It can be depressing looking at his iPhone photos because a majority of them are better than the best photos I’ve taken. Sad.

Here’s one example of the many great videos he has posted on his blog. This one is more about a film project he is working on rather than photography. Another reason I admire the guy, he’s so damned talented in both still and motion.

In the event you are a millionaire who stumbled upon my very sporadic blog, make the jump for a list of the items I would like that were featured in this video. For the rest of you, take a gander at the equipment he used.

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