I was hired for the second year in a row to produce a film to present at Community Health Care's yearly fundraising luncheon here in Tacoma. I like working with CHC, diving into the medical field for more insight into their services. The part I...
Phew, just finished editing some videos to advertise the photography workshops. Next batch of workshops are in February. For more info on that, click the 'workshops' link at the top of the page.
The 2012 Smokin' Hot Espresso calendar is complete. You'd think my job is done when I put the camera away from the final photo shoot. Not even close. A huge portion of work follows. Rewind a couple years ago, when I created the first calendar with the business, I also created a behind the scenes video. The video played at the calendar release party, online, etc. Everyone really loved the video addition to the project, so this time around, it was specifically asked for (to be included). Every photo shoot we had video cameras rolling too. What that equated to was over 20 hours of footage for me to rummage through after we were done shooting the calendar. It was a rush to finish the production of the calendar, then the design of the calendar, and then... with a week before the release party, a BTS video. To the editing room I go... a pile of footage awaiting. Can you get a tan from a computer screen? If so, I should have a really nice "glow" right about now.
Ok, so here we go, the first video Q & A segment. I hope this kind of catches on and people use me to help "fill in the gaps" of all the standard information they can't seem to find on the web. It's just one of those things - you can have a really good grasp on a piece of software, while also having a really solid plan for the business end of things, however, there is the cross-section, where the creative/making side intersects the business side. There is this murky middle area where a lot of things are left-up to interpretation and personal preference. Essentially this gray area cannot be spelled out by software makers, and a business teacher definitely doesn't have any input on these kinds of specifics. You know there are a practices that need to be done in your business to ensure efficiency, redundancy, and so on, but I (and as it seems many others) are left to figure out all the gray area stuff themselves. Sometimes self-discovery of these processes are the best course of action, other times you are left thinking "it'd save me a bunch of time and a handful of headaches if I got a little nugget of knowledge from someone who has been doing this gray area stuff for awhile in my same career field." This gray area are the things I would like to focus on in these sessions, because I feel it's worth my time to address them. The simple, easy stuff that software vendors spell out on countless websites where you can get a lot of information doesn't need to be beaten to death one more time by me in a video. Rarely, it also seems that tutorials spell out the BIG things and leave these little gaps that desperately need explanation. You also do not need me giving you a lecture on how important is it to ensure you have backups of every inch of your business, how to interact with your clients, etc. It's that middle part, and how they come together. So let's piece this stuff together.
Video cameras are rolling at almost every shoot now. If I see a free hand while we are on set working, I toss that hand a camera. I can never really have enough BTS material. The only downside is the more BTS I have the more time I gotta spend sifting through all of it, compounded with all the time I invested into the actual photographic process and the photos for the client. Love all the material, hate the fact that I can't clone myself at put him strictly on BTS shooting and editing, that would be amazing. So, unfortunately a lot of the BTS material never sees the light of day, which gets tossed into the Matty archives. Every few months I'll go the extra mile and compile a video from a favorite shoot and toss it on the site. Well, today is one of those days. I stayed up late last night cutting together this short, two-minute video. I was lucky enough to have fellow creatives Andy and Jolaina at the recent commercial shoot I did with one of my regular clients, Whatcom Sound. The pair, both armed with cameras, got some fun footage that I couldn't toss into the archives without getting a little attention first. This video will give you a good idea of everything we had going on. A lot of the set and lighting was up and ready to go before the cameras were out to capture anything, but you still get to see the bulk of activities during the shoot.
Rewind to just this last weekend. Up in my Bellingham studio editing photos, a song on my iTunes played through my speakers that immediately forced me into a collage of mental imagery (it was a piece of music from the newish Star Trek movie). More specifically, a short video montage cut in a music video style and length, utilizing the Upfront Theatre main stage players as our Star Trek characters. Before the two and a half minute song finished, I was already picking up my phone to call Stephen Edwards, one of the main stage comedians. It took even less time for Stephen to jump on-board with the idea as I excitedly explained my vision over the phone. One lunch meeting later, the gears were greased with enough key shot concepts to go ahead with casting the project and scheduling a shoot date.
Life is all about time, or rather the lack of, right? Time is always the most scarce resource, even if you have all the time in the world, others around you, or even mother nature does not. As a photographer, "good light" naturally only happens in small fragments of time, and we counter this by using off-camera light, even when we don't need to in order to get even "better" light. I think we need to put all our cancer curing resources and task them into figuring out how to extend really nice sunsets to say... twice as long (I kid.... but seriously). Here is a behind the scenes video I cut together today, it showcases a little bit of the stuff we did while we were running around the island.
Been integrating more video work in with my clients. I'm experiencing that once business clients know that I can shoot/cut video along side the photos, they ask for it. And why not? At a flip of a switch, I can go from photos to video, both top quality products out of the same device, pretty neat. I say that loosely, although you can make the transition to capturing photos or video with a flip of a switch, there is a bit more to it than that. Obviously photos and video capturing have a lot in common, but as much as they have in common they also have just as much that separates the two arts. First, you have a completely different selection process for what to capture in each medium. Some things are best captured with photos, some with video. Understanding and getting a feel for working to each medium's strengths will greatly improve efficiency and the overall product given to the client. With photos, you have the luxury and power of flash/strobes to blast light, greater controlling your environment. With video, you are stuck with continuous light, which also has it's strengths as well.
Months ago, the Emergency Food Network, a non-profit food organization in Tacoma, tasked me with an on-going photography project. The project ultimately grew into something larger, incorporating video as well. Working with EFN, I visited their location, harvest fields, and surrounding food banks, capturing all...
