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Tag: Resources

  • How To: The Five Pillars of Exposure

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share an excellent little tutorial on how to get the most out of exposure. Seriously. You have no idea how much I want you to see this video. This is one of those kind of clips… the potentially life altering ones!

    Okay, that was a bit OTT. Still – I love this clip.

    The team at Realm Pictures have taken what is often a long-winded subject (exposure and lighting), and they have cleverly condensed it into a nice neat package of just over 6 minutes. Whether you are just starting – or you just need a reference guide reminder on how to best use exposure in your videography – then this gem is definitely what you will want to come back to. Please enjoy responsibly. 🙂

  • Demo: Lily Camera Drone

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share two different clips: the first is the promo video for a new drone camera that is getting set to hit the market soon (pre-order sales are already available) – the Lily. The second is little bit of a hands-on (as it were) demo of the machine.

    The tech specs on this little piece of kit are certainly interesting enough to warrant a further look. Even though the chances are that the first gen of Lily won’t be as great as it could potentially be (when are they ever?), there are always going to be subsequent releases with updated mods (amiright?). In fact I can already imagine version 2 will incorporate an object awareness sensor that is currently MIA from version 1. So, with its intuitive hands-off approach to shooting, I still think that it would still be fun to have one of these to play around with.

    Anyway, that is enough from me. Here is the hands on demo from the team at Resource Magazine for you to check out.

  • Video Essay: Rear Window (Michael McLennan)

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share a short clip that was pieced together by one of my friends, Michael McLennan. Michael also happens to be a long-time cinephile who has worked as producer, director of photography, editor, sound designer, music editor, and has also taught across a variety of film disciplines at the Sydney Film School. Recently picked up by the Indiewire team, today’s clip is a simple video essay that demonstrates Hitchcock’s amazing capacity for structural story-telling. In this instance, we find the story engaging with the audience through a carefully constructed repetition of symmetry.

    I personally find that such examples really ought to reinforce the idea that while amateurs point and shoot and think something along the lines of, “I hope this will look good!” – professionals plan and plan and plan, thinking more along the lines of, “How do I want this to look?” If we want to up our game and get our work seen – then we can all continue to learn tricks from the masters of cinema like this. I hope you enjoy.

  • Article: “Camera Choices for Avengers: Age of Ultron”

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to link out to a great little article that gives a concise breakdown of the camera choices that were made for the latest Marvel Universe blockbuster – Avengers: Age of Ultron – with insights by the DP himself, Ben Davis. You can read the full piece here.

    The fun fact for me was seeing that the diverse little beastie – the BlackMagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera – gets a shout out as a one of the tools used to make the film. Yeah that’s right – portions of the epic Avengers was shot on a BMDPCC! Very cool. So check out the article, and let me know what you think.

  • Audio Interview: Kay Cannon – Comedy Writer of Pitch Perfect 2

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I wanted share a piece that discusses the recently released movie, Pitch Perfect 2. For those who don’t know (or don’t care, I guess), this comedy sequel is about about a cappella singers (which, for what it’s worth, made more than US$70 million at the box office on its opening weekend . That is more than the first Pitch Perfect took in over its entire theatrical release in 2012 – as well as being the biggest debut ever for a movie musical).

    As the title suggests, today’s link is to an audio interview done with Kay Cannon: writer of Pitch Perfect 2. Well before Pitch Perfect came on the scene though, Cannon sunk her teeth into writing for comedy television – such as NBC’s hit 30 Rock (she won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedic Series for her work on 30 Rock on three separate occasions) as well as Fox’s New Girl.

    From NPR’s Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, this is a fascinating insight into the world of comedic writing for film and television in particular… and it is a great reminder that all of you writers out there are an indispensable part of the production process.

    https://soundcloud.com/bullseye-with-jesse-thorn/kay-cannon

  • How To: Colouring Compliments in Photoshop

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share an excellent tute that goes through some mid-level colour correction using Photoshop.

    Now why on earth would I want to share a Photoshop tutorial on a blog that has to do with videography and the like? The simple reason is that I like the presenter. That and the fact that understanding how to utilise complimentary colours is one of those fundamental techniques we all ought to be aware of, regardless of whether the images we work with are still or moving.

    Those who have learned their colour-jiu-jitsu are generally the ones that have been able to progress from a mobile phone kind of photographer/videographer that needs Instagram filters to help prop up their shots. Take it from me – tutes like this one are a great way of building up your skill set in this area. I hope you enjoy it.

  • How To: A Comprehensive Cheat Sheet for Adobe

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share an excellent infographic. For those of us who are part of the Adobe Universe, you will know that short-cuts have a funny way of increasing productivity, right? If only there was a way to easily find and/or remember what some of the really important ones were! Oh wait – there is!

    Thanks to the team at Set Up A Blog Today, we now have access to a comprehensive cheat sheet that outlines a range of the important short-cuts to a host of our favourite Adobe products: Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, FireWorks, Flash, Premiere Pro, and After Effects!

    Need some of that action? Get it right here. And as a bonus tid-bit – scroll down the the bottom of the post to get access to the PDF versions of the individual cheat sheets.

  • Video Montage: A Stock Homage to Directors

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share a video that is something of a lesson in styling. Now, you could ask almost any cinematographer in the world what they think of stock footage, and you most often find yourself on the end of a tirade against some element of the entire stock industry. Truth be told, it is easy to see why they feel that way. Invariably, stock shots look quite same-same, lacking in ingenuity and visual oomph. With that being said – I must protest the blanket hostility towards stock footage. With the development of fresh sites such as Dissolve and DeathToStock – the creative types are claiming back the unique elements that have been lacking in the great pool of stock footage and imagery – and it has been a breath of fresh air!

    So, it was very cool to stumble on this video created by the ShutterStock team that is a stylised homage to some of the great directors… and it has been done using only stock footage.  Now is it brilliant? Nah. Let’s be honest. But it is really good! And it is exciting to think that as an indie film-maker, or documentary producer, or whatever… we might very well be able to squeeze in a reasonable stock shot that isn’t going to raise the collective ire of cinematographers any more. And that is worth celebrating just a little.

    You can also read about this whole process here.

  • Video Article: Understanding Jump Cuts

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share a video I stumbled on a little while ago. Coming from Vimeo’s Riley Hooper, it offers a pretty concise explanation of the technique known as a jump cut. Even if you have never heard the term before, I can guarantee that you all know what a jump cut looks like… though picking up pace in more and more places, it is a ubiquitous transition amongst the most popular of YouTube’s vloggers. As someone cleverly observed, “Anything other than a jump cut would create a slower experience that would leave you less stimulated and thus more likely to click away.”1

    So, jump right in. 🙂

  • Article: Stills Photographer Intro to Video (RED)

    Continuing my series of resource links, today I want to share a great article that was published a while back by those in the RED Universe. Really, there’s no surprises here as the title says it all: it is an introduction to video production for those of you who are photographers. Granted, many of you may know this stuff. Nevertheless, if you are just starting to play around with the video functionality on your DSLR – or you have never really dug into the kind of background information that can make your videos a little better – then this article is a must. I hope you find it useful.

    “This article gives an overview of the key differences in order to make the “cinephotography” transition as straightforward as possible…”