I seem to have been doing a lot of talking-head interviews since I was thrown into the world of documentaries with New York Doll. I’m really curious to know how many I’ve done to date. Here are a couple of BTS shots of some recent ones. Sorry, I don’t have any frame grabs from these to show.
Shooting in the Valley of Volcanos
I was up in Oregon a couple of weeks ago shooting a little mini doc piece about a senior missionary couple for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The couple called their  journal, “Serving in the Valley of Volcanos,” because the region they were in (circa Bend, OR) is surrounded by volcanos and buttes. I wasn’t able to take too many pictures because of run-and-gun nature of the shoot, but I was able to steal a few here and there. We shot with our usual setup of 2 5Ds, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, 16-35mm, 2 Litepanels 1×1, GlideCam, GoPro, etc. These photos don’t tell much about the shoot, but here they are anyway.
Working on “Vacation”
My wife always says I go on “vacation” when I work. I know what she means. With four young kids and another on the way, parenting can be a challenge—especially when your spouse goes off to work for days or weeks at a time to places you only dream about. In this particular case, I was shooting at La Costa Resort & Spa, a fancy high-end resort in Carlsbad, CA for a series of online fitness coaching vignettes. It was a pretty sweet resort. So it doesn’t help when I post pictures like this on Facebook:
Alaska Revisited
Back in March, I had the chilling opportunity to shoot a documentary in Alaska. It was cold (understatement). If you missed my post about it, click here to read about it. We went back for a follow up shoot in September and it wasn’t as cold. Daytime highs were in the low 30s, so technically, it was still freezing. But it was a welcome cold compared to the -30s I was in last time. I had to trade one discomfort for another, though. If you haven’t gathered this about me already, I’m not the outdoor/woodsy guy. Camping? Hunting? No. But on this trip, I got to be involved with both. I can’t say it necessarily grew on me, but it became tolerable. LOLÂ Most of my fears about moose hunting and being eaten or mauled by bears melted away after a day. Sticking close to the guys with the rifles helped.
Litepanels Sola ENG™ Flight Kit Review
Looking for the ideal portable lighting kit? The Litepanels Sola ENG Flight Kit may be it. I’ve had the opportunity over the last few weeks to use the Litepanels Sola ENG Flight Kit on a few different projects: a series of interviews, a documentary in Alaska, a commercial spot, and a music video. These little lights were  designed as on-board camera lights, but this kit attempts to make them a little more than that. As such, I took them on a few shoots and used them as “conventional†lights, so keep that in mind as I review this kit.
ALASKA: Adventures on the Yukon
I don’t even know where to start. Right now I am in the comfort of my hotel room in Fairbanks, AK feeling very grateful to be warm, alive, and connected to the internet. I’m only five days into the shoot, but I can say that the worst is over. Â I hope. I am shooting a documentary up here for a few weeks and the first thing we covered was the preparation and departure of Vern Stickman and his epic run down the frozen Yukon river to raise awareness for suicide prevention. Vern’s son committed suicide a few years ago and, expectedly, has devastated his family’s life. As part of his own healing process, he has decided to do this run from his home in Tanana to “nearby” villages to speak to the youth about suicide prevention and healthy living choices.
The Slanted Lens BTS
A couple of years ago, well-known photographer Jay P. Morgan asked me to shoot some behind-the-scenes video footage for his instructional photography series called The Slanted Lens. I had mostly forgotten about these projects until I stumbled upon one of them today and then proceeded to dig up a few of the other ones I shot for him. Â They’re a great series on lighting and you should check them out for the instruction content as the stuff I shot is mostly utilitarian… with a dash of style ;) Â Here they are. Â And yes, that is me hanging in a suspension rig pretending to be a soccer player.
Another Year in 24 Hours
My wife really wanted to participate in a local 24-hour filmmaking marathon competition last weekend so, naturally, she wanted me to shoot and edit for her. From 10am Friday morning until 10am Saturday morning, 30 teams of (up to) five members each made 3-minute films with the following criteria: The theme of the movie had to be “anniversary” and there had to be a cake, and the line of dialogue “I really wanted to…” in the film. “Another Year” is what we were able to create in that time. With planning and buying the props we needed, we didn’t start shooting until about 4:30pm and wrapped at about 11pm. The shoot was pretty simple but was complicated a bit on my end with the type of lights we were using and the two bokeh-forming-words effect we wanted to do.
Plan B: Shoot with the T2i
Over the weekend, I shot a short film with a good friend from film school, Michael Sokey. The last time we shot a short was 15 years ago in school. It was great working together again and it was also really interesting to note the differences in the shooting style of the previous shoot to this one.  We shot the last film on Super 16mm black and white film with a crew of maybe a dozen; this time, we shot on a DSLR with just him and me for crew. It’s amazing how technology has changed—allowing us to capture infinitely better photography 15 years later. Maybe 15 more years of experience had some part in it that, as well ;) I was intending to shoot this project on my 5D but it got damaged earlier in the week so I had to send it to get repaired. There was zero budget so renting another 5D was out of the question. Michael did have a T2i, though, so we shot it on that instead. I was a bit saddened by that because I love the images I get from my 5D and the idea of shooting it on a Rebel was …