TV commercials are a big business these days. As the production budgets grow, the creativity grows as well. Check out all of the work that went into this new Brother Printers ad. I tried to find the full commercial but I couldn’t. If you happen to find it please post it in the comments below.
The Making Of Brother Ambition 141% from Ronan Pollock on Vimeo.
David Jackson is a commercial photographer based out of Appleton, Wisconsin and this week he has released a personal project entitled “Circus”. Dave puts a lot of effort into not only every detail of this shoot but also in explaining why it is important to shoot for yourself and not just for clients. You only book the types of jobs you already have in your portfolio and if you want to book something new down the road you really have to go out and shoot similar images for yourself first…and for free. This first video is a bit long and has few BTS clips but there is also a second less informative BTS video just for the shoot itself. Both videos are in the full post and if you want to see the final images check them out here. David also has a second post outlining in complete detail every element of the photoshoot which is really worth checking out here. Lots of videos, lots of posts, but a pretty cool concept.
Shear Chaos Salon Circus Shoot :: Technical Banter from David Jackson on Vimeo.
As many of you know our forum has been acting a bit unusual lately. We finally figured out that we had a couple of things go wrong. Our server with Godaddy.com actually failed and we lost a full months worth of database info. That means that all posts and accounts created in the last 30 days were lost. Right after that, our forum was infected with a virus (I didn’t even know this was possible) and we had more issues with that. Long story short; we finally have everything fixed but a few of you will need to create accounts all over again.
If you posted a picture for our September contest, that was also lost and you will need to repost that image. As you know, the winner of that contest gets to have a banner advertising their site on the top of Fstoppers.com and to sweeten the pot even more Photoflex has offered to give a LiteDome XS kit away to the winner as well. Please post your “motion” themed images here.
I apologize for all of the issues. Fstoppers.com has been growing at a rapid pace which is a good thing but we are having growing pains.
Now before you decide that you aren’t interested in wedding videography let me say that StillMotion’s work is unlike anything you have ever seen before. If you are a fan of flim and story telling then you will be blown away by what this team is capable of creating out of totally candid moments. Watch the informative video below and click on the full post to see their last 2 wedding trailers.
an intro to shooting a ceremony with EOS // canon cinema caravan from stillmotion on Vimeo.
Last time we ran a behind the scenes video on music we got a great response. So today I thought I’d share a video emailed to us in the same vein. In the commercial world, the biggest challenge is finding something unique that no one has seen before or at least something that will stick into the viewers mind. So when Kevin Fitzgerald was approached by Lexus to film the new ad for the Lexus IS, he went all crazy with dozens of drum kits and percussion instruments. I love these sort of behind the scenes videos that mix music and video to produce something that stands out. Hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did.
Okay this is just a little bit of weekend fun. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I always loved classic music videos. I didn’t know it at the time, but Wayne Isham was one of my favorite directors. He did all the Bon Jovi videos, Metallica’s Enter Sandman, worked with Motley Crue, Michael Jackson, Ricky Martin, ‘N Sync, and Keith Urban. You pretty much couldn’t turn on MTv in the 90s and not see one of his videos. Wayne was recently featured on Carson Daly’s Last Call a few months ago and it was the first time I really got to hear from the artist himself. He seems like a laid back dude who is extremely passionate about his work and about music in general. So just for fun, here’s a short video of Wayne talking about making the video that broke Bon Jovi’s career and set them into super stardom.
Nissan has a new commercial out that is pretty clever. Whether you believe in global warming or not you probably still lust after a car that uses less gas and doesn’t require half a Benjamin at the gas pump. The idea Nissan had for their new car the Leaf was to follow a polar bear around as he travels across the US trying to track down the owner of the new electric car. I always love seeing behind the scenes videos of real commercials running on tv and being able to give commentary during commercial breaks. Now everyone, go out and grab a potentially dangerous wild animal and start making your own BTS videos :)
Nikon just announced a bunch of new gear and one of the new cameras is the new D7000. While I’m personally a little disappointed in it’s lack of 720 60fps the camera does finally put 1080 video into a moderate Nikon body. All my wishful thinking aside, Chase Jarvis was approached by Nikon to shoot a short video showcasing the new video feature. Here is a little short behind the scenes promo video of Chase playing with the new camera and putting it through the ringer. Let’s hope we get our 60fps on the D300s/D700 replacement so we can stop having to borrow Canon gear to shoot our videos :) Click the full post to see Chase’s short film Benevolent Mischief and get on the Pre Order List
Hello everyone and welcome to the Wednesday Rundown. This weekend I learned one of my weaknesses, being able to give direction. Wow, this is something I got the chance to learn while shooting a friends engagement shoot. While working as a second shooter the main photographer directs everything and makes it look easy. I finally got the ball rolling a bit and with some more practice I will feel more at ease while helping couples or even just a model strike a pose. I have found a couple videos on posing for photographers and models. contactfstoppers@gmail.com
After two months of editing and waiting for David Bergman to get off tour, I am proud to unveil a behind the scenes video on Tour Photography featuring rock icons Bon Jovi at the New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey. Many of you may know David Bergman from his Sports Illustrated photos or his gigapan image of Obama’s inauguration, but David’s primary focus these days is shooting live events through his company TourPhotographer.com . David discusses his previous work, reviews his equipment, and takes you on an all access preview of what it is like shooting for one of the biggest rock and roll bands in the world! Click the full post to read more about our unbelievable experience filming this as well as a full list of all of David’s recommended gear.
Fstoppers Original: David Bergman Photographs Bon Jovi from FStoppers on Vimeo.
It has come to our attention that one of the servers that hosts fstoppersforum.com has crashed and part of our database as been temporarily corrupt. We are working hard to resolve this problem and I apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused. If you have signed up for an account or posted to the forum in the last 10 days or so, sit tight and hopefully we can restore the database so everyone shows up again. All registrations and posts since Sept 22nd may not be showing up. We will let you know when everything has been resolved.
The guys over at Soviet Montage have created a video getting a lot of buzz in the last day or so. Regardless if this is the first true HDR video or not, it’s most definitely the first of its kind coming off a Canon 5D MKII. Check out this short video they created with two DSLRs (one over exposed and the other underexposed); it’s definitely an interesting look. I’ve never been a huge fan of the HDR look but I’ll admit it does look pretty cool in video form, especially with people.
HDR Video Demonstration Using Two Canon 5D mark II’s from Soviet Montage on Vimeo.
I just got off the phone with Jay P Morgan, a big production photographer out of California. Jay shoots usually entail big concepts and bigger set designs but in this video he keeps it relatively simple. Check out Jay’s lighting scheme for this 50′s style shoot.
50′s Shot using a Beauty Dish & OctoDome. from Jay P. Morgan on Vimeo.
I am happy to say that our contest is finally over and Paddy Fernandez has won by a landslide (93 votes, Sans was second with 51). As promised, Paddy will get to choose between a Nikon D300s or a Canon 7D. With this camera we hope that Paddy will continue to create BTSVs for us and now they will be in beautiful HD.
I know that the voting for this contest has not gone as smoothly as we all would have wanted but we can say that there was no cheating involved and we jumped the gun when we paused the contest. In the future we will probably have some sort of celebrity judge panel for our big contests to keep issues like this from happening.
Please congratulate Paddy and give us ideas for the next contest in the comment box below. Also, don’t forget about our monthly photography contest.
BTS – Football Composite from Paddy Fernandez on Vimeo.
Chase Jarvis has started a really cool idea called Creative Live in which he gives back helpful information to other creative individuals. In this video Chase sits down with Jasmine Star who is one of the top wedding photographers in the business. I first came across Jasmine through David Jay and instantly fell in love with her. I love how they express their frustrations with living a typical 9 to 5 lifestyle and how professional photography allowed them to live the life they wanted to live. Just like them, I too went to school for something compeletely opposite of photography, and it was conversations like this that eventually lead me to change my career path to become the photographer I am today.
Chase says it really well when he says, “There is no prescription for how you get to become a photographer.” This video is not about fstoppers and shutterspeeds but rather about how to take control of your life and your passions and turn them into a business. I know wedding photography often gets a bad wrap but through wedding photography, I have been able to support myself financially every weekend and still have time to pursue other fields of photography during the week. Jasmine Star’s story is about as good as it gets, and it’s inspiring to hear her share her success story with everyone so candidly. I hope you guys enjoy this video as much as I have and I’m only half way through it!
