Behind The Scenes

You may remember Canon's promo video for the 5d Mark III that I posted a couple of weeks ago, which showcased the, ehem, interesting sport of Radball. Love it or hate it, I think we can at least agree that it was pretty entertaining. Canon recently released a companion to the promo video which goes behind the scenes into the filming of the piece.

The crew for Travel Channel’s television show, "No Reservations" with Anthony Bourdain have started posting BTSVs on their Road Bite TV, YouTube Channel. This is an interesting and entertaining look at what the crew, from producers to cameramen, have to go through while traveling the world. Check out the first four videos and decide if life on the road is for you.

DSLR guru Phillip Bloom recently worked on a short scifi film that used the new Canon C300 as it’s primary camera. While the short film isn’t finished yet, this behind-the-scenes video has been released for everyone to see. While it’s quite long, it’s a unique inside look at how the director worked with the crew and what it was like to be on set.

I know that we've experienced a pretty big spate of aviation-related posts over the past few weeks. Anyone else getting sick of them? No? Good. Me neither. Here's another one that is just too cool, and makes me way too jealous.

If you grew up during the late 1980s through early 1990s, then you can remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Using a combination of action figures, about 60 hand-drawn backdrops, and over 4,000 individual images, director Kyle Roberts pays tribute to this classic cartoon with a stop motion animation. This is one you won't want to miss.

Good friend of Fstoppers and Commercial Photographer, Monte Isom, takes us behind the scenes on his latest shoot with world class boxer, Sergio Martinez. Click through to the video to check out his lighting placement and setups. Enjoy!

Shot with the Red MX Camera, director Andrew Huang created this incredible short film about the gaps between people and the way those gaps are filled. Solipsist is the antithesis of human connection. This video had me glued as the models swayed back and forth in a Yin & Yang fashion, often times co-creating each other.

Haristobald's photostream has some interesting shots in it but what is more interesting is how he produced them. Using an old school, overhead projector, A4 sized transparencies, a strobe and a bit of mechanical know how, Haristobald can now transform his environment and his models. See behind the scenes of his latest Superman shoot and jump into the full post to see a video on how he modified an archaic device into a useful photography tool.

Benjamin Von Wong just hit me up, from his facebook account, to let me know his latest BTSV is out. His 9th, here on Fstoppers, if I counted correctly. And this time no one had to be set on fire but they did have to bend over backwards.
Enter contorsion artist, Myriam Deraiche.

Commercial photographer Dean Bradshaw provides us with a unique perspective of his recent photo shoot for "Startrac". The shoot involved a handful of athletes being shot while mock competing in their individual sports. The athletes were shot in a controlled environment and then composited into different backgrounds in post.

In this behind the scenes video, Jay P Morgan shows us how he combined natural light and strobes to get that perfect shot while on location. First, he starts by determining where the sun is going to set on the horizon by using the very handy iPhone app, Sunseeker. For this project, he was shooting stills as well as video, which can get a bit tricky. Using a Kessler Crane he was able to get the video shots just before sunset. After the sun started setting he pulled out the strobe lighting; two Hensel Porty L 1200 kits. If you enjoy this video be sure to check out some of his other...

Rick Genest (aka Zombie Boy) is nothing if not intense. The 26-year-old Canadian fashion model is tattooed head to toe to look like a decomposing corpse, representing “the art of the rotting cadaver.” Genest, who you may recognize from Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” video, spent over 6 years and thousands of dollars on his body art project, so who better to star in a commercial for tattoo-cover-up cosmetic company Dermablend?

Who doesn’t love watching the X Games? Those athletes are crazy. Just as captivating, though, is this behind-the-scenes two-part video on The Northface and X Games Baldface commercial. Director Todd Jones pulls out all the stops in this two part BTS documentary, breaking out a Phantom HD Gold, a helicopter, and building one really enormous jump.

Brothers Will and Matt Burrard-Lucas make quite the team. They're wildlife photographers based in Britain who have devised some clever means to get closer to some of the world's most dangerous animals. In 2009, they created a remote-controlled camera nicknamed BeetleCam and set out to photograph animals in their natural habitat. Armed with the knowledge they gained from the first trip, they went back a second time, and their results are nothing short of stunning.

It goes without saying that besides the Superbowl commercials, we can pretty much expect the same run of the mill advertisements. Whether it's cartoon bears with toilet paper stuck to their butts, or of babies talking like grown adults, this commercial really blew them all out of the water. Advertising film director, Bruno Aveillan, (along with a crew of about 50 people) spent two years putting together this epic 3.5 minute journey celebrating the 160 year history of luxury jeweler, Cartier.

Hasselblad Master, Joao Carlos, was featured on the Profoto Blog last week for his free falling studio images. That's right, studio images. Not underwater images. I met Joao in NYC last fall at PDN PhotoPlus and fell in love with his portfolio right away. He always lights his subjects with a minimalist approach and his workflow is powerful and consistent.

This is a series of videos that make up a fascinating 90-minute documentary about the great Richard Avedon. It's called "Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light," and first aired back in 1995 as part of the American Masters Series. If you're like me, you could spend hours watching things like this.

As a photojournalist for the NY Post, I got to see and encounter some CRAZY stuff, and it sure sharpened my skills as a photographer and as a New Yorker in general. In D. Perez De La Garda's film, "Chimping" you get take a behind the scenes look at the life of the photojournalist. This short film features Pulitzer Prize winners Preston Gannaway and Rick Loomis, Emmy Award winner Paula Lerner, along with Todd Maisel, Chris Usher, Angela Rowlings, Edward Greenberg, Stan Wolfson, and Rita Reed. Worth a watch for sure if you are interested in what goes into shooting for a paper or publication. Enjoy!

It's crazy to compare todays advertising campaign's to those of 30 years ago. They are becoming more involved, creative and technically advanced than we could have ever imagined. In this video, Photographer Tim Macpherson takes us behind the scenes on the new campaign for the fabric company 'Sunbrella' which was shot and filmed in South Carolina! While this video lacks technical information, it is still really awesome to see how much planning and time it took just to film and shoot one simple scene.

In this hilarious spoof on Dell Inspiron, European photographer, Clayton Sotos, begins explaining that his father bought him a camera out of the blue and he’s been taking photos ever since. From there he blabbers on about how using Dell products helps him to communicate his passion or whatever (00:001-02:00). Then… it gets weird. I won’t spoil the joke—you just have to watch the video. (And no, Dell didn’t actually produce it.) Enjoy!

This video from Smarter Every Day shows how you can capture any gun's flame throwing abilities with precise accuracy. Using a Pulse Generator, Destin explains how he rigged his flash setup to fire at the exact moment the gun is fired. By dragging the shutter and combining the exposure with flash, the Alabama native created some pretty interesting photographs. Some even show the bullet leaving the muzzle!

Last week Pocket Wizard released all the specs for their new PocketWizard Plus III Transceivers. Along with the specs being released, so have a bunch of BTS videos and reviews. Our friends over at the McNally camp did their own testing on many of the features on the new PW3 as well. [Pre-order your PW3 here]. Enjoy!