Recent Videography Articles

Adam Epstein Breaks Down the Six Rules for Cinematic Editing

For video editors and filmmakers alike, understanding the power of the cut is important for telling the most compelling, informative, and/or emotional story. In this video excerpt from MZed, professional editor Adam Epstein (known for SNL and Killing Gunther among other things) provides some thoughtful insight on six rules for cinematic editing, as referenced from award-winning film editor Walter Murch.

This Video Shows You an Astronaut's View During a Spacewalk

Back in March of this year, ESA Astronaut Thomas Pesquet and NASA Astronaut Shane Kimbrough went for a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. Pesquet recorded the walk, and the footage is truly astounding.

A Real Life Mario Kart Behind The Scenes

Many of the posts we have seen here lately on Fstoppers have been heavily influenced by Freddy Wong and the amazing special effects videos on his YouTube channel. Now Freddy has tackled something very sacred to us all: something that might still keep some die hards up late in to the morning. Anyone giving homage to Wario or Donkey Kong, the two best characters in the game, will always get two big thumps up from me. If you want to see the final Real Life Mario, click on the full post after watching this great BTS video.
Lighting-Fast 4K Video Editing on a Small and Portable External SSD

In 2021, editing 4K, 6K, and even 8K videos has become more common, even for YouTube creators. Unfortunately, the higher-quality video also requires faster and larger hard drives. If you are looking for a 4T B external NVMe SSD that works on both Mac and Windows, you are in luck.

New Samsung Pro-Level SD Cards are Winners

When it comes to camera memory cards, most of us gravitate towards Sandisk and Lexar. Maybe PNY or Sony too. Samsung has been making memory cards for other companies for quite some time, but only recently have they decided to branch out and brand them as Samsung. So how do they perform? Surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly, quite well.

Architecture in Motion: Emile Rafael

When it comes to shooting homes, Emile Rafael takes it to the next level. As a real estate photographer and videographer, I see the potential in shooting videos for agents; the only problem is they don't typically want to pay much, and they need things turned around fast. This is something where the agent could be taking a risk and receiving a quality product, but it does not seem to be so common.

Directing Video, a Photographer's Perspective

When I was young, I first fell in love with photography as a kid in summer camp. I then went home and started pouring over the Time Life Photography books from the local library. All through grade school and high school I stayed up countless nights studying, reading, and learning everything I could about great photographers and their amazing photographs.

SOLOSHOT: Now You Can Film Yourself Without Bugging A Friend

Have you ever wanted to film yourself while doing a photoshoot for some behind the scenes action, but not one of your videographer buddies wanted to get away from whatever indie marathon was running that weekend and help you film it? Well, now with SOLOSHOT you don't have to worry about picking up the phone and degrading yourself by begging to your cinephile friends, you can do it yourself.

The Sharp 8k Camcorder: The Future of Broadcast?

Sharp made a new camera—well, not a camera per se. It’s a camcorder. But that doesn’t really sum up what it is. Sharp made an 8k camcorder that’s decidedly not for cinematographers. Also, it’s $77,000. In short: I have many questions about all of this.

Do You Need to Be a Dick to Be a Successful Leader?

Think about some great leaders that you know. Are they kind of an a-hole? Film Director Max Joseph noticed a trend in the industry where it seemed as though the more abrasive and cutthroat someone was, the more successful leader they were. After his own experiences directing a film, he decided to explore this topic and produced an entertaining and insightful documentary about what it takes to get to the top. If you've ever directed a film, video, or photoshoot, there are quite a few nuggets of inspiration in this short that might help you to become a better leader yourself on your next project. Warning, some language is NSFW.

"Cymatics" Music Video Uses Science to Visualize Sound

Visualization of sound frequencies using physical media is nothing new. We’ve seen it done by Martin Kilmas with his “Sonic Sculptures,” and we have seen videos in which a stream of water appears to be frozen in space (done by matching the sound frequency to the camera’s frame rate.) However, this is the first time I have seen so many of these tricks put together in such a high quality and artistically filmed video.

[Video] See 3 Top Photographers Shoot it Out : GPP2012

This years GPP2012 Shoot-out that pitted David Hobby, Martin Prihoda and Gregory Heisler against one another was brilliant. All three photographers approached their respective photos from completely different points of view, using completely different techniques, resulting in an enlightening experience for all. Don't get me wrong, last year's shoot out was great too but his one has definitely encouraged me to make plans to attend GPP2013 in Dubai, featuring workshops, seminars and talks by the world's best photographers.

Effective Techniques for Video Recording Interviews

Interviewing interesting people can be an awesome experience that when done right, will provide impactful insight to your next video project. When done wrong however, you may find yourself asking the client for a do-over or spending hours in the editing room cleaning up mistakes.

Important Filmmaking Advice From David Fincher

Have you talked to experienced filmmakers? It's like attending a miniature film school where you can almost get a degree. Here are a few solid tips from David Fincher himself that you can apply to to small productions you may be in charge of.

'Connectivity Lost': An Analog Short Film About the Digital Age

If you're like me, you have way too many apps on your smartphone. I know this might sound crazy coming from Fstoppers, but we really do rely too much on our phones. Yes, even the great iPhone 6s Plus. “Connectivity Lost,” by filmmaker Walter Stoehr, is a short showing what could go wrong if we depend on our phones too much.

Another Creative Way To Document A Vacation

For most people, their first attraction to a camera probably occurred during a vacation or a traveling trip. If you've ever had to sit through someone else's photo album of a trip, you know how excruciating and boring it can become. Well Rick Mereki and his friends Tim and Andrew decided to make a fun video documentary that proved to be anything but boring and mundane. This one minute clip shows what a little creativity can do to make a trip spanning over 40 days, 11 countries, and 38,000 miles as exciting for us as it was for them. We've featured other creative vacation videos in the past, and our goal is always to keep you guys inspired to do something interesting during every opportunity. Let's just hope Mr. Lee Morris is taking this to heart while in Italy :)

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Resource Magazine's Bill Nye BTS Shows the Process Behind a Magazine Feature Spread

Resource Magazine has a big issue out this quarter: Bill Nye is telling the world why photography will save it. Want to know the answer? You're going to have to grab this fall's issue of Resource. But a behind-the-scenes video of the photo shoot for this feature's spread shows just how much compositing there is in modern-day photography. Composited or not, the video is a quick, interesting look into a neat shoot with science's most famed personality.

Day One of Photo Plus Expo in New York City

Photo Plus Expo is upon us, and I'm here to give you an exclusive look at what all that happened yesterday. If you're in New York, you're highly encouraged to check out all that is happening. If you're not able to check it out, I am here to show you the new products, exclusive interviews and all the events and news going on in New York this week.

A Conversation with Ryan Muirhead on Finding a Calling

If you've had a chance to check out Framed Network's fabulous mini-series, Film, you'll be familiar with the awesome, inspiring work of Ryan Muirhead. Ryan's career as a photographer started only around five years ago, since then he's made quite a splash in the film-shooting (and otherwise) community and become a constant source of inspiration for me. In this interview he chats with The Artist Report about the importance of living in the present, embracing (or at least learning to live with) failure, and how he's gone about weighing what he wants to do against what he needs to. If you have an extra 25-odd minutes this afternoon I'd highly encourage you to check out this video, you may be a better photographer for it.

Behind the Scenes of Back To The Future Hoverboarding

Back To The Future may be my all time favorite series of movies. Ever since BTTF2, I've been patiently waiting for scientists to create a hoverboard but for some reason we still aren't there yet. When they filmed this iconic scene, CGI still was in its infancy and so good old fashion ropes and harnesses were used. In this video you can see this rig in its testing phase.

Benjamin Von Wong: Craziest Photo Challenge Ever

Von Wong, who you should all know by now -- if not from us, then from the million and one places he scurries around the world and online -- was given a challenge by a friend, Sebastien Roignant: "To shoot and edit an insane image involving two orcs, a witch king, warrior, villager and a cinema theatre...all in 4 hours without having any information ahead of time." Von Wong is also up for a [Framed] award for best conceptual photographer this year. Vote for him here.

Get Started With Shooting Video By Learning How to Control Exposure

Whether you’re picking up a camera for the first time to shoot video or you’re coming from the photography side and could use a guide to translate what you already know into videography terms, this video has you covered on the exposure basics.

Adobe Adds More Features to Premiere Pro & After Effects

This week at NAB, Adobe Premiere and After Effects are getting some new features, including Live Text Templates (After Effects text effects can be directly edited in Premiere), and keying effects in After Effects to provide better keying results with compressed footage among a host of other improvements.