Articles from Rebecca Britt

Lenovo, a worldwide computer company that manufacturers laptops, have gathered fifteen of what they believe are the best college filmmakers for their 'Seize the Night' Alternate Ending challenge. One of the contestants is a graduate of the University of Alabama (now a film student at USC), Xavier Burgin. His entry into the competition is called 'Do'. Shot with a Canon 5D MarkII and a Canon T2i, this is definitely a forerunner in the contest.

For the yet unreleased October 'survival' issue of Backpacker magazine, adventure  photographer, Bud Force, decided instead of having a model dangling perilously off of a cliff  that he would do a creative composite. He shot the background at 'El Capitan' peak in Guadalupe Moutains National Park and the subject at Mineral Wells State Park.

Earlier today news broke out about Nokia and their Lumia 920 simulation video not being exactly forthright. The video before the shameful reveal had no indication that it wasn't filmed with the actual product that it was marketing. When reddit.com  users got their hands on the video they quickly noticed that the reflection in the video is not of a person filming with a mobile phone on a bicycle, but of a man in a van with what looks to be at least a DSLR sized camera with what seems to be some type of Gyro-stabilization system.

We all know that fashion and glamour photography can be controversial at times. First with Kate Upton's horribly retouched cover of Sports Illustrated, then with the leak of Victoria's Secret's untouched photos and their debatable over-retouch of Lais Ribeiro earlier this month. Well, now it seems to be Vogue magazine that's the culprit, and their celebrity of choice... the eccentric Lady Gaga.

There always comes a time while you're surfing the web looking for inspiration that you stumble upon something so striking that it just blows you away. You sit back and wonder... 'How in the world did they manage that?' Jean Osipyan, a professional fashion photographer from Armenia and now based out of Russia takes the extra steps from ordinary to extraordinary in his retouching.

On March 2011 a tsunami in Japan killed over 20,000 people and left thousands more homeless and destitute. Many people from all over the world came together to help the country of Japan during this catastrophic event. All Hands Volunteers was one of the many groups in that helped during the recovery and cleanup efforts.

Follow The Mill Visual Effects Studio, a leading CGI and special effects global company as they walk you through the Norfolk Southern campaign, "City of Possibilites'. Computer generated imagery has always astounded me in how much processing it takes to get the final result. The great folks at the Mill explain how they the start by conceptualizing each character then moving on to shooting the live action scenes, and then finally blending the final animations into the scenes flawlessly.

John Carpenter. His name is synonymous with fear. The films he has made in the last 40 years has been the cause of both delight and terror in several generations. 'The Thing' used to have me scrambling under the covers at night during my childhood while 'Big Trouble in Little China' had me laughing at jokes I was still too young to understand. Follow Kyle Cassidy as he photographs John Carpenter in the author's music room for his series of fantasy and science fiction writers in their creative spaces called: Where I Write.

Last week Lee Morris posted a few behind the scenes images of Annie Leibovitz's latest Disney Campaign featuring Russell Brand as the villainous Captain Hook and funnymen Jack Black, Will Ferrell and Jason Segel as the hitchhiking ghosts from 'The Haunted Mansion' ride.  Here are two behind the scenes videos of each photoshoot respectively. 

A few days ago I posted part one of the almighty Great Camera Shootout 2012 by Zacuto. In the last video it introduced nine clips by nine different cameras by nine different cinematographers. In this video the cameras are revealed in the blind testing that literally traveled across the world. Meet the Cinematographers who worked with each camera and watch how they used their designated cameras and their preferences in lighting and post.

Aerial Cinematography has always been a fascination of mine. Aerial shots tend to easily blow away normal stationary ground shots I find, but I've always wondered how people achieved such amazing footage and what they used. Follow Josh Lambeth from Birds Eye Productions as he sits down along with his crew and explains exactly what they use and how they use it to gain access to the sky and have their cameras airborne.

A cinematographer's job is to bring the director's vision of a story to life. A hard, but rewarding job indeed. With the wide availability of high definition cameras right at the masses' fingertips, the art of cinematography is growing and changing constantly. I myself have always been fascinated by how different cinematographers interpret light, color and mood. Zacuto is back with its Emmy award winning web series, The Great Camera Shootout. This year though they've gone in a different direction. 

Red Bull is about to attempt a feat never accomplished before. Stratos is the name of the project where Red Bull will attempt to have Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian skydiver, free fall over 22 miles above the Earth and in the process break the speed of sound. The video shows the video and photography equipment, including 15 cameras, used to document the entire thing which is planned to go off around December.

Video games just as photography has grown at an exponential rate. Technology has allowed both to jump leaps and bounds in quality over the past few years, so it only makes sense that eventually the two would merge at one point. Introducing 'In-Game Photography', a new form of photography that seems to be spreading in interest among gamers across the world.

Join the  MacGillivrays of One World One Ocean  as they take you under the sea and into 'inner space'  to document NASA's NEEMO 16 mission (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations). Aquanauts are sent to Aquarius (the world's only undersea laboratory) to live underwater for two weeks which can simulate living on a space station.  

Music and visual components have always been used together as a form of art, most famously in the music video. As technology expands so does the way we use it for expression. The people over at Frucor (V Energy Drinks) recently challenged Joel Little, lead singer of Goodnight Nurse, to create a single track that could be played (mixed) live using only a body's movements in this unique musical and visual journey of a marketing campaign. 

I'm all about getting the shot that you need in camera as much as possible. If you can achieve an effect in front of your camera and spend less time in Photoshop then the more the better. Sasha Leahovcenco  recently shot an ad for Vater Percussion with Mike Johnston. In this behind the scenes video he explains everything that he uses to create the shots, even explaining why he decided to go natural lighting on the main ad shot itself. 

Probably the most anticipated movie of the summer, The Dark Knight Rises, is sure not to disappoint. I have always been a long time fan of Christopher Nolan's style of film-making and his practical approach to filming special effect scenes. In this in-depth 13 minute making of featurette Christopher Nolan and his crew talk about the scope of filming a movie this size, the scale of the locations and how important it is to them to try to film all of their special effects in camera decreasing the amount of CGI used in post. 

Follow Pantene Hair as they film Natalie Coughlin, eleven time Olympic medalist for USA Swimming (3 Gold, 4 Silver, and 4 Bronze) in their latest ad campaign featuring Olympic athletes for their Daily Moisture Renewal product line. Shot in two days in December of 2011 in Northern California and released in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics they use some impressive rigs and blue screens in this shoot. 

Polishing your photos for the world to see is an important step in a photographer's workflow. Retouching can both be a photographer's favorite step in the process or can cause a massive headache. Framed Network has interviewed Fstoppers' very own, Pratik Naik, for their web series of artistic professionals. His work has graced the pages of ELLE, Maxim, Vouge and Marie Claire upon others. Pratik was kind enough not to just give an interview with Framed, but also give the audience a small look into his daily routine of retouching. 

I know that I've posted other reviews about the FS700, but with this camera being a less expensive alternative to other high frame rate camera, the more reviews I see the more excited I get about it. Andrew Young from Archipelago Films was also able to get his hands on a pre-production copy of the Sony NEX-FS700 for four days.

Takealot.com is South Africa's leading online retailer. Follow the brand as they unveil their new marketing spokesmen or cavespokesman or perhaps it's spokescaveman. Watch as you meet the marketing team as they prep makeup and show a bit of outtakes and product photography with the characters of the new ad campaign. 

Recently a customer from Toronto asked the people at McDonald's why the photos on the fast food giant's advertisements look nothing like the real thing you order in the drive-thru. The Canadian branch of McDonald's offered this behind the scenes video as their reply.

Typically, when you see timelapse videos it's of beautiful metropolitan skylines, celestial light painting or visions of nature, but Youtuber, Dsnedit (Daniel Navarrete), decided what better place to do a timelapse than the quintessential childhood staple, Disneyland. It is after-all the happiest place on earth (or so Disney tells us).

Portrait orientation captured on mobile devices. Your Facebook newsfeed is riddled with this horrible phenomenon. You know it's wrong, but you're not quite sure how to tell your social media buddies that they're committing a video faux pas. If you feel apprehensive bringing the subject up in fear of being ridiculed as a camera phone nazi, then look no further.

Follow world-renowned landscape photographer, Peter Lik, as he captures one of the wettest places in the continental U.S., the Pacific Northwest. After having a record breaking year in rainfall Peter threw on his raincoat, slipped on his rain-boots and headed to Oregon to photograph the subsequent breathtaking scenery. Enjoy as he shows what you have to sometimes endure to get some amazing photographs. 

The Sony NEX FS700 is probably one of the most anticipated video camera releases of the year, and with a price point of $8,000 it's not very hard to see why. Legendary Cinematographer, Philip Bloom, recently got his hands on a pre-production version of the Sony NEX FS700 for review.