Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes. – Jack Handey

(My writery friend Kallie Markle and I co-wrote this note)

Dear Clients,

Let’s talk about FEEDBACK. No, not the kind you hear in a movie when someone taps a microphone, the kind that you, clients, give when reviewing your Creative’s work. We want to help you give more constructive critiques. Why? Because proper feedback leads to happy Creatives, and happy Creatives do better work, which makes you look good.

Unfortunately the opposite is also true. Over the years we have received some truly terrible feedback from clients- critiques that sucked all passion out of the project and words that sent us into spirals of self-doubt and bitterness. Bad feedback isn’t from clients being malicious or moronic (at least not most of you), it’s just that when it comes to feedback … YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.

So here are some tips for keeping your Creatives fed and watered and your project on track!

1. STAY POSITIVE
Yes, we Creatives are an odd bunch. We wear funny glasses, drink weird coffee and nano brews, and have heated conversations about music and fonts. But the truth of the matter is that underneath all the tattoos and scarves, we are vulnerable idealists trying to make a living on a BA in art, literature, or film studies. We’re much more fragile than we look.

You see, if your Creative is any good at all, they’re pouring themselves into the work. They see your project as an opportunity for self-expression, a challenge to channel their best into your needs.

You know the little kid that runs to show his parent his crayon drawing? Yep, that’s us. That’s exactly how your Creative feels when they send you a professionally-worded, business-y email titled, “first cut” or “rough draft.” They are actually saying, “Look I drawed you a picture!” So be gentle. You don’t want your Creative to become beat down, because then your project will suffer.

The ol’ compliment sandwich will go a long way in keeping your Creative on track, especially since Creatives love sandwiches. A compliment sandwich is a grass fed, humanely raised critique delivered between two whole grain compliments. (Here’s a better explanation).

You chose your Creative based on work you liked in their portfolio, they will have used similar techniques for this project, and you will no doubt find something you like in this rough cut/crayon drawing of you with only three fingers, standing on a unicorn. Show your Creative that you appreciate the work they’ve done so far. Do this EVERY time you send feedback.

Instead of “I don’t like it. I don’t get it. This is not at all what I was expecting. It’s creepy.” *ACF (*actual client feedback) Try: “Thanks for the review and thank you for putting so much hard work into this. Here are a few items to address…. It’s looking good so far.” Accentuate the positive and position yourself as a collaborator to be trusted, vs a grump to be feared. Be gracious and positive and your Creative will gladly jump through hoops for you, like the needy, crayon-wielding juveniles that we are.

A note about egos: it may seem that Creatives are holding your project hostage, demanding you hover over us, stroking our hair and saying, “oh wow, everything you’re doing is brilliant.” Not at all. We’re very particular about our hair being touched, but also: the uniquely personal nature of our work is nearly impossible to ignore. We can’t put our hearts into the work without taking the critiques to heart. One of our betters had a term for splitting up the soul like that: she called it ‘making a horcrux’, and it was bad.

2. SPEAK SUBJECTIVELY
Which color is better, green or blue?

Art is something we experience; it’s subjective. What I think is the perfect music for an edit you might find dull. Maybe the photo is working for you, but it’s too ordinary to me. That’s OK! I’m OK and you’re OK! That’s the beauty of art, and that’s why it’s important to keep subjectivity in mind when phrasing feedback. Don’t make unequivocal statements like, “the music is bad”, “that unicorn isn’t believable” or “this effect evokes serial killers”* *ACF. When you speak in absolute, objective terms, you close the door to alternative approaches, and you imply that there is only one, “right” way to accomplish the goals: your way. Your Creative will wonder why you hired her/him at all. This is frustrating to Creatives and a surefire way to get Comic Sans on your next version.

Instead, speak subjectively … say things like, “the music felt a little slow to me”, “I think the unicorn may be a stretch” or “I don’t understand this effect.” That this is your experience is indisputable, and reminding Creatives that you are “experiencing” their work will allow them to try seeing things from your perspective. Remember, preference does not equal correctness; no color is better than the next. Speak subjectively and your Creative won’t feel like you’re steamrolling over their vision. Plus, (some???) Creatives love explaining their processes, so inviting them to dialogue about their hows and whys will build rapport.

3. LET US DO THE WORK
When you say: “Their faces seemed dark. I lightened them in Photoshop and attached an update.”(*ACF) We hear: “Your work is so easy anyone can do it. Must be nice getting paid to sit around and play with software.”

We know you’re excited to show that you have some editing chops, you’re handy with a DSLR, or that you write the company newsletter, but when you start doing work for us it makes us feel cheap. It implies that we’re just pixel pushers, font flippers, or glorified thesuari and that the art we pour into your project is nothing more than a cheap commodity that you could buy anywhere. This is related to the next point…

4. DON’T OFFER SOLUTIONS
Imagine if your Creative told you, “This annual report we’re animating seems too similar to last year’s. I’ve worked up some sales strategies to better source the overseas markets and spice things up for next year’s numbers.” You would laugh, screech, or roll your eyes. When you tell your Creative, “It’s trite, so I’ve written a few lines and you can work those in,” you are being screeched and laughed at- silently if it’s a teleconference or meeting, quite loudly if it’s over email.

Creatives understand that projects are processes, and they are balancing many factors you probably don’t see. Let them filter those factors to find the best solution. After all, creative problem solving is not just our favorite pastime, it’s our job.

5. DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
Here’s a little secret that Creatives know and [usually] accept: the project will never turn out exactly like we’re picturing it in our heads and hearts. As hard as we strive to realize our visions, there are constraints to moving a vision from the ether of our imaginations onto the page, sound wave, or screen. Things get lost and left along the way. Keep in mind that what your Creative delivers to you is never going to exactly match what you’re picturing in your head. It can’t, because that’s impossible. If you are constantly measuring drafts against an arbitrary memory of a once dreamt vision, it doesn’t matter what the Creative turns in, you’ll never be satisfied.

Your role is to identify a strategy (preferably before any creative work is done) and determine if your project is on strategy or not. We’re really sorry to break it to you but whether you personally like the creative direction ultimately doesn’t matter. Unless you are a wealthy landowner in the 15th century who has commissioned an artist to paint your likeness with oil on canvas, then you’re not the target audience. Stay big-picture with the project, make sure it’s on track, and make sure it’s capturing the brand’s voice. Don’t offer quibbling requests like “make the logo bigger” or “sound smiling but not too happy.” Insisting on minutia like this undermines your credibility as a collaborator and it’s simply not your job. That’s why you hired a Creative: they know this stuff better than you. Trust them!

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for a unified vision, but it does mean that, as a client, you should let go of the little details. Measure against the goals and strategy that you [hopefully] set and communicated before you started the project. Is the message of the piece loud and clear? If yes, then, congratulations, you master of unicorns! You and your adorable, weird Creative are on the road to a successful project that will send next year’s sales numbers through the stratosphere, ensuring you a promotion and your Creative more exposure on YouTube!

— Your Creative wants to make money by making art. They can only make money when clients are happy, and they can only make art when they are happy. If you want your project to be a work of art, keep your Creative happy. Everyone wins, everyone gets a unicorn. Here, I drawed you a picture.

PIT Las Vegas – Director’s Cut from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Wow is this really my first post of 2013? For shame, Jesse. In my defense, I’ve been a bit busy – with projects like this! (OMG best segue ever)

The snippet I’m sharing here is the opener to a longer video about a fitness class called Pure Intensity Training. Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the decisions I made (lighting, framerates, editing, music) that lead to this particular look and feel.

Overall Direction: The class is aptly named. Pure Intensity Training IS intense. While it can accommodate anyone from beginner to elite athlete, there’s no escaping the fact that this class will kick your butt. My goal was to capture that “intensity” with the opener. I wanted to create something high-energy, aggressive, dynamic, and sweaty (but not TOO gritty.)

Content: So what am I going to shoot?  The class itself is chocked full of movement. It seemed like a no-brainer to showcase those moves with actual people from the class rather than try to illustrate “high-energy” with some other visual (ninjas? monster trucks? no.) And let’s be honest, budget and time is a huge factor here. We only had an hour to shoot this.

Style/Art Direction: Another differentiating element of the PIT class is the way they use “pure” movements – there’s no special training or gym equipment required. This is why I chose to keep the frame clean and clear, pure and simple. No backwall, no mirrors, no slowly rotating gym fans. Just bodies and movement.

(Red Epic with 24-70mm. Convenient and terrible lens)

Lighting: There was no key light in this shoot, just two kickers in the back. Any front light came from the kickers reflecting off the gym floor and bouncing back into the talent’s face. This type of lighting served the piece in a few ways.

1. This is a showcase of movement and sweat, not specific people. Lighting the edges meant the viewer’s eye is drawn more to the outline of the body rather than people’s faces.

2. Using hard lights, and putting them at such an oblique angle created shadows and texture that really helped highlight muscles and lines. Wanna look extra buff? Take off your shirt in front of the bathroom mirror and use your iPhone to light yourself 90 degrees from one side (or above). Every little bump is now defined with a shadow. Now put your shirt back on, please. And maybe eat a salad.

3. Lastly, don’t over estimate the “it looks cool” factor. Edge light is edgy, duh.

I used two 400 watt jokers in the back, both at about 45˚ from the subject. I was shooting at 110fps with 180˚ shutter so needed a lot of light. Ultimately I would have preferred a couple of 800 watt jokers and a little more diffusion back there to help the light spread across the talent more evenly.

(400 Watt Joker Pars in the back)

Music and editing: Dub step seemed like a good mix between rock and dance. Fitness and fashion seems to lean more toward dance/house music. And when I think of “pumping iron” I think of aggressive rock music. This dubstep track sat right in the middle. As for editing, I try so hard to avoid speed-ramps but felt it was necessary with this edit. It seemed to “ramp” up the intensity and was a good transition between furious realtime and poetic slow-motion.

Ok, thanks for reading. For the record, when approaching a new project I don’t necessarily start with categories like this. I start with “you know what might be cool” then work backwards to make sure the idea fits within the project goals.

Jesse out.

There was wine involved in the hatching of this idea. So it’s only fitting that this film was paired with a little bit of cheese. What can I say? I’m a softie for this dog. Here’s a picture from the wrap party with our enormous cast and crew. Looking forward to working with this talented actress again even if she is a little bitch.

I spent last October zipping around Europe with my significantly lovely other on a pair of motorcycles. We did the Europe sampler: Germany, Switzerland, a corner of France, Northern Italy, and Austria. It was my first time in Europe and I was thrilled to do it on two wheels.

I wanted to create something different with this video (in addition to not spending too much time shooting on vacation). My goal was to combine the inherent nostalgia of photographs with the storytelling power of motion and sound. The result is a unique look at our trip that might induce seizures.

UPDATE:
Technical details are boring. Nevertheless, this video is a little unique and probably deserves a little deconstruction.

I took three cameras with me on this trip: GoPro Hero2, Fuji x100, and, as always, the iPhone. The motion sections of this vid where shot with the GoPro in 0.5 time lapse mode. That’s one picture every half second. Most of the B&W snaps where from the other two cams.

Not every shot worked at 2fps. I had to take special care to move slow and smooth, always leaving something consistent in frame for the eye to follow. I think the jumpiness worked stylistically and I tried to match that feel with the way I edited the piece. There were a few shots that I really liked but were just too jittery so I stabilized them with the old-school motion tracker in After Effects. Warp Stabilizer didn’t work. It had seizures.

Speaking of post, the nice thing about shooting 11mp stills (I opted for 5mp to save space) is that my footage was essentially 4k. Not a bad output from such a little camera. I used After Effects to assemble the stills into 12fps video clips. I left the assembled video clips at their native resolution and aspect ratio of 4:3. This gave me the flexibility to zoom and reframe shots as necessary.

I think that about covers it? Hit me in the comments (or on Twitter) if you have more questions.

Hi. Watch this fun lil’ PSA I directed for Oregon Dental Association. It’s got hip-hop, dancing kids, and oversized toothbrushes. What more could you ask for? I know, right!? Honored to work with the mos deft Grady Britton to produce this. Brush yo’ TEEFS!

]]> http://jesserosten.com/2012/teach-me-how-to-brushy/feed 3 http://jesserosten.com/2012/tinytuts http://jesserosten.com/2012/tinytuts#comments Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:02:44 +0000 jesse http://jesserosten.com/?p=2132

Every New Year’s Eve my friends and I try to predict the future. We speculate on who will get married or pregnant, who will win the super bowl, whose Hollywood career will implode. We write it all down, read last year’s predictions, and eat lots of soup. Its fun.

One of my NYs rezzies was to blog more. Clearly, I have been shirking the task – only two posts thus far. But I have a plan to catch up on my sharing shenanigans. I started another site called TinyTüts (short for tiny tutorials). Over the next few months I’m going to attempt to empty my brain into bite sized video morsels showing you how I do some of what I do.

I have no goal other than to share. If there’s something you’ve been dying to know… CALL A DOCTOR! YOU’RE DYING! Then send me a message thru Twitter or Tumblr.

Cheers!

Building Houses by Wesley Jensen (from Battles EP)
Directed/Edited by Jesse Rosten

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A Few Details:
It’s hard to remember where I met Wes. We’re both from the same small town where everyone seems to know everybody. I remember seeing Wes in concert a few years ago and they played “Building Houses” as an encore. A shower of confetti accompanied the song. It was very moving. I suppose that’s where the confetti idea came from. I came up with the rest of the concept a little while later and, after about a year and a half, finally had the time and resources to get this one done.

I’m indebted to Rick Barram who was my goto guy for everything Civil War. Rick, along with the 72 New York Volunteer Infantry reenactors are the reason this video looks period correct. Thank you so much guys for helping make this. Also, huge thanks to Trevor Meier who flew down from Vancouver to be my right hand man during the shoot. He was an “Epic” help. Big ups to Tyler Faires, Lyn Rosten, Raul Gonzo, Anna Brown, and Josh Fulton, too. And, can’t forget my dad, who helped me make the confetti cannons we used during the battle scene.

Wouldn’t be a proper post without some goofy behind-the-scenes clips. This is probably less about the camera and lighting and more of a string of one-liners from my crew. They seriously crack me up.

This commercial isn’t real, and neither are society’s standards of beauty.

Click here to watch the behind the scenes vid!

Featuring:
Willow Brook
Carrie Salmon
Ashley Hermsmeier

Awesome Possums:
Script Consultant – Kallie Markle
3D Renders – Paul Conigliaro
Make Up – Anna Brown, Michelle Gallagher
Hair – Joanna Shea
Production Coordinator – Lyn Rosten
1st Cam – Tyler Faires
Gear Guru – Derek Sine
Voice Artist – Molly Jenson

A few easter eggs to watch for.
An orangutan
Richard Simmons
The Canadian Rockies
Texas litter
Tangerine Wheat
My Fair Ladybug
Baberaham Lincoln
Me at age 6
And of course, lots and lots of Stella. If you’ve met her, you know why.

Thank you friends old and new for making this a year to remember. Let’s make 2012 just as magical!

Love,
Yours Truly

It’s Sunday night and I’m leaving in the morning for a month-long trek on my motorcycle. The plan is to roll back to Minnesota (from California) with my dad for his 50th high school reunion, then split off and solo up through the Canadian Rockies and back down the west coast. The thought of a month on a moto gets me a wee apprehensive until I remind myself that I’ll never be more than a few hundred miles away from a Starbucks or a Walmart (shudder).

No, this is not a gear sponsored trip. Nope, not planning on timelapsing all 5000+ miles. Not even sure I’m going to take a camera other than my iPhone. I want to truly experience this trip instead of frantically trying to capture every second with thin-sliced DoF and hasty slider moves. I think sometimes it’s OK to just live in the moment and not worry about visually mediating the moment to others.

It will be challenging, maybe even numbing at times, but I’m definitely expecting an adventure. If you want snapshots from the road or the occasional update sprinkled with snark, follow me on Twitter: @jesserosten

Trying out a fun little app on this trip called Instamapper. As long as I have cell service (which might not be too often thanks to AT&T) you should be able to see where I am on a map. Special prize if you’re able to catch a pic of my bike. Here’s a shot of the BumbleBeemer all packed up and ready to roll. Why, yes, those ARE pelican cases on the side. Thank you for noticing.

(It’s a BMW R1200 GS for all you oilhead boxer fans out there. Thanks Lyn for the help with the pic. )

Got some great projects coming up when I get back. Ciao for now!

_

If you’re bored, here’s 20 minutes of me droning about some animation techniques.

I tell people I don’t really do motion graphics anymore, but After Effects, I can’t quit you! Awesome typography by Josh Markle.

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Big ups to Derek Sine for shooting some behind-the-scenes footage.

The Creative
Win-River Casino was looking to launch a campaign that took them back to their roots to connect with their core audience, the gamers. Now, if you’ve seen a casino ad before, you know they typically feature people who look nothing like casino regulars. When was the last time you visited a casino on a Tuesday afternoon and saw a group of sexy models ordering drinks and blowing kisses on dice? We wanted to play off of this glossy stereotype a bit and decided to create a spot showing ordinary people in extraordinary moments. Enter the high speed.

The High Speed Effect
Everyone looks cool in slow motion. Even your grandma would look like a badass if you filmed her in slow motion walking away from an exploding retirement home. There’s just something intrinsically dramatic about slow mo. I had a conversation with Greg, one of the grips on the shoot, about this topic. Greg’s theory is that when people watch something in slow motion, it engages the part of the brain that processes important, life-or-death information. You know when something dramatic or traumatic happens people say, “I felt like it was happening in slow motion”? Same thing. I have no scientific evidence for this theory, but it seems like a good hunch. At any rate, I was looking to use high speed to elevate the drama of these scenes and create a surreal perspective of the “jackpot” moment.

First Impressions
Ok, onto the technical stuff. The goto cam for this kind of work is usually the Phantom HD or, now, the Phantom Flex. I really, really wanted to use the Flex for this project since its native ISO 1000 would have been handy in the dimly lit casino. But, I just didn’t have the budget for that cam. I decided to go with the Photron BC2 at less than half the cost of the Flex. In a perfect world, budget wouldn’t matter, alas, you know the rest.

Here’s my overall impression of the Photron. It is a pretty capable cam, providing that you feed it enough light and don’t dink around too deep in the poorly designed and confusing software. We shot with Redpro Primes wide open and I was pleased with the sharpness of the 1080p uncompressed tiffs. It was sharp without looking “sharpened.”

Framerates
The camera shoots 1080p at up to 2000fps. Plenty fast for my purposes. As the resolution is decreased, the frame rates go up, all the way to 86,400fps at a postage stamp sized 256 x 32. Sidenote: filming 30 seconds at 86,000fps would give you 32 HOURS of 24p footage!

There is such a thing as too slow. For people, moving at typical “people-speed,” I found anything above 250fps started to look a little languid. I think a good slow motion shot is a balance between slowing down the subject matter, while retaining enough motion that the shot is still dynamic. Some of the closeup stuff in the restaurant (the dough and stir fry) we shot at 1000fps. The wine pour I shot at 1500fps but ended up speeding it up in post. (Will post the full restaurant spot when it’s ready)

Shutter Speed and Lighting
When you turn the camera on it makes the sound, “Nom nom nom” as it gobbles up all the available light in the room and cries, “Feed me MOAR!” Well, that’s not exactly fair considering it’s not so much the camera but the shutter speeds that eat the light. All but a few clips were shot with a 180 degree shutter so shooting at 1000fps meant the shutter speed needed to be 1/2000 sec. That’s an additional five and a half stops of light. This would be the equivalent of lighting 24fps to an ISO setting of 15. Even though the BC2 is rated to about 640 ISO, we were still blowing breakers on a few of the wide shots.

Workflow
Like most high speed cams, the Photron has an internal RAM buffer that has to be downloaded between each take. Unlike the Phantom, which can offload its clips to a proprietary Cinemag in a matter of seconds, the Photron is tethered to a laptop and needs minutes, precious minutes to offload. Downloads on this shoot took between 4 and 8 minutes each. That may not seem like a long time, but when you’re on set with a crew, clients, and hot lights starting to melt furniture, 4 minutes seems like an eternity. With this cam, there’s no such thing as, “Oh lemme just get a quick shot of that.”
Each take lives in a folder on the lappy’s external drive as a sequence of uncompressed 16bit tiffs. Before editing, I pulled the image sequences into After Effects, did a light color pass, and then exported to ProRes444.

Interface
The BC2 was driven by Photron software running on a PC. I hated it. It was messy, convoluted, and not exactly stable. The software clearly reflects the camera’s industrial beginnings with sciency features that I can’t imagine any cinematographer needing. While it wasn’t exactly user-friendly, it didn’t take long too long to find the settings that I needed to regularly access like, white/black balance, color temp, frame rate and resolution. A redesign of the software could make the camera so much easier to use. As it is right now, it’s not a cam you can rent without a tech, or a crash course in the software (I had the latter). The PC was the weakest link in this whole cameracomputer chain. At one point, the production ground to a halt because the AC power connector on the laptop was loose and wouldn’t keep the computer charged. Stress.

Final Thoughts
Overall, I think the BC2 is a really affordable way to make great high-speed images. It’s not the fastest workflow and I probably wouldn’t rent it again for a time sensitive shoot (anything with a call sheet and schedule). But if you’ve got lots of time and lots of light, the BC2 is a great option. It’s not exactly a straight forward workflow, but it’s not daunting either. I tell you though, someone needs to make a self-contained, all-in-one, affordable high-speed cam. Oh, look! Fastec is doing just that with their new TS3 camera, 720fps at 720p. Hoping to get my grubby mits on that cam when it comes out.

And that’s all I have to say about that. I leave you with one of my favorite :30 “spin offs” from this shoot.

Let’s talk about HDR. If you don’t know what HDR is, congratulations. Clearly you live in the real world and don’t spend much time online. Bring yourself up to speed by doing a quick search for the tag “HDR” on Flickr; you’ll find thousands of examples. Some of them are good, a lot of them are not so good. HDR is like the Sarah Palin of photo techniques, you either love it, or you hate it. Either way, it’s possible that your passion is misplaced. You see, HDR is not the culprit, it’s what you do with the HDR that creates the love-it-hate-it images.

First let’s define some terms. HDR means “high dynamic range.” That’s all it means. In the purest sense, there’s no such thing as “bad HDR.” High dynamic range isn’t good or bad, it simply is or isn’t. You CAN have high dynamic range and higher dynamic range, but you CAN’T have good high dynamic range, and bad high dynamic range. It doesn’t even make sense grammatically.

So how much DR before you can call it an HDR? Well, it’s relative. But in photographic terms, it’s safe to assume an HDR is any image that contains more dynamic range than what can be achieved in a single exposure. By taking multiple exposures, one can expose for the entire range of light in a scene and merge all that dynamic range into one, single, juicy, 32-bit, high dynamic range image. And you’ve got no way to view it.

No, seriously. There’s no way to view your 32-bit HDR cause there are no 32-bit display devices. Your computer monitor is only 8-bit (or 6, in some cases). Viewing a true HDR image on your computer monitor is like looking at a picture through a cardboard tube – you can only see 8 bits of it at a time. This is where tone mapping comes into play.

In order to display a 32-bit image on an 8-bit device, all those extra bits have to be squeezed, bent, tricked, and otherwise coerced into an 8-bit container. And just like how the alien bug from
Men in Black squeezes into his “Edgar suit,” the result is not always pretty. This Bendy McTrickybits process is called Tone Mapping. There’s good tone mapping and bad tone mapping (subjectively speaking, of course). Many people over do it by cranking the tone mapping to eleven. This what gives “HDR” photography a bad rap. But, remember, you’re not looking at an HDR image, you’re looking at a tone mapped image.

Now that we’ve got that all cleared up, lemme talk about this quick clip. I saw a video online recently of some “HDR Tonemapped” scenes. The gentleman who put it together referenced about 5 different pieces of software he used to get the effect. Seemed like a lot of exporting, importing, and reassembling. Being the workflow junkie that I am, it got me thinking, “there’s got to be a better way!”

The below clip was slapdashed together using only the shadow/highlight filter in Premiere (also found in After Effects). I’ve included a screen shot of my effect settings. Some people like this look. I don’t really, or at least not in the amounts that I’ve used it above.

Go, play. See if you can make something that actually looks good with tone mapping. You don’t necessarily need a crazy workflow full of still images and obscure software. Just use the shadow/highlights filter. But beware: scary, ugly, noisy monsters live in the shadows of your footage. Especially if you’re shooting HDSLRs with its less-than-ideal compression. It falls apart really quickly. Love it or hate it? Feel free to sound off in the comments.

Sometimes I think the creative process is akin to Frodo’s epic journey to return his bling to Mt. Doom. Frodo had the destination in mind, but no idea how to get there. The way was fraught with danger, despair, self-doubt, successes, failures, and giant hobbit-eating spiders (aka clients).

Just like Frodo, finding the path to your creative destination requires discovery and exploration. You’ll probably go down a lot of rabbit trails and dead ends before arriving. The more practice you have the better your sense of direction and intuition (don’t follow the lights), but there’s always an element of unknown when creating something new. The creative process is just that, a process.

This process of discovery is always evident when I’m in the editing stage of a project (NerdAlert: I use Final Cut Pro). For me, editing looks like this: I have a hunch, I try it then review. If it works, keep going. If it doesn’t work? Well, I back track and go a different direction. Slowly a path begins to emerge and by the end of the process my work space is littered with unsed chunks of ideas, directions, arcs, moments, colors, fonts, and empty cherry Diet Pepsi bottles.

OK, finally to my point. The video above is one of these leftover bits from the last project. I had a hunch, mocked it up in After Effects, then felt it was too flashy for the subject matter. So rather than let the clip sit unused and dejected on my hard drive, I’m going to set it free in hopes that you might be able to use it.

Unfortunately, it’s not exactly drag and drop project file. You’ll need After Effects CS5 and plugins Optical Flares and Trapcode Particular. If you have all of those you’re good to go. Change out the text. Put a video clip on the stage. Maybe add a crowd with waving hands. Feel free to tweak and modify however you see fit.

Stay tuned to this space. I’m rather enjoying giving stuff away. Hope to have more goodies for you in the near future.

There’s nothing sexy about gastroenterology, until now.

Wanted to share a lil’ project I created under the guidance of agency hotness Grady Britton from Portland, Oregon. Grady is chocked full of good people and good ideas. Their copywriting is so sharp (crowd: How sharp is it?) I had to wear protective goggles while editing.

March is colon cancer awareness month and this video is part of the microsite screeningisbelieving.com. Check it out. Get screened. Be alive.

Here’s the FAQ for the technical stuff.
Camera: Red One MX for easier overcranking.
Lighting: 2 Kino 4banks and a few fresnels.
Crew: Myself, Lyn, Keaten Abbott, and Patrick Eggert (thanks, guys)
Post: 1080p masters from Redcine edited in FCP. Color correction done with MB Looks and Colorista II.
Graphics: After Effects. Flash pops done with Optical Flares from videocopilot.net.

The process is simple. Take the lens off your camera and shine a light on the sensor until you see something you like. Or if you’re super lazy (like me) you can download a clip with all the light leaks I used in the film.

Drop it above your footage in your timeline, set the blending mode to screen or overlay, and season to taste. I used an LED light to make these clips so the footage is in the blue/magenta spectrum. Try putting a yellow tint on the footage for a more authentic look. Have fun!

I have a deep affection for the Redwood forests of Northern California. This is my best attempt to capture the reverence I feel when in the presence of these slumbering giants. My friend Kallie wrote this after our group’s annual camping trip to the coast. The words were too beautiful to ignore.

Presenting the continuing adventures of our wee beastie, Stella.

We shot this about 6 months ago for Sunset Magazine and have been keeping it on the down low while they used it internally. Excited to finally share.

Quick backstory: through the power of the Internets, Sunset Magazine (West Coast Lifestyle Magazine) found last year’s day-in-the-life flick of Stella and wanted something similar. The goal was to showcase a particular pet-friendly road trip in Northern California and Stella was just the dog for the job.

Since Stella responds best to her owners, I decided it would be most effective for Lyn and I to be out in front of the camera for this project. It was an interesting experience directing from the business end of the camera. Thankfully, I had the brotastic Tyler Faires lensing this one.

One of the unique challenges with this project was that all of the scenes needed to be in chronological and geographical order of the road trip (although I’ve deviated a little in the above “director’s cut”). It was a fun challenge to create something that is half narrative, half documentary, two-quarters music video, and seven-eigths social commentary on the proletariat exploitation of industrial unionism by the neo-Marxist class of socialist objectors. K, maybe not that last part. Just seeing if you were still reading.

I threw together a few behind the scenes clips since that’s what the kids do these days. Thanks for watching!

This was a relatively low budget project and I have many volunteers to thank for helping make this project happen.
Crew: Tyler Faires, Ryan Hutchinson, Foster Lovelace, and Daniel & Michelle Gallagher for helping shoot the last scene which was cut. Sorry guys, at least we got to hang out. Additional Thanks: Greg Dean from The Fly Shop, Sports LTD, Chester Chamber of Commerce, Treats Dog Company, Hat Creek RV and Resort,
Mt. Shasta Farmers Market, and Gawayne & Shelly, Chloe.

So, in the spirit of demystification, I’d like to deconstruct my latest commercial spot for you. If you think you might have the stuff to produce commercial work but aren’t sure where to start, maybe this’ll help. Maybe not. Dammit, Jim! I’m a filmmaker not a career counselor!

Have a look:

This particular spot can be broken down into 4 main elements.
1. The Copy – the words that are being said
2. Voice Over – the recording, or performance of the copy
3. Visuals – the stuff you see
4. Music and Sound – music bed and sound effects

If you’ve seen my portfolio you might correctly assume that I’ve worked with this client quite a bit. The message and branding have already been dialed in so I’m using those guidelines when developing the spot.

Now here are my secret weapons for each of these categories.

1. The Copy. I used to write all my own copy before I realized that there are much more talented people than I who actually LIKE writing scripts. After receiving the event details from the client, I wrote up some instructions and forwarded the details to my copy writer, Kallie. She’s worked with this client before and has the quirky Rolling Hills voice dialed in. By the way, Kallie is a pen-for-hire if you’re needing some deftly crafted prose or poetry for a project. You can find her on Twitter.

2. Voice Over. Once the script was approved by the client, I emailed it to Marketing Mania (mktmania.com). I’ve had the pleasure of working with this company for a few years now. They’ve done 95% of the VO work in my portfolio. Since we’d already cast a voice over artist for this client, the turn around was right quick. In less than 24 hours I had an MP3 of the final voice over. Use them. Tell Christina I sent you.

3. Visuals. No cameras were harmed, or even used, in the making of this commercial. This is all After Effects. Some artwork was provided by the client and the rest was created in software or sourced on iStockphoto. My goal was to create an interesting layout of content that illustrates the copy while leading the viewer’s eye through the spot in an engaging way. As you might imagine, this was the most laborious, time-consuming task of the process. The final visuals were assembled and timed in Final Cut Pro.

4. Music and Sound. Right now my favorite production music sites are Pump Audio, Non Stop Music, and Dewolfe Music. You buy only the song you need and pay based on use and distribution – pretty simple. Sound effects were all sourced through Sounddogs.com. Same search and purchase model.

That’s pretty much it.

Obviously, I’m simplifying the process a bit but these are the basic components used to create this particular commercial spot. Now you know (and knowing is half the battle). Feel free to use these resources on your own projects.

One last note: some of the sound effects I needed for this spot were a little specific so we had to roll our own. Thanks for the vocal help, friends.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A restless mind… or maybe too much late night pizza has you laying awake in bed. You decide that if you can’t sleep you might as well do something productive, so you fumble in the darkness for your iPad for one more round of Angry Birds. You power up and are instantly struck blind by a beam of light so bright that it burns “slide to unlock” into your retinas. You squint, roaches scatter, wife stirs, “Damn, that’s bright.”

Sound familiar? This happens to me too often. Eventually, it dawned on me that, given the right context, the iPad screen is actually pretty bright. I know that for a fact because I measured it with my light meter (1/60, f1.4 at ISO800 from about 1.5 feet). You know once the light meter has come out of the bag, there’s no going back. Naturally, we needed to do a photoshoot using iPads as the light source.

Luckily, I have friends who are very generous with their time and electronics and was able to scrounge up nine iPads. I mounted them onto plywood using some cheap hardware store brackets. This gave me three lights consisting of three iPads each. The light from an iPad is quite soft and diffuse. This makes the light fall-off steep. Adding more iPads didn’t translate to more brightness, but did mean we could light a larger area. Since the ‘Pads would need to be used somewhat close to the subject to get enough exposure, a simple, portrait style shoot seemed like the best option.

Now before the haters start commenting let me first agree with you, yes, this is totally impractical (sidenote: most of my best ideas are often also my worst ideas). Nine iPads will set you back around $4,500. That amount of money can buy you a LOT of lumens in the form of a generic monobloc. This is not intended to be an exercise in excess, but rather a self-imposed limitation to help flex the creative muscles, and to make a point.

Think about it. One 60 watt bulb can put out more light that a truckload of iPads. And you don’t have to spend truckloads of cash to find a 60 watt. This whole making art thing is all about what you do with what you have. We just happened to have a bunch of iPads laying around so we went with that. Today’s dSLR sensors are sensitive enough that you could easily do this with some flashlights, headlights, headlamps, real lamps, or even – heaven forbid – real strobes! Now go forth and do!

Props:
Model – Miranda Hull
Make up – Michelle Gallagher
Hair – Joanna Montemayor
iPad Propagator – Josh Markle
iPad Wranglers – Derek Sine, Corey Jindra
Videographer – Tyler Faires
Miracle Worker – Lyn Rosten

Let’s talk gear – cameras, lenses, lighting, software – we’ve got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty (and whozits and whatzits galore). I love gear. I really do. And it sure is fun to talk about. In fact, it’s easy to talk about because, for the most part, it’s objective. It’s easy to compare megapixels and millimeters because their values never change.

And talk we do! There are countless blogs and websites that review all the latest in filmmaking techowizardy and photographic doo-dadery. My Twitter stream is full of links to gear reviews, camera tests, and tech shoot-outs.

With all the talk about gear it’s easy to fall into the gear trap. It’s easy to believe that you’re being held back by not having the right piece of technology to tell your story or create your art. “If only.” If only I had an Epic. If only I had a 5DMkII. If only I had a new Mac, or a Steadicam Flyer, or that new plugin, or a tilt/shift lens… it’s a never ending, inexhaustible list of excuses for NOT making art.

But it’s not about the gear. I know that you know this. This is really just a reminder to myself. If you have a vision, if you have art inside you, it can (and will) find its way to the surface through whatever tool is available. Van Gough was not a painter, he was an artist. If he were alive today he might be a filmmaker. If Spike Lee was born hundreds of years ago, maybe he’d be a poet or novelist (idea credit: Godin). These guys used whatever tools they had available to create their vision. Today, we’re lucky that you don’t have to cut off your own ear to get access to inexpensive and powerful storytelling tools.

The truth is making art is scary, messy, and full of failure. It’s straight up hard work. It’s much easier to sit on the sidelines and say we can’t do it because we don’t have the right gear. But don’t fall into that trap. You don’t really need better gear, you just need better ideas.

Here’s what I’m talking about. Below is a video of New York band Atomic Tom performing a catchy tune live on the subway. They’re not using their traditional tools (guitars, drums, piano), just iPhones. The band is talented and clearly has a vision for the song. Take away their instruments and they’ll find a way to make art. And if you take away their phones, I bet they’d still find a way to play the hell out of that song. Talent, not tools, my friends.

Here’s a :15 spot I recently finished for local lifestyle magazine, Enjoy. This is the first of a series of seasonal spots that we’ll create throughout the year. The goal was to find a creative and simple way to showcase the Enjoy aesthetic while capturing the “emotional content” of the magazine.

My solution was to recreate a moving version of a typical Enjoy magazine cover. It’s a little different than moving covers I’ve done in the past. This is more like a “cover shot prequel” – a look into the life of the cover before it was a cover. Now the cover not only has a backstory, but a reason for existing. The visual message is that all of the sights, sounds, and (implied) smells of the season are magically locked up inside the magazine. You can experience the sensation of Northern California Living simply by thumbing through the pages of Enjoy. Simple, tidy, boosh.

This shoot was relatively simple. I think we did about 7 or 8 takes to get a couple keepers. For the camera nerds, this was shot on a Canon 5DMkII with a Glidecam in portrait mode. I found that mounting the camera in portrait would mean I’d have to crop less to get to the final cover composition.

A little side note: I live in California. We don’t always have what the rest of the world refers to as “seasons.” For example, two days ago (middle of October) it was over 90 degrees. Finding fall color around here is possible, but not always easy. For this football spot, we shot in a park that was a lovely, late-summer green. A few clicks from Colorista II’s secondaries transformed the park into an autumnal wonderland.

Summer is upon us. It’s been well over 100 degrees the last two weeks with no end in sight. The secret to beating the heat is to never, under any circumstance, leave the pool. You want your photo taken? Sure! As long as I don’t have to get out of the pool.

Here are a few pics from a just-for-fun shoot with Amanda, aka Salamanda. I had one day left on an underwater housing rental and wanted to try something different. We didn’t have time to put together a wardrobe so Amanda pulled something from her closet – a wedding dress.

Light came from a single 1.2Kw HMI. It was pointed into some painter’s plastic that we pulled tight across one section of the pool, just above the water’s surface. Light falloff in water is much stronger than air and I definitely noticed the HMI didn’t have the same reach under the surface. Could have used an extra stop or two but we made due. The hardest part was getting the light where I wanted it. Due to the obvious consequences of mixing electricity and water, we couldn’t put the HMI *in* the pool. With a heavy top light I was limited to a deep shadowed look. So we just went with it. By the way, the housing was an Aquatech from Borrowlenses.com. Check ‘em out. They’re good people.

Kudos to Michelle our MUA and Lyn the bubble wrangler. Lyn also shot some pics of another model and from what I’ve seen so far they will be epic.

If you want to see what a really deep underwater shoot looks like, check this out this underwater stage at Pinewood Studios.

If you’ve been wondering how the heck to transition from shooting stills to shooting motion, might I suggest a little reading – Vision in Motion: A Photographer’s Introduction to Digital Video. This wonderful resource was written by none other than filmmaker, photographer, and friend Trevor Meier.

So what’s in the eBook? Well, I’ll tell you what’s NOT in the book. This is not a step-by-step gear guide. Pixel peepers look elsewhere. As the title suggests, VISION IN MOTION is about vision. Trevor suggests ways to help you find your vision and the best practices for communicating that vision through the medium of motion. Don’t underestimate the importance of vision. In both photography and cinematography, you need a vision, you need a direction. But the added complexity of time when shooting motion makes vision crucial. Motion implies movement and time implies change. If your characters aren’t moving toward some goal and changing over time, then you’ve got a story about…well, nothing. You’ve got to have a vision. This book will help you discover yours.

But the eBook is not all theory. There’s some technical talk, too. If you’re coming from a photographic background, there’s new lingo and techniques to learn. For example, in photography you can use shutter speed to control exposure. Video is different. Try shooting a whole film with the shutter at 1/8000 and see how long before your audience walks out. If you don’t know why this is a bad idea, you need to read this eBook.

Check it out here: VISION IN MOTION. You might even see a familiar face or two in the pictures!

As much as I love shooting tethered, sometimes it’s just not practical to lug a computer around, especially on remote location shoots. More gear means more crew. And more crew means bigger budgets (something that’s sadly lacking in the industry these days). On a run-n-gun shoot, even tethering to a laptop is awkward at best. Imagine doing a “walk a-about” photo shoot where you are tied to an assistant with a 10 foot rope. That’s ONLY convenient if one of you happens to fall into a crevasse.

Here’s a better solution. Wireless tethering to an iPad. No wires, no worries; portable and practical.

OK, onto the technical milieu. There are a few variations on the following workflow, but for the sake of simplicity, I’m just going to share what I’m using to go from my Canon 5D MkII to the iPad.

First thing you need is a little app called ShutterSnitch. It’s $8 and available in the app store. ShutterSnitch creates a landing point for the photos that are getting sent from the camera. There are some other great features built into the app, but rather than write about them you can read about them here.

There are a couple ways to get the photos out of your Canon dSLR wirelessly. Canon makes several WFT (as in, Wireless File Transmitter) devices for their various flavors of dSLRs. But, one look at the price and you might want to rearrange that acronym to WTF (as in, WTF!?). The cheaper option, and the one I’m using, is a wifi card from Eye-Fi. Eye-Fi makes SD cards that have a microscopic wifi antenna hidden inside. These cards can connect directly with ShutterSnitch. But there’s a caveat with Eye-Fi cards and the 5DMkII. The camera won’t recognize the newer X2 version so you’ll need one of the older classic pro models.

Now, at this point you’re probably thinking,”WTF! How am I supposed to use an SD card in a CF-only camera like a 5DMkII?” Gotchya covered there, too. You simply need an SD to CF card adapter. Yeah, I didn’t know those existed either. Eye-Fi does not officially support CF adapters for their cards, but I found one that works well with my MkII. The CF multi from Syncrotech. Some adapters will cut the wifi signal strength so be sure to find one that has been tested for use with Eye-Fi cards. The CFMulti seems to have no effect on the Eye-Fi’s ability to transmit. So far I’ve used it successfully up to about 25 feet with no file errors.

To make all of these photo transfers work, both the card and the iPad have to be connected to the same wireless network. Not a big deal if you’re shooting in a studio or any place there’s power. But if you’re on location you’re going to need a way to create an ad hoc wireless network. I cannot officially condone jailbreaking your iPad (nor does Apple), but it will allow you to install an app called MyWi. Yes, MyWi is the same app that people are using on their iPhones to share their 3G connectivity with other devices. Running the app on the iPad will create a network for the Eye-Fi to use for transferring photos. The great thing about this solution is that you’re carrying your network with you. Which means wireless tethering will work even if you’re deep in the jungle or on top of a mountain.

Just to recap, here’s what you need:
1. Older model Eye-Fi card
2. Synchrotech CFMulti adapter
3. MyWi app
4. ShutterSnitch app

One last tip on setting up the camera. Be sure to set your camera to shoot RAW+JPEG (small works best). The RAW files stay on the card, the JPEGS get transfered to the iPad for reviewing.

Big props to Matt Jeppsen of FreshDV for turning me on to this idea. We shared a few tweets back and forth on the workflow and Matt pointed me in the right direction. Check out FreshDV.com for tasty snippets of video industry news.

Two of mankind’s greatest inventions, together at last. Note: this is an exploration of what is possible, not necessarily what is practical. Tweet from the street at your own risk!
iPad Version Here

The footage for this demo came from a stock footage fashion shoot we did a couple weeks ago. Here’s a little bit of randomness from the day:

And just because the ladies did such a great job, here’s a few more clips of them posing.

I’ve been itching to try some stop motion lately and luckily found a project that seemed suited to the technique. Here is a TVC I created for a women’s health fair event (sidenote: TVC is industry-speak for “television commercial”). The challenge was to visually show a connection between “health, fitness, and fashion.” Shooting stop motion allowed for some creative transitions that helped tie the three themes together. Notice there are no cuts in this spot.

And now some technical details.
We shot this on a blue paper backdrop. It was lit with a couple of kino four-banks from the front. I went with hot lights instead of strobes to eliminate any potential flickering due to variation in strobe output. Don’t get me wrong, I love AlienBees, but they are not as consistent as, say, Profoto. Plus, shooting with constant light meant I could shoot at a higher fps without waiting for strobes to recycle.

The spot was shot on a Canon 5DMkII in stills mode (not video). I cheated the stop motion where ever I could. Cheating meant having the model move in slow motion and varying the shutter interval manually. It probably averaged somewhere around 4 fps. Other setups required the standard (and tedious) method of positioning the frame, snapping a picture…reposition…snap…repeat ad naseum. Text was done in After Effects using a combination of jitter settings in Path Text and Time Posterization.

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll say it again. Filmmaking is one long string of creative problem solving. A great example of this is the “toiletry mobile” constructed from a mountain bike wheel and fishing line (see picture below). This little gem allowed the toiletries to easily orbit the model’s head. Big thanks to Casey our fearless model, Anna with make up and hair, Amy the apple eater, and Lyn production manager extraordinaire. Also thanks to InHouse Marketing for all their help with production logistics.

I’ll explain. Traditionally, books and magazines are in a portrait orientation and film and TV are landscape. You don’t read books on your TV and you don’t watch movies in a magazine, until now. With the advent of the iPad (and other handheld computing devices), the lines between print and motion media are being blurred. Books AND movies can now be consumed on the same device. A device you hold in your hand and flip any way you wish.

With the iPad, there’s really no longer a landscape limitation for video. Maybe you want your vid to appear full screen in portrait mode? Maybe you need a long, tall video banner-ad on the side of a digital magazine page? I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more vertically shot video soon. The simplest way to get a portrait orientation out of your video camera is to flip it. Flip it good. So get yourself an L-bracket and get shooting (if you shoot with a fixed monitor you might want to also get yourself a neck brace and a chiropractor).

Last weekend I shot some vertical beach scenes. These were shot on Red with a Canon 10-22mm.

Beach Verticals from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

All this vertical footy got me wondering what some of this might look like as an iPad magazine cover. So I did a little Sunset Magazine mock up. Sunset Mag, if you’re reading this, call me. We’ll talk.

I’m working on a personal project right now about the costal Redwoods. After spending two days deep in the jurassic mists I started to get a little stir crazy. You ever feel like raptors are watching your every move?

In addition to almost twisting my ankle falling off this tree, I think I really scared two old ladies that were walking up the trail behind the camera. There, now no one can say I take myself too seriously. Enjoy the buffoonary.

Spent most of the afternoon working on this diy cable cam. The “pulleys” are sealed-bearing scooter wheels I picked up from a local bike shop. Please chime in if you have any design suggestions. I’m just winging it right now. Once I get the kinks worked out, and some stronger cable, I hope to fly the Red on this thing. In the meantime, here’s a quick clip of the first spin with a sandbag.

A couple weeks ago, we decided to drive to Vancouver to take part in the Olympic festivities. The 5D mkII went with us and I ended up shooting enough video to throw together a quick edit. I do love the portability of this little camera. Almost as much as I love the Winter Olympics.

Here are a few MadMen inspired shots of my friend Jim. Though I’d never seen Jim smoke a cigar before, this is how I always picture him in my head – a bit of daring, with a dash of dashing. Jim has a long resume that is full of acronyms like CEO and MBA. I don’t know what any of those mean but I do know that Jim is a nice guy and a good friend.

Lyn and I set up a little photoshoot last week to test out the newly arrived backdrop (ordered it here: neutral gray), and the new high-output beauty dish. The lighting setup for these shots was pretty simple: beauty dish boomed over head (with AB1600), and two speedlights in small silver umbrellas as kickers (with the exception of one shot where they didn’t fire).

Now how about that HOBD? If, like me, you’ve been on the fence on whether or not to pick up the new High-Output Beauty Dish from Paul C. Buff, let me save you the worry. Just get it. You will not be disappointed. Now, I’d used the old dish before and liked it. But the HOBD has been completely redesigned for efficiency and I really didn’t know what to expect. The light spread on the HOBD is about 45 degrees (old model dish was 140 degrees). That’s a pretty focused light. In order to get that kind of narrow beam on the older, less efficient dish, you needed to lug along a grid modifier. Let me tell you, it’s a lot easier (and more efficient) to *diffuse* hard light than it is to *focus* soft light. So far, I’m really liking the narrow focus of this dish. I figure if I need a softer look from the HOBD, I’ll just throw the sock on it and approximate the light spread of the old dish. Boom. Done. The HOBD is made of aluminum and is very light weight compared to the older, Webber-BBQ-inspired dish. My only complaint is the way the direct-light blocker mounts. It is not connected to the dish itself but runs through a hole and into the umbrella holder of the Alien Bee. It’s a clunky, and somewhat proprietary way to mount the blocker. I have no idea if the hole on the HOBD will match up on any other monoblocs.

Overall I’m very happy with the dish. Next project is to test its efficiency by doing some daytime shots a 580 EX mounted to the dish.

Last spot in the Better to Play series. I just watched all four back-to-back and I must say I’m pleased with their consistency. Yay for branding. This spot was shot on Red and posted in FCP with some help from Magic Bullet and After Effects (for the motion graphics). I’m pretty sure the idea for this spot came from an episode of Arrested Development. RIP Arrested Development. We’ll always have the banana stand.

Had a little free time last week so I pulled together an impromptu shoot with some friends. This was an experiment to test out some lighting setups with on-axis fill.

On-axis light is light that is on the same axis as your camera lens; e.g. your on-camera flash. This kind of light illuminates everything very evenly, creating a flat, and generally unflattering image. It’s akin to xeroxing your subject. The idea here is to create shadow and depth with some off-axis lighting and then let the on-axis ring flash (AB800R) act as a fill and lift those shadows out of the dark. Daniel (pictured) mapped out the the setups on his nifty Strobox iPhone app. Also, the first pic in the gallery below is a 100% crop of the pic above. I put a lot of post work into these photos and don’t want the finer details to get lost to web resolution.

This is true in Photoshop, too. I’m all about the layers. I usually make a new layer for every step in the edit. Healing brush, dodge and burn, sharpening, curves – each major step lives on its own layer. And I always keep the original layer in the stack, too. That way I can go back if I get lost. Plus, if you’re like me, you love soloing layers to see how far a photo has come.

Here are a few test shots with the new AB1600 down by Whiskeytown Lake. Using the PocketWizard Mini and Flex I was able to get a useable strobe sync speed of around 1/640. Strobe was boomed overhead with a small silver umbrella. Looking forward to setting up some more daylight blasting sessions soon.