When I was in Los Angeles in late 2010 I caught up with ICEMILK, an up and coming rapper originally from the Ukraine. ICEMILK’s music is just hilarious and in some cases quite explicit and not for the kiddies. You need to have a good sense of humour to like his material which you might compare to the likes of Lonely Island and Weird Al Yankovic but with his own twist.
This shot was taken just after the filming of his debut Music Video on location in Las Vegas….
UPDATE [See the full Behind The Scenes article on this project RIGHT HERE]
So last Wednesday(27th oct) I get an email from my friend and Director A.J Carter and he tells me about some secret project that he just got asked to direct the very next day but couldn’t tell me the details, he only wanted some technical suggestions on the camera side of things which I think his brilliant DP Guy Livneh later sorted out anyway. He then later revealed to me after filming finished, that he was directing James Cameron & Arnold Schwarzenegger in a little short protesting against Prop 23. Prop 23 is a proposition funded and backed by a couple oil companies which will essentially gut current Californian environmental laws in a bid to relax pollution & clean air laws, causing health issues & destroying thousands of clean energy jobs.
So let me just quickly tell you about the campaign. Arnold and James have felt strongly for the environment for many years. Cameron has in fact donated a ‘substantial’ amount of money to help promote the ‘No on 23’ campaign already and wanted to finish off with a viral commercial with himself and Arnold. James’ love and concern for the environment has also been evident in several of his films including his latest film ‘Avatar’ which also touches on the central theme of environmental destruction.
So why on earth is he emailing me? Well.. apart from getting to work with more of Hollywoods finest, as it turns out this job was to be shot on a Canon HDSLR! A.J. and I have worked together before on a number of occasions both in Perth (Australia) and in L.A./Las Vegas using these new hybrid cameras so he knew I would be very excited to hear that this project involved using a Canon 5DMKII.
The Director of Photography on to take charge of this project was Guy Livneh. Guy told me they decided to go with a HDSLR as the turnaround time for post production was much quicker with one of these cameras than say a RED at 4K. It suited the project. Guy also stated they chose the 5DMKII over the 7D due the sensor, as after tests he found the 5DMKII to have a more natural colour space and a smoother image over the 7D.
Jump in and read the article for the full story, the actual video, and see some more Behind the Scenes photos!
Well I’ve been here in Hollywood for over a week now and it’s been so much fun. I’ve managed to squeeze a lot of activities into just one week. Done all the major sight-seeing stuff including a trip to Venice Beach and Santa Monica where a great deal of shopping was done. Armani Exchange over here makes Red-Dot at home look expensive. (Red Dot is a really cheap $2 type store). The exchange rate today just went to approx. 94 cents to the US dollar so it’s a perfect time to be here. Universal Studios was an awesome day full of rides and great shows I highly recommend it for tourists visiting L.A. I have to say a big thank you to A.J. Carter and Ilusha Zaritskiy who have effectively been our very own tour guides for myself and traveling partner in crime; Natalie. Who is this Natalie you speak of Brodie? Well thats her above sporting a hot white dress in front of the Hollywood sign.
There’s no green screen nonsense happening here folks, thats about as close as you can get to the Hollywood sign and about the best picture you can get. This location is not really accessible by the public and you will probably get towed very quickly if you park anywhere near it, that is, if you can actually find it. We were very lucky to have our local contacts to get this shot. It had to be very much a run and gun shoot. We were in and out in just a few minutes. This meant I could only take some bare essentials. My Canon 5DMKII with a 24-70mm lens attached, and I used a Yongnuo wireless transmitter in the hot-shoe, which was speaking to a receiver attached to a 580EXII. The sun was beaming down from camera left, so I positioned the 580EXII to camera right (thanks to my assistant) on half power to try and balance things out a bit. It did a lot better than I was expecting. I suppose I didn’t have any modifiers on the flash so that helped me get a bit more punch out of it.
Here’s a couple of silly shots we took of Natalie’s Entourage including myself. These have all been victim to a few custom lightroom adjustments to spice them up a bit. The image at the top of this post was lucky enough to receive some photoshop as well.
You know what I forgot to do though? I didnt take any images of just the sign! I’ve only got all of us idiots in the foreground! Maybe we can give CS5′s content aware fill a try. har har.
Happy Shooting
B.
Well my bags are packed and I’m about to fall asleep on my very own bed for the last time before I wake up tomorrow and take on Hollywood with my partner in L.A. Crime and PerthsBestGirls founder; Natalie! You know… right after that painful 21 hour journey across the Pacific. I am heading over to L.A. to catch up with my buddy (psst…and recent award winning director!) A.J. Carter and to celebrate his upcoming birthday which might have to entail a trip to Vegas. Speaking of Vegas one of the other main reasons for me hiking across the globe is to attend Photoshop World. If you’re now asking yourself “What’s Photoshop World?” then you need a kick in the butt and need to do some research. Here’s something to get you started: http://photoshopworld.com. It’s basically the biggest Photoshop conference in the world, and its more than just an expo. Photoshop World is 3 days of intense training and workshops, learning from all the worlds best which includes the likes of Joe McNally, Scott Kelby, Dave Cross and more. Its heavily based around photography. Anyway, its a real massive opportunity for me to go and I’m so fortunate that my bank account has been able to withstand the violent beating it received to actually do it.
So I will touch down in Los Angeles this afternoon at 5:10pm L.A. time, which will be well into Tuesday for you Aussies. I will be keeping my blog up to date and my facebook and twitter will be going ballistic with updates and photos, and I rekon I’ll manage a few videos too.
I have some amazing fun photohoots lined up on my trip which I cant wait for you all to see, including one lucky spot helping alongside the talented Calvin Hollywood who is actually an insturctor at Photoshop World this year. It will be a great experience to meet Calvin and everyone else at the event and I look forward to soaking up as much as I can because there will be a serious amount of talent there. It’s going to be so much fun.
Once I’m done in L.A and Vegas I will be heading back down under to Sydney where I have some more hot photoshoots planned! Then come the end of September, its back to Perth, and back to work.
Stay tuned folks and Happy Shooting.
B.
A day with local Perth singer Johnny Ruffo
Today I wanted to share a couple of images I did for Johhny Ruffo, a seriously talented Perth singer who's in the middle of putting his first album together. I've been lucky enough to score a preview of a few of the tracks and I think Johnny will be someone to watch out for!
Getting Accurate Colours using ColorChecker Passport and Lightroom
Now using a grey card can help you achieve a correct white balance, and will also help remove any colour casts that may be present in an image. However, what if you want to go one step further and take full control over all your colours in your image? Make sure your RAW files are converted accurately. Well let me show you how I do it. I use the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport.
Testing my HDSLR Car Rig for video
I've always wanted to strap my 5DMKII camera to a car and record something. Well my new car rig enables me to do exactly that! I recently put together a rig for taking still images of a car at low walking speeds (more on that later), but I wanted to step things up a bit and build a rig that was more secure and could handle filming while driving around!
