Wednesday June 30th 2010, 3:54 pm
Filed under: Articles
Here’s a great interview on Stockland Martel’s blog with Grey Advertising’s Executive Vice President Nick Childs (and me.) It really does a good job of showing the progress of the Beyond the Still Competition and is a good reminder that you still have 2 chapters to enter and be part of it!
The contest, as you know, is like a video version of the game exquisite corpse, created by the Surrealists, in which an artist would make a drawing and then mail it to another artist, who would add on to the artwork and send it on to yet another artist, so that the final piece is a collaborative effort, yet the participants have communicated with each other only through their work. In this case, Canon gave Vincent a still and asked him to create a story with the photo as his starting point. And then they opened it up to the whole world and asked people to compete to create the next “chapter,” continuing the story from the last frame of Vincent’s film. And so on. (The contest is still going on. Details here.)
Aptly titled “Beyond the Still,” the contest performed above and beyond anyone’s expectations, according to Grey: “The first month alone spawned a tidal wave of entries, and Canon EOS 7D weekly sales exploded, increasing by 88% since the contest launched, making it the #1 selling DSLR in the world. Huge spikes in sales also spilled over to the Rebel T2i and 5D Mark II.”
Here’s a combination of two interviews I did with Vincent and Nick Childs, EVP, director of branded content, at Grey, about how the contest came together and what the awards mean.”
Well it was only a matter of time…we all knew it had to happen. More than one group has already entirely shot a short film and edited it - all on Apple’s new iPhone 4…
While many have been focusing on the antenna issues - others are taking the opportunity to shoot with these phones and produce some impressive work!
While I don’t see this changing the world of filmmaking overnight - I do think it points to a general trend towards smaller cameras, and using devices that are always on you at all times…
As Chase Jarvis said: “The Best Camera is the one that’s with you.” And I couldn’t agree more. Chase basically coined one of the foundational points that every young photojournalist has drilled into them by their mentors: ALWAYS HAVE YOUR CAMERA WITH YOU - YOU NEVER KOW WHEN SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN.
That’s why I think we’ll see a lot more of these videos in the near future - and especially in the news business - and it’s just a matter of time until a reporter does a live broadcast from a scene with “facetime” and that we see some breaking news videos shot with these phones.
This will likely cause yet another wave in the citizen journalism vs. professional media debate that’s been going on for years- especially for photographers.
Ever since the London Bombings and the Miracle on the Hudson (flight landing in the Hudson) - events that were primarily documented by amateur still photographs made with relatively high quality cell phones - breaking-news still photographers have found that it has gotten extremely difficult to compete with people who “are at the right place at the right time” equipped with just a cell phone.
I think the same will now happen in the video world… with phones that can shoot pretty amazingly clear 720p video - expect to see a LOT more first person footage shot by non-professionals on CNN, BBC, etc.
Interesting times… check out both of these videos. Pretty amazing to see what can be shot - with YOUR PHONE!!!!
I’m guessing that there are already a half-dozen people shooting music videos with them as well this week… I almost shot one with the previous generation iPhone 3Gs but didn’t think the quality was quite there yet.
I can say that both the 720p video and the still photographs I’ve seen coming out of the iPhone 4 are pretty stunning… I used one of the original digital cameras 10 years ago… the Canon DCS520 - and the quality of images coming off of this phone - ABSOLUTELY SMOKES that now archaic $20,000 camera… funny how things can change in 10 years… wonder what will happen in the next 10 years… heck - in the next 5 years to be honest!
Cine Gear took place few weekends ago, but as they say “better late than never.”
This video is small selection of some of the exciting products I encountered at CineGear. There were literally hundreds of vendors, so I didn’t see everything - but these are some of the ones I was able to catch on a quick afternoon visit (check out LitePanel’s new Fresnels, BronColor’s Kobold lighting system, RED’s Epic, and ARRI’s Alexa!). The expo itself was awesome - if you are in LA next year during it, I would strongly consider checking it out.
Of course, also keep checking out the blog in the future, as I plan on featuring more videos like these - including product overviews, interviews, and behind-the-scenes features. You can check in daily - but I’d recommend you subscribe to the blog to get an update whenever we post something up!
A little under two years ago I started this blog with a post titled “The Cloud is Falling.” I then went to cover the Olympics for Newsweek which helped to increase readership - and then I posted a little video called “Reverie” on this blog. And everything changed from that point on - for a lot of us.
Since then - nearly 5,000,000 visitors have graced us with their presence. And at times this blog has utterly overwhelmed me. In the months following Reverie or Nocturne - it was not uncommon for me to wake up each morning to more than 500 e-mails in my inbox from fantastic people from around the globe. (This number would not include junk mail.)
The problem was: My staff and I simply could not keep up. We were missing jobs left and right as they were becoming buried amidst the hundreds of e-mails. This blog’s readership is now north of 150,000 people per month.
At one point - I considered ending the blog. And then I realized that I couldn’t. This community is far too special to turn one’s back on. I’ve simply met far too many interesting people in the past few years - and any single one of them alone would justify continuing the blog. This HDDSLR movement is a bona fide thing - not just a flash in the pan.
So now I’ve come to the following conclusion: I need a little help from some friends to keep this blog healthy. I’m not able to focus on my career to the degree that I’d like to AND simultaneously focus on producing regular content for you all on this blog - let alone to be a husband and father to two young wonderful children. In this case, those friends are the “supporters” illustrated above. I’ve formed great relationships and friendships with the people at these companies and use their products on a regular basis.
Therefore, a little over a month ago I went to them and asked if they’d help support this blog in a non-traditional manner (more on that below). In effect these companies are contributing to help me hire someone to manage this blog. Every post you will see on this blog will continue to be written by me - that’s something that is essential to me. That new person (a young buck by the name of Justin Hamilton) will simply be there to help me grab the relevant graphics, links, check my spelling, and to shoot and edit the videos you will see as a new feature of this blog. For those of you who run your own blogs - you know that it’s not uncommon to spend 5+ hours to shoot, edit, grade, EQ and post a video - that runs all of a whopping 2 minutes on the blog…
My goal is to keep this blog as close to what is has been over the past few years - but to add more content to it with Justin’s and the above “supporters’” help.
So that’s the short version - below is the longer version for those who have been regular readers all along. It will cover a lot of the pertinent questions you might have btw.
The funny thing is: I was planning on writing about my video and photography workflow within the next few weeks (ok well months - it’s been BUSY). I can now cross that off my calendar because my buddy Chase Jarvis just did a pretty extensive video that describes his workflow - and he did it WELL.
And you know what? Our workflow is SCARILY SIMILAR - if not close to identical.
The only main difference? I back everything up to LTO Tape at the end of the process and keep two copies of those tapes - one in Los Angeles, and one in New York (kind of like Chase’s theory of making sure floods/meteors etc don’t strike the ONE location where your data is backed up. I call it Armageddon myself and joke that if CA falls into the ocean - I’ll have some data in NY…) I do also send my still masters to PhotoShelter for online storage as well.
One of my favorite sayings of all time is one by Bert Lance: “If it ain’t broke - don’t fix it!”
That comes into play here. Chase - thanks for saving me the time To everyone here - check out Chase’s video and his workflow - and understand that my workflow is nearly identical. I’ll detail some of the minor differences below after the video in case you want to get into the nitty gritty / nuances between our similar workflows.
I received a text at 6:53 a.m. this morning from GREY EVP Nick Childs (who helped spearhead this contest and is also one of the judges.)
It read: “Call me asap this morning!” (That’s rarely a good thing folks…)
I was worried that I had announced the award too early and caused ire for my fellow Frenchmen… he laughed and shared the amazing news:
We won a second Lion from Cannes this morning - this time we won a “Gold Lion” from the 57th International Advertising Festival - in another category (more details to be announced tomorrow on the separate categories we’ve won in.)
That’s of course great for “us” - the people who launched this campaign - BUT - Here’s why YOU SHOULD CARE:
Second - this likely solidifies this campaigns as Grey Advertising’s campaign of the year… that’s a pretty big deal folks. That means one thing: the “Final Chapter” where the 6 winners come together and shoot together this fall - will be an EVEN BIGGER DEAL. Truth be told - this was an experiment from the start and we never made solid plans on how we would end this campaign (everyone wanted to see how it went.) Now that it’s this big of a success - I can comfortably go out on a limb and state that the final chapter will be a BIG DEAL.
Third - this is where YOU COME IN… there are TWO FINAL CHAPTERS LEFT TO ENTER. The Fifth chapter’s winner is just about to be announced. Here’s what you have to understand - when this all comes together - and we shoot the final chapter - THAT AS A WHOLE will likely be re-entered into the Cannes Lions and many other advertising competitions. In other words - you have a GOLDEN (or silver) CHANCE of potentially being part of a major award winning campaign. Not too shabby to put on your resume. If I were you - I’d be getting ready to submit the single best entry ever for the final Chapter 7 and/or Chapter 8. The next entry deadline for Chapter 7 is July 18, 11:59.59 p.m. E.S.T.
To those not in the advertising world - these awards are loosely the equivalent of a Grammy/Oscar/Pulitzer in other industries. In other words this a really big deal - not just some other award.
I find it particularly relevant in that it shows how the world of advertising is changing very quickly. Producing slick campaigns will always be relevant - but finding ways to DIRECTLY connect with an audience is key. When the advertiser (Canon) Agency (Grey NYC) AND the audience (those who entered the contest) all benefit - hey - that’s the definition of a ” Win/Win.” Well it’s in fact a “Win/Win/Win” - isn’t it?
Congrats to the amazing team at Grey Advertising NY, Canon and everyone who helped this little dream of ours come true. This is definitely one that will go toward the top of all of our resumes.
As I mentioned in a previous post- I went to meet Grey a little less than a year ago and told them I wanted to find a way to harness the excitement behind this new HDDSLR craze. I had experienced success from “Reverie” and “Nocturne” and wanted to find a way to share it with others out there. I told them that going out and producing yet another film for myself wasn’t going to cut it, as I wanted to find a way to SHARE my experience of the past two years with other filmmakers out there. I threw a few ideas at them that I had at the time - and the creative team at Grey and I worked together on morphing those ideas into something that we could get Canon excited with - and ultimately we created the Beyond The Still contest together…
The best thing is: WE’RE NOT DONE YET! And I can’t wait to see what we can do for the FINAL CHAPTER with the 7 winners… needless to say this contest will now not just wither away… as it’s just gotten much bigger than any of us could have imagined. Expect a lot more attention to be put on this contest - not to mention the final chapter that I and the 7 other winners will collaborate on together in the fall.
Thank you Tor, Ari, Stephen, Elinor, Rick, Chris, Melinda, David, Melanie, James, Luiz, Nick, Madhuri, Rob and Chris for all of your efforts in making this project come together - not to mention the entire cast and crew who helped launch the initial chapter!
While I’d be foolish to think that I ultimately had anything to do with his decision - I do find the last line of his post extremely interesting…The one where he states that RED is taking a lesson from Apple and that RED “will no longer discuss what we are doing until we are done.”
That is pretty much the conclusion that I came to when I stated that RED’s main “issue” was to over promise and deliver late within my post. Obviously, I think the RED team is making the correct move. My quote was:
“If there’s only one criticism that I have with RED - it’s that they’ve tended to over-promise and deliver late… basically the opposite of what Apple does (Apple stays absolutely secret about their projects, deny they’re working on anything, and releases them only when they are confident the product is ready for prime time…) I personally would prefer to get hard deadlines from RED on future product releases - even if those dates are overly conservative on their end.”
Again - I’m not claiming that Jim hadn’t come to this conclusion in any way as a result of what I said of course - but what IS CLEAR - is that yes - RED does listen and they do care…
I’m becoming more and more involved in the screenwriting process as a director myself (mostly revisions - I let the pros write the scripts!) and I own Final Draft. It’s such an industry standard piece of software that it’s fair to say that it’s pretty much a “must own” for anyone involved in the development process of a script.
I also found Stu’s suggestion of Scrivener and it’s use of note cards to be pretty fantastic. Basically it digitally mimics the way most screenwriters / directors / producers I know work. When you walk into their offices it’s not uncommon to find walls full of dozens if not hundreds notecards, photographs, reference material setup in some sort of hierarchy - so that they can visualize and analyze the building blocks of their screenplays and the progression of the characters, etc. I guess this is the digital version of that and I’m going to purchase Scrivener in a few seconds after I hit post… for now - why don’t you all go over to to the Prolost blog to here the skinny from the man himself.
“I fully expect the DSLR mfgs to get it right at some point. Make a non-line-skipping 4K camera. At that point, the difference will be RAW 5K and 6K vs. whatever they make. Until then, a line-skipping 1080P camera is just not in the running for a pro camera. Can you make OK images with a line-skipping 1080P camera? Sure. Should you be embarrassed? Yes. We are not in that business.
I saw the Canon commercial about shooting “motion stills”. They should be ashamed. Just try to take a still from their motion 1080P capture…
Well I have a different take on it… and not one that you might expect. I didn’t want to touch one this - but I’ve gotten several e-mails and comments about it - and think I’ll take the risk of weighing in.
First of all some key statements that I need to get out of the way:
1. I am a Canon Explorer of Light and sponsored by them, I am also one of the people that has obviously had a lot to do with the HDDSLR movement since it’s inception - in fact I shot one of the - if not the - first video with the Canon 5D MKII. Obviously - I’m a big fan of HDDSLRs.
2. I have no official relationship with RED whatsoever - I do have what I would consider to be several very healthy professional and personal relationships with people at RED.
3. I shoot with both systems (and others) regularly now.
Here’s a great interview on Stockland Martel’s blog with Grey Advertising’s Executive Vice President Nick Childs (and me.) It really does a good job of showing the progress of the Beyond the Still Competition and is a good reminder that you still have 2 chapters to enter and be part of it!
To everyone here - check out Chase’s video and his workflow - and understand that my workflow is nearly identical. I’ll detail some of the minor differences below after the video in case you want to get into the nitty gritty / nuances between our similar workflows.
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