[vimeo video_id=”16369165″ width=”700″ height=”525″ title=”Yes” byline=”Yes” portrait=”Yes” autoplay=”No” loop=”No” color=”00adef”]

My good friend Tom Lowe has been working on this for close to a year now... all I have to say is: Awesome.

Check out Tom’s other work at www.timescapes.org.

Click on the photo to see some of the references I'm working with (high res image is available when you click on it) ... these are of course STOCK IMAGES - as you can imagine trying to find these photos for real, let alone IN ONE OF THE THREE CITIES we're shooting in - is not exactly easy... not nearly as easy as finding it from a stock agency of course! And that's where you come in.

I’ve been prepping for a pretty cool commercial over the past few weeks.

During the first week in November I’ll start to shoot a  TV commercial in New York City, followed by a second week in Barcelona, and then culminating in a third week in Shanghai.

Here’s a chance for you to become involved in this process:

I’d love to invite you to become a part of a social networking experiment of sorts…  I’ve never done this before but thought of doing it  a number of times before!  And this seems like the PERFECT opportunity!

First – I can’t tell you much about the client or ad other than it has to do with business and progress and finding a clear direction…

But it’s quite irrelevant to  what I’m asking you to help me with, because that is pretty specific:

I’m looking for natural occurring ARROW SHAPES in all 3 of these cities.

Let your imagination and eyes run wild if you live in these cities over the next few weeks (over the next week if you live in NYC !)

And please – THINK OUT OF THE BOX.

So simple - yet so nice. @BillBryant was very kind to send me the exact location as well!

We all know of the one way sign… we all know of the Flatiron building.

We’re looking for ORIGINAL interpretations of arrows…

But here’s the catch – we’re not looking for TRIANGLES (that would be far too easy) but actual ARROWS – i.e. the head of an arrow with a stem or line that extends from it.  A one way sign would work well – but a real arrow with a thinner stem is even better!  But again – NO TRIANGLES (unless they have a clear stem to form an arrow shape 😉

@shawnpixdotcom has a GREAT eye! Here's one of the first submissions I got - of an arrow forming on the Citi building in Queens - AWESOME!

And of course: we’re not really looking for signs, those are generally the easiest to find of course – hopefully you can help us find more interesting occurrences – in architecture, in the way you line up elements, in the way light and shadow move.

How do you get involved?   Please post links to your pictures/snapshots on the comments to this post – or tweet your pictures to me on my twitter account @vincentlaforet

We of course have professional scouts working on this – and I expect them to do a solid job.  But this is a pretty big challenge for even the best scouts out there…  finding naturally occurring arrows that aren’t just on signs takes a REALLY good eye and a lot of time… ideally I’d fly out to each city and spend a week looking myself – but then this commercial would take me close to 6 weeks to shoot – and I REALLY don’t want to be away from my kids that long!

More to the point:  I don’t think they can compete with hundreds of people out there who are keeping an eye open and happy to take a snapshot and share it… I’m not sure this kind of scouting technique has been done before – but I’d love to try it on this project.

A few people have already sent examples in – and they’re awesome!

Lastly – there is a reward- I’ll pay the person who submits the best picture (or series of pictures) for each of the three series 1 and possibly 2 day rates to go out and find more…  seems only fair and right.   And you’ll of course be invited to the shoot.

PLEASE remember to have geo-tagging / GPS on when you take the photo  if at all possible (easy if you have an iPhone) – at the very least please take note of the exact location, time of day and orientation/direction you were facing when you made the shot (North, East, West or South will do!)… that’s going to be critically important to us when we do the tech scout and figure out the schedule on the best time of day to shoot your shot(s.)

I hope you like the spirit of this – I’m really excited about it – and already impressed with the images that people have shared already!

Hopefully you’ll keep them coming – and perhaps even see your scouting contribution on your TV early next year!

Update: Photographer Tim Kang (who shot the locations in NYC) was hired to shoot 2 days to scout in NYC and I’m hiring him on the shoot for 3-4 days in NYC as well! Congrats Tim! v

@DCReels was kind enough to send me some "intelligence" on a good spot - if you know of one and don't have time to shoot it - pls share and I'll have a scout check it out!

I wanted to put a reminder that I will be in New York City next weekend participating in two different events:  Photo Plus Expo and Shoot NYC (hosted by Bron Imaging and Hasselblad).

First, I will be giving a workshop for Bron Imaging in conjunction with their Shoot NYC event.

These workshops will be geared toward photographer’s looking to make the jump from still photography to motion filmmaking with an emphasis on HDDSLR’s and basic cinematic techniques such as camera movement.  We won’t have a Techno Crane,  but you will get to ride a  Fisher Dolly – one of the most widely used cinema tools in the commercial/film business.  More information on this workshop can be found in my earlier post on the event.

There are two chances to attend this workshop – One on the 28th (1pm-4pm) and again on the 29th (9am-1pm).  If you are interested in checking it out – CLICK HERE.

Second, I will be giving two separate lectures at the Jacob K. Javitz Convention Center for the International Photo Plus Conference and Expo.

The first lecture I will be giving is on Thursday the 28th, from 8:45am until 11:45am hosting is on Cinematography with HDDSLR’s.  This event will explain the basics of cinematic technique when shooting with this new breed of cameras.  However, if you are interested in a more in depth explanation – I would recommend attending the workshop listed above as this will be a lecture only – with no gear on hand.

The second lecture is going to be a panel on Saturday the 30th, entitled, “Platform Building: Using Online Video Sharing to Attract an Audience, Establish Creativity, and Network.” Also, on the panel will be my friends Blake Whitman, Director of Vimeo, and Philip Bloom, who I am sure many of you know.

If you are interested in attending either of these lectures, please CLICK HERE.

See you in New York!