[vimeo video_id=”12925022″ width=”700″ height=”398″ title=”Yes” byline=”Yes” portrait=”Yes” autoplay=”No” loop=”No” color=”00adef”]

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!

You can now expect more…

from this blog…

HERE’S THE SHORT VERSION:

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 LONG VERSION: Read the rest of this entry »

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.

What we use here at LAFORET | VISUALS: Read the rest of this entry »