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I just love taking pictures, and there’s nothing more important to me than capturing the images of your wedding day, the most important day of your life. Blah, blah, blah.

I added the blah, blah, blah, part, but I think you get the point. I can’t tell you how many About pages I’ve read that all sound alike. I love what I do. I love your wedding day. I love you. I love love. Etc. An About page should make you stand OUT from the crowd, not sound like everyone else. Whenever I engage in business coaching with a photog or filmmaker, this is one of the first topics I address.

I recently finished up a round of business coaching for Becky Sharpe, a British photographer and filmmaker located in Spain who specializes in weddings. I’m so proud of how far she’s come and I wanted to share with you how her About page evolved. Hopefully you can be inspired.

The Original

Her original page was this one you see below (click image to enlarge it).

The problem with it? Too long and no photo of her. Becky is on the higher end of the fee spectrum, and when you get in that range, clients want to know the person they’re hiring. But even the photo she did include was not very appealing or intriguing. A silhouette of a women putting on mascara with rollers in her hair is not very interesting.

Round 2

After our first coaching call, I talked to her about her About page and gave some suggestions on improving it. The main suggestion was adding a photo of herself. This is what she came up with (click image to enlarge it).

I just love taking pictures, and there’s nothing more important to me than capturing the images of your wedding day, the most important day of your life. Blah, blah, blah.

I added the blah, blah, blah, part, but I think you get the point. I can’t tell you how many About pages I’ve read that all sound alike. I love what I do. I love your wedding day. I love you. I love love. Etc. An About page should make you stand OUT from the crowd, not sound like everyone else. Whenever I engage in business coaching with a photog or filmmaker, this is one of the first topics I address.

I recently finished up a round of business coaching for Becky Sharpe, a British photographer and filmmaker located in Spain who specializes in weddings. I’m so proud of how far she’s come and I wanted to share with you how her About page evolved. Hopefully you can be inspired.

The Original

Her original page was this one you see below (click image to enlarge it).

The problem with it? Too long and no photo of her. Becky is on the higher end of the fee spectrum, and when you get in that range, clients want to know the person they’re hiring. But even the photo she did include was not very appealing or intriguing. A silhouette of a women putting on mascara with rollers in her hair is not very interesting.

Round 2

After our first coaching call, I talked to her about her About page and gave some suggestions on improving it. The main suggestion was adding a photo of herself. This is what she came up with (click image to enlarge it).

This was better, but we still had work to do. The copy was still too long. Also, the photo really did not do her justice. First, it looked like a friend’s snap shot on holiday. Second, it didn’t illustrate her personality. Becky has this vibrant, energetic and rather irreverent and fun personality (made all the more charming by her British accent. I kept thinking I was talking to Minnie Driver from “Good Will Hunting”.) This photo makes her look like a soccer mom.

Third Time’s a Charm

This is what she finally ended up with (click image to enlarge it).

Bingo! IMHO she got it perfect. The copy is great. Short. Sweet. Interesting to read. Engaging. And the collage of photos from her life is perfect. This is an About page people will remember; one that illustrates Becky’s personality, charm, and gives a client the idea of what it may be like to work with her.

The other thing she got right was that she actually hired a designer (Jan Lewis) to make the page for her. As much as we creatives complain about clients trying to do things on their own and that they should be hiring a professional to do, it’s funny how many of us try to do web design on our own. Just because you’re creative and have an eye for photography don’t mean you can design a web page.

Great work Becky! I look forward to seeing how your studio continues to evolve as you rock the wedding market on the coast of Spain.

I got The War of Art for Christmas and have been devouring it. I had heard of it every now and then. Most recently last June when I met with friend and colleague Brandon McCormick in his office at “The Manor.” We were talking about filmmaking and inspiration and the book came up. He emphatically encouraged me to get it THAT day and start reading it. Well, six months later I finally got it. The beautiful irony of this story is that the whole book is about the evil of Resistance (that thing which keeps artists from doing what they were meant to do) and how to overcome it.

As I read it I’ll make notes of some favorite quotes and blog about them. Today it’s about criticism, envy, and jealousy. A great way to start off 2011. It’s the quote that opens this blog post. Pressfield also writes that “individuals who have realized their own lives almost never criticize others.” A very profound statement.

In the photography and filmmaking worlds I see a lot of jealousy and criticism. People looking to tear down others who have been successful perhaps in areas where they have not. Filmmakers criticizing Philip Bloom about his “portrait” filmmaking style. Photographers criticizing Jasmine Star because she’s only been in the business three years yet was named a Top 10 wedding photog and has almost 28,000 fans of her Facebook page. RED filmmakers belittling the success of DSLR filmmakers. I could go on and on.

And to be honest, I do the same thing. Maybe I’m not vocal about it, but deep down inside there’s that voice in me that puts other people’s work down and I know it comes from this place of jealousy and envy. I get it. It’s human nature. But how to over come it.?

PRAISE AND PURSUE

Last summer I took a sabbatical from social media. A significant reason was this problem. Feeling unsuccessful and jealous about not being where my colleagues were. Another irony is that who knows how many people may feel that way about me. The truth is, you can always find someone more popular and more successful than you.

So I stopped to get perspective on life and success. I realized that the plan God has for me will not be won or lost on how many Twitter followers I have or how many people read my blog posts. My duty is to pursue that calling with all my passion.

But I also came to the conclusion that one way to stop the insanity and evils of envy, is to proactively praise others. To some extent I’ve always tried to do that, but I plan to be more purposeful about it. Whether it’s blogging about a fellow filmmakers About page, praising another filmmakers storytelling prowess, praising another filmmaker’s color grading skills, or displaying other filmmakers’ work on my blog. As I continue to pursue my own calling as a filmmaker, along the way I’ll praise others. It’s a lot like giving money. The more of it you give away, the less of a hold it has on you. Likewise, the more you give praise to others, the easier it is for you to have a better perspective about your own success.

THE BEST YEAR EVER
2011 will be a great year for me. Not because I plan to create amazing films (which I do plan to do). Not because I will make a fortune (which I’m sure I most certainly will not.) It will be a great year because I’ve already come to the realization that I’m living a dream. And I plan to do more of it this year. And I will enjoy it more because along the way, I will sincerely lift and hold up artists who inspire me.

Last Friday we wrapped principal photography on the film adaptation of The White Envelope Project’s “For the Man Who Hated Christmas.” This is a beloved contest-winning essay and true story of a remarkable Christmas tradition. Giving101 (the non-profit that controls the rights to the story) brought us in to bring this story to life for the first time ever on film. I wanted to share some behind the scenes photos and at the same time provide some tips when shooting on such a set.

HIGH KEY LIGHTING

We used the high key look for this film and it presents some challenges. (High key refers to a super-white background, a la those “I’m a Mac. I’m a P.C.” commercials.) The main challenge is blowing out the background enough to get that bright, white background, while at the same time exposing the subject enough so as not to make her a silhouette.

We had a wonderful space to shoot in at Studio Space Atlanta. They had all the accouterments you’d want for a cast and crew: a couple of dressing rooms, a huge CYC (pronounced “sike”) wall, as well as a kitchen and lounge area. (A CYC wall is an all-white wall and floor that curves where the wall meets the floor, thereby giving you that “endless” looking background). Another thing that was great about where we shot is that they also had all the lighting equipment we needed. That was HUGE. Normally you’d have to rent from one place then transport your equipment to the shooting location. It was extremely convenient having everything we needed right there.

As I said, the “key” for lighting this kind of set is blowing out the background. For this shoot we used four 4k softbox throw lights. These babies eat up a lot of energy (even the cords powering them got warm). To light the main actress we used a Diva 400 Kino Flo as a key light and a Westcott softbox as a fill.

This is one time when it is very important to get RIGHT in camera the first time, otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time in post trying to fix parts of the background which aren’t perfectly white and/or bright enough. (Trust me, I know. 😉 The more light you can throw on the background, the better. You can aid that by moving the light source closer to the white background. The challenge there is making sure the lights don’t get in your shot! (See our set up above).

I shot at an aperture of between 4.5 and 5.6 with the main actress. You want the depth of field deep enough so if the subject moves a little, she doesn’t go out of focus. But you want to keep it shallow enough to aid in blowing out your background. For scenes with larger groups of people, I stopped down to f8.

AUDIO

For audio I used my Sennheiser ME-66 shotgun on a rented boom pole and mic holder. However, the acoustics of a stage setting like this isn’t great for recording this kind of audio. I still got some background noise bouncing off the walls. So, I also used my Sennheiser G2 wireless lav system, wiring the lav underneath the actress’s black turtleneck. I was shooting with a DSLR, so I recorded sound into my Zoom H4N. Every now and then we had to stop for a plane flying over or a train going by (such is the lot if your set is in an industrial area), but other than that, capturing great audio was a snap.

DIRECTION

There are a few directorial things I had to keep in mind on this set:

Eye line: Every scene was essentially shot in the same location on the set. So, when there were shots that I knew were to be cut together with other shots and the eye line had to be maintained (i.e. the 180 degree rule), I made a note on my shot list about where to have the actors looking.
Kids: There’s a running joke in the movie business that the two worst kinds of people to direct are kids and animals. Well, we had a number of kids on the set and they were a joy to direct. The secret is 1) getting down to their level (literally), 2) encouraging them by showing your excitement at their participation, 3) making it seem like each of their takes was great (even it wasn’t exactly what you wanted), and 4) giving them freedom to interpret a character however comes natural to them. After all, it’s been a few decades since I’ve been a kid, so they do have some expertise in that area over me. 😉
The Hollywood Experience: just about everyone in the cast were volunteers from a couple of large churches in the area. They have experience in elaborate stage productions, but this was the first real “movie” set for most (if not all) of them. So, I did something I’ve always done since the days of shooting on a Sony PD150. Regardless of whether or not I actually needed to sync audio with video, I used a slate and called “action” to play up the “Hollywood” feel. You’d be surprised how much people enjoy participating in that process. Sometimes I’d have one of the extras clap the slate. It adds to the excitement and enjoyment for everyone. A happy set is a successful set.
COMING SOON

The film adaptation of “For the Man Who Hated Christmas” will air online in just a few weeks. I’m pretty excited and honored to have helmed such a beloved story and one that could become an instant holiday viral “classic.” I’ll have a follow up blog post when it airs. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the photos. Many thanks to my beautiful wife Tasra for providing the behind-the-scenes photography.

If you have any questions about the shoot, feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll reply via the comments as soon as possible. Do that instead of e-mailing me directly because then everyone can benefit from the question and answer. And don’t worry, there’s no such thing as a “dumb” question on my blog.

In the world of filmmaking there are two “rules” which each share the same name. The 180 degree rule. One has to do with the position of your camera with respect to your actors/subjects. The other has to do with the relation of shutter speed and frame rate. Both “rules” are established to improve the viewing experience of your audience. I put the word “rules” in quotes, because like every other rule, they can be broken…if you know why you’re breaking it and it serves the story. However, IMHO, I see a lot of newbie filmmakers breaking these rules because they seemingly don’t know. So, I wanted to give two quick blogs posts on these rules and why you should keep them; and why (and when) you’d want to break them.

DON’T CROSS THE LINE

The first 180 degree rule I want to discuss is the 180 degree line rule. It states that if you have two subjects speaking to one another in a scene, draw an imaginary line through the middle of them. At all times, you need to keep the camera one the same side of the line. If you cross that line, you’ve “crossed the 180.” (And yes, that was the origin of the name for my podcast, “Crossing the 180: The Filmmakers Podcast that Breaks all the Rules.”) The purpose of the rule is to keep the audience properly oriented. If actor A on the screen is looking from left to right, and actor B is looking from right to left, they will be properly oriented as long as you stay on the same side of the 180 degree line. But, if for whatever reason, you move the camera around for another part of the dialog, and you cross that 180, then both actors will be looking from either right to left, or vice versa, as you cut back and forth. That will be off-putting to the viewer.

But it’s not just narrative films where this rule applies. You can apply it to event video or documentaries too. Let’s say you’re shooting a wedding, ideally you should keep the camera on the same side of the 180, using the bride and groom as the two subjects. If in a documentary you have two people talking and let’s say you’re shooting with two cameras, keep both cameras on the same side of the 180 for the same reason.

BREAKING THE RULE

Many newbies break this rule because they simply don’t know and aren’t aware. Many experienced people even break this rule from time to time because they may have had so many camera changes or are trying to get interesting angles, they forget where the 180 degree line started. Having a dedicated script supervisor (the person in charge of keeping track of how actors deliver lines, where props were for each shot, etc.) can help. But, I would bet many of you reading this don’t have that. So, you just gotta keep a mental note.

It usually makes sense to break this rule if you’re in a situation (usually an event video like a wedding) where you are forced to stand or set up your camera in such a way that it breaks the rule. Other than that, I can’t think of any other times I’d want to break this rule on purpose, unless for some reason I’m purposefully trying to disorient the audience. If you have ideas of when it would make sense to break this rule on purpose, please share in the comments.

I want my blog to be a place where visual artists can get inspiration and encouragement for their work and their business. I also use it as a place to showcase some of the latest work I’ve done, whether for business or pleasure. Today I’m going to showcase the work of a colleague. I’m not going to write much because I think the film will speak for itself.

The video below is a trailer for a wedding video. Yes, a wedding video. Now, I’m almost certain the guy who created it, my friend and colleague Kevin Shahinian of Pacific Pictures (he’s the good lookin’ dude in the photo on the right) would hate me calling it a wedding “video.” In fact, I normally try NOT to use that term because it carries with it all sorts of negative stereotypes and connotations. But that is PRECISELY why I’m using that term now. I want you to take every last negative stereotype that term “wedding video” conjures up, and throw all out the freaking window. For years I and many in this industry have worked hard to elevate what can actually be done in the process of capturing the once in a lifetime memories of a wedding day. Kevin has taken this genre to a whole nother level (and yes, I know there’s no such word as “nother” but I don’t care). The video below is a trailer for a wedding “video” that is a combination of a scripted story woven into an actual wedding documentary of real events. It is purported (albeit by the filmmaker) to be the first one of its kind on this scale. (It was shot with five Canon 7Ds and two 5D Mark II’s). I think he’s right. Words cannot express how amazing this wedding “video” is. You have to see it to believe it.

Congratulations Kevin (and team) on an amazing accomplishment. Now, I hope the final film lives up to the hype I know this trailer is already creating. 🙂

I also wanted to say, watching this piece almost brought tears to my eyes. In the current issue of EventDV magazine, I write about my passion as a filmmaker being awakened in large part due to my interaction with Kevin and the DP on this film Patrick Moreau of StillMotion fame. Seeing this work has greatly inspired me again and I’m proud to call him friend and inspiration.

Since returning this week from the In[FOCUS] event, a number of videos have been uploaded summarizing the activities in Austin. These have all been well crafted, artistically shot and edited, very cinematic short films. But there’s one particular video I want to highlight. It was shot and edited by New England wedding and event videographer Meghan Simone (pronounced si-MO-knee). This video is special because Meg almost didn’t post it. You see, there are no flashy Steadicam or glidecam shots. No jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring time lapse. No eclectic musical soundtrack from some uber-hip unknown artist. No motion graphics. As Meg herself put it in one of the Facebook comments on the video, “It’s sort of ‘low def’ in a ‘high def’ world.”

What I feel this video has is THE most important elements of any such video: a good story, and heart.

When I asked Meg if she’d mind me blogging about it, she wrote in her reply that after posting the video, she was very nervous. She was afraid someone would send her a private message telling her to take it down. Instead, she’s gotten over two dozen Facebook comments from people applauding the video. When world renown cinematic superstars like StillMotion, Joe Simon, and Ray “The Romantor” Roman are influencing so many videos we see, Meg was worried her “low def” piece would be lost in the shuffle (by the way. Technically, even hers is high def as it was shot on the Panasonic Lumix). But to her delight, it has been warmly embraced. She credits the inspiration from the event as giving her the courage to put herself out there.

ARE YOU HOLDING YOURSELF BACK?

Last August in my “Comparison Kills Creativity” campaign, I challenged my blog readers to not look at any competitors’ work for a whole month. It’s so easy for us to get down on our work when we feel it doesn’t hold muster to our colleagues’. What I personally learned from that challenge is that the work I, you, or anyone does, is already special. I don’t need to try to shoot or edit like anyone other than what naturally comes to me. That doesn’t mean I can’t be inspired by other artists. It just means that whatever style I intuitively create, that which makes me unique, there’s an audience somewhere out there who will appreciate it. But, if I hold myself back for fear my work isn’t good enough, I’ll miss out on so many opportunities.

If you’ve held back from sharing your photos or your videos with the world for fear your work doesn’t hold up, I encourage you to take a lesson from Meg. Here’s a quote from my correspondence with her about this video:

I finally said to myself, I can sit here and day dream about my ideas, or I could go out and actually attempt (maybe fail) and learn a TON along the way.

Thanks for inspiring us Meg to dream out loud.

One of the gifts in my stocking last week was a little book called “Purpose for Every Day Living for Fathers.” I’ve made it part of my morning devotional reading and it’s been very inspirational. It’s filled with very short chapters that start with an inspiring intro, then are filled with quotes from great thought leaders. On this, the last day of 2009, I’d like to share some of the quotes I read this morning to get you pumped and ready for 2010.

We are either the masters or the victims of our attitudes. It is a matter of personal choice. Who we are today is the result of choices we made yesterday. Tomorrow, we will become what we choose today. To change means to choose to change.

I’ve never seen a monument erected to a pessimist.

We must admit that we spend more of our time concentrating and fretting over the things that can’t be changed than we do giving attention to the one thing we can change: our choice of attitude.

Fear is a self-imposed prison that will keep you from becoming what God intends for you to be.

Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse. ~ Philip Yancey

Be hopeful! For tomorrow has never happened before

Ron Dawson is an accomplished screenwriter, director, award-winning video producer, speaker and author. He is the founder and president of Dare Dreamer Media, a boutique new media marketing agency and production company specializing in online marketing and viral videos. For the second consecutive year, he was named to the EventDV 25, one of the top 25 event videographers in the industry as voted by his peers.

Ron is also host and producer of the weekly photographers podcast, F-Stop Beyond (both the video and audio versions). Billed as the “Fresh Air” of photography, beyond business and branding, Ron gets into the heart and soul of the guest. Ron gets personal with some of the nation’s leading photographers from all fields.

As a producer of original online entertainment, Ron has produced or co-produced a number of other programming including Me2WeTV, Real Women Scrap TV, F-Stop Beyond: In Living Color, and a handful of Dane Sanders‘ Photo Minute series. Most recently, Ron was the creator and executive producer of the first online reality TV show for and about professional photographers, “The Longest Day.”

In July 2009, he and his wife released ReFocus: Cutting Edge Strategies to Evolve Your Video Business, published by PeachPit Press.

A little known fact about Ron: he used to dance on a professional swing dance lindy hop troupe in Los Angeles. Besides dance, his passion includes good movies, good television (watching episodes of “Lost,”, “Heroes” and “The Office” on DVD) and serving in his church.

My original blog post I assumed Apple legal made Vimeo take the video down. According to this tweet, it was a music clearance issue. I originally thought Apple had Vimeo remove the video. Mainly because I’ve never, ever seen Vimeo take down a video due to music clearance. Not saying they haven’t, I just never saw it. So, why all of a sudden now? Maybe the music holders of this particular song didn’t like how Jeffery used it and asked for it to be removed. I guess it’s just a “fishy” coincidence that of all music copyright-infringing videos on Vimeo to be taken down, why this one? Anyway, read the rest of original post with that in mind.

Yesterday was quite a day for Jeffery Harrell. An outspoken, funny, profane and pissed off Final Cut Pro editor who made a little video. A whimsical, simple, yet poignant commentary on the frustrations he (and many thousands of others) have had with Apple’s release of Final Cut Pro X (aka FCPX). Set to the Scala and Kolacny Brothers cover of Radio Head’s “Creep”, the video was a parody on “The Social Network” trailer using Apple and FCPX as the subject matter. It’s a simple video really. Just a screen recording of a user trying to use FCPX and running into road blocks. At the end he gives up and trashes the program. Periodically in the background we hear excerpts from Steve Jobs’ 1997 WWDC conference closing keynote address. It was quite a brilliant video. Simple in execution. Funny. Poignant. Filled with little nuances (e.g. when a “Help” search in FCPX for “OMF” turns up “No results” he replaces the “F” with a G. Classic. Or the sound of the Trash emptying over black at he end. Perfect.) Yep. The video was terrific. So terrific in fact that in just 16 hours it racked up over 30,000 views on Vimeo. The first and only video Jeffery had on Vimeo went viral. And then… it was gone.

That fact that it was removed is something you all should pay very, very close attention to. Here’s why.

Technically, the video does violate Vimeo’s upload guidelines. It contains content that Jeffery does not own (both the song as well as the audio and video clips from the Apple WWDC). Vimeo’s policies aside, whereas I don’t think the use of the song falls under Fair Use, the use of the WWDC clips as well as the soundbites clearly does.

Fair Use is kind of a gray area in copyright law, but one of the purposes of it is to allow creators to use other people’s copyrighted works in parody, education, criticism, or news reporting. This clearly falls under that category. (I don’t think the song does because Jeffery isn’t making a statement about the song, he’s making a statement about FCPX. If he’d used a legally licensed song, I think this video would fall 100% within the fair use doctrine). Now, Vimeo’s guidelines do say, ”You must own or hold all necessary rights (copyrights, etc.) to the videos.” So the question is, does fair use count as “holding necessary rights.” We as content creators in essence DO hold those rights, so one could make that argument. However, I think the loophole here is the song. Because of that, Vimeo has a case to remove it. So it did.

Here’s why this is important for you filmmakers, photographers and other content creators. Many of you have dozens, if not hundreds of videos on Vimeo. Videos that may in some way infringe on other copyright holders’ content. I have never seen a video taken down from Vimeo for copyright reasons. I’m not saying they never have, I’ve just never seen it. Could the pressure from copyright holders finally be breaking them down? (Facebook for a while has already implemented algorithms to prevent copyright infringement. And YouTube frequently does remove copyright infringing videos if the copyright holders request it.) This removal could be the beginning of a precedent. What would you do if your portfolio of work was completely erased tomorrow?

So, if I were you, I’d start to re-think you video strategy if it includes excessive use of copyrighted material (heck, even if it doesn’t):

If you’re a wedding filmmaker, create your highlight videos with legally licensed music. (Check out my “Music in Film” blog post for a list of some popular sources at /musicinfilm). Start uploading those to Vimeo and leave the copyright-infringing clips to the clients’ personal DVDs. To be frank, we all really should be striving to be on the up-and-up when it comes to the use of any other artists’ copyrighted work, music, images, or otherwise.
Make sure all the videos you currently have on Vimeo live online someplace else.
Get a better understanding of copyright law and how it applies to content.
Consider using self-hosted web space for your videos (vs. video sharing sites). This will cost you more money, but consider it insurance from the possibility of having hundreds of videos removed. (Of course, if you keep your videos legal, you don’t have to worry about that anyway).
The Digital Landscape Changes Everything

The digital landscape has changed the way content is delivered and consumed. It is becoming increasingly common for digital delivery to be the main or ONLY form of delivery (Apple is leading the way by doing away with installation CDs. Movie sites like Netflix and Hulu are also growing in popularity, not to mention iTunes). We’ve already seen what happened in the music industry. Because of this, those content creators will be more protective of their rights since digital delivery will grow to be their main revenue source.