FAREWELL WES CRAVEN

Yesterday, we lost a great creative soul. Wes Craven, the legendary director of "SCREAM" and "A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET", passed away at the age of 76. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Wes had been battling brain cancer.

Even if you don't know or recognize the name Wes Craven, you know who him. Wes was the genius behind box-office smash hits like the aforementioned films. Both of which went on to have numerous sequels. In particular, "SCREAM" is credited with reinvigorating the teen horror film. Honestly, it was hard not to like the tong-in-cheek script that parodied and praised the genre. It was just plain fun and wet your pallet for more. The numbers proved that statement true for many people. Before long, "SCREAM" became one of 1996's highest grossing films, and this pretty much cemented Craven as the influential writer and director of exploitation films. He did make a break from his signature genre with the 1999 drama "MUSIC OF THE HEART" for which Meryl Streep earned an Oscar nomination.

Wes was born in 1939 in Cleveland, Ohio. He went on to earn a masters degree in philosophy and writing from Johns Hopkins University. He did teach college for a brief time, but then ventured into cinema, and the world would be a different place because of it. It was not long before Craven established himself as an auteur who imbued his creepy films with questions about the nature of our everyday existence. Truthfully, I wanted to have his kind of career. He was making exciting films and posing questions that we usually associate with heavy dramas or quirky type comedies. It was pure brilliance. 

At the time of his death, the Craven produced MTV series based on "SCREAM" was only days away from airing it's season 1 finale. Alas, there is no plot twist here. Rest in peace, Wes. 

I'm a Green Day fan. I have been since high school. The album Dookie is what really hooked me and from there it was over. They've made some amazing music. When American Idiot was released, I feel "in love" all over again. It was a strong album. To me, everything about that album was the heart of rock.

Not long ago, I stumbled upon an old video that someone had captured of Green Day performing one of their first gigs. In their high school quad. Damn. It's pretty darn cool. I've always thought the band was really tight. Loud and rowdy, but always very tight. When you watch the video, you can hear it's wasn't that far off then. I thought it was interesting to see school kids walking by in the background not really paying any attention. Who knew these guys would go on to be Grammy winners.

For your viewing pleasure I've included the full concert video.

CANON ANNOUNCES EOS M3

There's another contender in the mirrorless market. One that could be a winner. After longer than I'd like to admit, I finally jumped ship from traditional DSLR to mirrorless last week, and I haven't looked back. I love the technology, the compact size, and the quality is amazing.

Canon now announces the EOS M3. It's the much improved 3rd generation addition, and with the new additions, it just might be a contender for best in class. With a 24 megapixel APS-C sensor combined with a Digic 6 processor, it provides an ISO range of 100 - 12,800. And of course, you'll also find that this camera will handle 1080p@24/30 video just the way a Canon should. At least on paper, it should. The focusing system is up to snuff, too. There's a 49 point phase and contrast detection autofocus system. To close it out, you'll also get WiFi capabilities. Seems all gravy to me.

But wait, there's more. There's a touch screen along with front and rear adjustment dials. Now we're talkin'. The overall design remind of the Sony a6000. It's got a good look and seems like it would fit well in the hand. We'll have to see. Pricing isn't bad either. Actually pretty good. $679.99 for the body only.

AMERICAN ULTRA IS ULTRA...MEH

Last night was $5 movie night and I just couldn't say no. We'd had a bad run recently on our movie selection. Well, not bad, really. Just not great. I still enjoyed the films that we saw. I just wasn't excited about them. Anyway, I had seen the trailers for American Ultra and had such high hopes. I thought it had the potential for something really fun. And it was. Well, sort of. The good news is that I didn't get bored in the same way I did with Rogue Nation and The Gift.

I thought this film was going to have a live action, graphic novel sort of feel. Sort of like Kick Ass. I loved Kick Ass! Who didn't? I mean, it was kick ass. There were parts of this film though that seemed as though the filmmakers wanted to head in that direction, but they just couldn't commit. They tried to take it seriously, or rather it seemed as though they wanted some fun, outrageous comic book-ie type action, but still wanted a serious action film feel. To be honest, that confused the hell out of me. I think, as an audience member, you can feel when something is off even if you can't quite put your finger on it.

I didn't really buy into Kristen Stewart as a CIA agent. That was really tough. First of all, she looks really young. She still has that baby face, and I'm sure she will for some time. Not a bad thing. Hold on to it for as long as you can, girl. Secondly, even though this was somewhat of different kind of role for her, she was still the "stoner girl". She's always seemed that way to me. A moody, mopey stoner girl. Nothing wrong with that either, but as a CIA agent, well, I just don't buy it. I'd sooner see Robin William's character in Mrs. Doubtfire as an agent before her.

There was some really great character work though. I think I would have liked the relationship between Kristen and Jesse's characters more if the CIA agent backstory was thrown in. It would have been a wee bit stronger if they had to deal with the realization of who Jesse is with sorting out their relationship, if that makes any sense. Two "regular" people in an extra-ordinary situation. That has more opportunity for better humor and is just plain more intriguing to me. 

The other thing that sort of bummed me out was that Jesse's character was that I felt he wasn't as badass I thought he should be. After being "activated" in hopes of saving his life, Jesse finds himself with incredible abilities that he can't explain. He has knowledge about things he knew nothing about. He's an incredible fighter. Things like that. Some of the humor in what happens is Jesse's ability to pull off this amazement and confusion with these abilities while still performing killer actions. I just really felt that he could have been a little more badass. At least added some sequences that showcased that. There were plenty of situations in which he played the "lucky" badass moments, and that's not how the story sets up this secret weapon that he is that the CIA created. 

Overall, I thought the film wasn't bad. It was good. It's worth seeing in the theaters if you have time. I wouldn't dash out the door right now to see it though. 

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH'S STUNNING MOTION CAPTURE

As an actor and someone who grew up in a theater family, I love to see how other creatives work. Actors are an interesting bunch, and at many times, not from this world. I can say this because, well, I am one. Granted it's been some time since I really exercised the muscle, but I still remember it very vividly. However, I am shooting something on Wednesday. So stay tuned! But I digress.

My girlfriend recently showed me this video of Benedict Cumberbatch's performance of Smaug in The Hobbit. Not only was it very cool to watch how the motion capture was done, but it was even more amazing to see Benedict do his thing. First off, in my opinion, when it comes to acting, is the individual's willingness to commit. To suspend, willingly, the disbelief. Then live imaginatively in the moment. This sounds so friggin' easy, yet for most it is not. There are so many things that can get in the way, namely, yourself.

When I was auditioning for college, Juilliard, a group of us were taken into a room for warmups. There, Michael Kahn walked us through a series of exercises to get us in the zone. One of which was an exercise where he would name an animal and we had to play the animal. Sure, at first, you feel silly, but my dad always said that if it feels silly, you're headed in the right direction. Doing this sort of thing requires focus and a lot of energy. Later on, when I finally entered college (not at Juillard), my acting professor had us do a similar exercise. These are fun, but they require you to cast off your ego an create.

This isn't an article on the process of acting. So I won't dig into my own personal beliefs, but let me just say that you need to watch this video above. Benedict commits and commits completely. It's utterly amazing.

MI: ROGUE NATION REVIEW

Ethan Hunt is back for another installment in the Mission Impossible franchise. This time the IMF has been disbanded which leaves Ethan out in the cold. Soon, a new threat, called The Syndicate, emerges who is determined to lead a new world order through an ever escalating series of terrorist attacks. Faced with his most impossible mission yet, Ethan gathers his team and joins forces with a disavowed British agent who may or may not be a member of the rogue nation, The Syndicate.

Last night, my lady and I decided to catch a flick. I had been wanting to see MI: Rogue Nation. I had such high hopes for this film, I really did. Somehow those hopes were dashed against the rocky shores of disappointment. Okay, maybe not that dramatic, but I was disappointed. I'll live though. To be fair, I haven't slept that much in the last few days because of work. So it's entirely possible that I missed something, but I've got to say that this film dragged in many areas. And it's crazy that it still has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes! That's partially what got me excited in the first place.

The opening to film was high energy and exciting. Not to mention, a little humor thrown in for good measure. I'm a huge fan of Simon Pegg. This might sound weird, but the opening credit sequence was incredible. I loved all the moving graphics, stylizing, and color choice. It was modern, with a nod in the direction of classic cinema from the '60s and '70s. After this thrilling opening, I was pumped for the rest of the film. Somehow, someway, it just didn't happen.

After the opening, the pace changed quite a bit. It slowed quite a bit. There's a bit of politics thrown in as the IMF is being disbanded because of their unorthodox methods of "getting the job done". During which, Ethan has been captured and is fighting to escape. With the help of Ilsa, a disavowed British agent, he manages to do just that, but soon after discovers that he's on his own. The government has shut down the IMF.

The rest of the film seems to be about who outsmarted whom and who planned it that way. It all felt kind of mellow dramatic. Ethan does one thing because he knows Solomon Lane, the head of the very beast (The Syndicate), is going to do another. But then you find out that Solomon did that particular thing because he was playing Ethan and knew he would think he was going to do that thing so he did it anyway to play into his trap...Oi! Confused? It was like the scene from The Princess Bride in which Vizzini and Westley are having a battle of whits. Only, there was no awesome, funny, cleaver dialogue in Rogue Nation. It became a bit tiring. In truth, I was yawning.
 

Some of the action sequences were fun. The motorcycle scene particularly sticks out. It was adrenaline pumping. The ending was somewhat uplifting. Tom did seem a bit haggard and tired throughout most of the film. Almost as if he had aged out of this kind of flick. That being said, Tom did a decent job in this one. I liked him in it, and I'm not a huge Tom fan at that.

So see the film. It's not horrible. I thought it was kind of...Meh. It didn't completely put me to sleep, but then again, I went in already tired.

FUJI X-T10 SAMPLE IMAGE

As I posted yesterday, I used my new Fuji x-t10 on a gig Wednesday. Yesterday, I looked over the RAW files and I'm just blown away. They're amazing! That's all I can say. Here's a quick black and white conversion from that first day of use. I can honestly say that I've never been happier.

FIRST DAY WITH FUJI

I've shot with so many kinds of cameras over the years, film and digital. I don't really consider myself a "branded" shooter by any means. Different companies do certain things better than others. At the end of the day, it's honestly more about what you, as the artist, can do with the camera. It's so easy to get caught up in the gear talk. I do it all the time, and some times I even find myself obsessing over one thing or the other.

Recently, I decided to finally make the switch to Fuji. I've seen the images, I've handled the cameras, but I haven't shot with one on a gig. I bought the Fuji X-T10 and used it yesterday for a shoot. I didn't even bring my Nikon gear with me. I went full on Fuji. Yep, no security blanket or anything. I was second shooting an event for a friend of mine. Strangely enough, I wasn't nervous about not bringing my trusty gear. I was more excited than anything.

Having no working knowledge of the camera, I threw myself into fire and I have to say, I was blown away! I've heard people say that it's a joy to shoot with Fuji, but I had no frame of reference for that until now. It's a friggin' joy to shoot with Fuji. The menu isn't hard to figure out. Many folks complain about that. The camera feels good in your hands. It's simple and that's the key.

The styling is phenomenal. When I hold the camera, I just feel inspired to shoot. It's tough to explain. I found myself excited to push the shutter button. The size is damn near perfect. My camera bag just became infinitely lighter and that makes me happy. But what about the image quality? Holy crap! It's beautiful. The Fuji sensor renders images beautifully. Looking at the RAW files this morning, I found myself getting excited. Just looking at some simple pictures. I felt the urge to get up and shoot something. Anything. And that, folks, is what it's all about.

No matter what you happen to shoot with, it's not about the gear. But be sure you're using something that inspires you to get out and shoot. Fuji inspires me. This camera will be with me every time I walk out the door. 'Nough said.

LENSBABY MOBILE MAGIC

If you're a fan of mobile photography and also like getting creative, LENSBABY has just released mobile lens attachment that will add a few more creative options to bag of tricks. Personally, I think this is great! Currently there are only three lenses options for the kit, but I'm sure LENSBABY will be releasing more as time goes on.

The first gives you a small sweet spot with gradual falloff to blur. The next has a larger sweet spot with the same gradual falloff to blur. The last lens has a strong, sharp focus in the center with a kind of kaleidoscope reflection around it. Looks pretty nifty, honestly. The creative kit even comes with a little kickstand so that you can prop your phone up. It looks like this is all you need to make some mobile magic.

The cost of the kit is $89.95. Not terrible, but not great either. I might have to give this a try as it looks easy to travel. Not a lot of components and such, which means it's something you could easily stuff in your pocket or camera bag. Most importantly, this looks incredibly fun, and that's what we need in our work. If it's not fun, then why the heck are we doing it?

STEP INTO THE LIGHT

I have felt like this many times. I'm sitting in the dark somewhere, ready to step into the light where miraculous things are going to happen. We visited Atalaya Castle not too long ago. It was a beautiful place by the sea. Mandy was kind enough to let me snap some frames of her.

There was something very peaceful about the place. The place is in ruins now, but an artist used to live there. Walking around the grounds, you can almost still feel that artistic energy still vibing. I love it. I can see why the they picked this particular location.

Looking at this image again, it reminds me that there's no time like the present to make changes. Let's do this!

DIY CHEAP, EASY, DURABLE CAMERA WRIST STRAP

While perusing the interwebs this morning I was looking for options wrist straps, shoulder straps, and such for my camera. I need a little more for my travels and work. I happened to find this little gem. I love the fact that it uses easily acquired materials and it's cheap. And it's easy to make. And it's durable. And it's cheap. Did I mention that it was cheap?

First off, I love that this is a DIY kind of thing. The wrist strap is a paracord bracelet, which of course is trendy right now. All you need is some paracord, a carabiner, a key ring, a lighter, a measuring tape, and some sharp scissors. That's it. I believe I mentioned before that it's cheap. The most complicated part is braiding the strap and even that isn't hard.

I believe I'll be tackling this project later this week. Check out the video for a short 3 minute overview. You'll be amazed at how simple this thing really is to make.

FUJI LENS APP-TEST BEFORE BUY

Fuji has made an app that allows you to test all of their lenses on your smart phone or tablet before you buy. That's pretty nifty, if you ask me. If you're trying to make a decision on what focal length or how a particular image would look with a particular lens, this app will let you test it out. I suppose one could rent a lens before hand to truly get the right info, but Fuji has made something that at least puts you in the ballpark of understanding. You get enough information to make at least a smart decision.

The app allows you to select the lens and aperture you want, and then allows you to take a virtual picture. If you select a zoom lens, the you're also allowed to choose your focal length. After you take a virtual picture, it's displayed with all the settings. Now it gets a wee bit interesting here. Take the same picture with a different focal length and add them both to your lightbox for comparison. That's handy when trying to make a choice.

The app also lets you look at the work of other X-Pro Photographers. I'm making the switch to Fuji myself, so this app might come in handy for making lens decisions.

PRABAL GURUNG'S SULTY CAMPAIGN

Brazilian model, Caroline Trentini, is heating up Prabal Gurung's Fall / Winter campaign. The high key black and white images feature the blonde bombshell in various states of undress from body con dresses to even nude. I stumbled upon this group of images and couldn't tear my eyes away. Photographed by Daniel Jackson and styled by Clare Richardson, these images are a perfect balance of fashion and sensual tension and Caroline's connection with the camera is stellar.

ALPHABET IS GOOGLE'S NEW NAME

Here's a kicker. Google is changing their name. No joke.  Yep, our favorite verb is no longer the name of a very forward thinking company. On Monday Google announced that it was changing it's name to Alphabet, a name that encompasses a company that's made up of so many parts. Fear not though, the search engine will remain separate.

So, why the move? Google has become so much more than just a search engine. They are a massive conglomerate that has their hands in everything from drones to pharmaceuticals to even venture capital. Google seems to have their hands in almost everything. And it makes sense. The company is like a mad scientist in his lab dreaming up crazy ideas and then making them real.

The name Alphabet is meant to allow all the separate parts to be independent and develop their own brand. Over the years the world has come to recognize the Google banner as just the search engine. It would be hard for the robotics and artificial intelligence devisions to do that because they may never be consumer oriented. Google's co-founder, Larry Page, wanted an umbrella company that gave the individual parts the freedom to fly.

If you want to take a peek at the company's new site, you won't find it at alphabet.com. That site is owned by BMW and as of Monday evening, the site was very slow to load. I'm guessing that was because of all the new traffic. People Googling to find it. You'll have to surf on over to abc.xyz to find the new company site. Also, it would seem that the owner of @alphabet on Twitter is probably receiving a bunch of new friends. Looks like his Monday went very well.

You have to hand it to Google, they like keeping it fresh. And if you don't believe me, you can Alphabet that.

MORPHOLIO JOURNAL - A CREATIVE'S DREAM COME TRUE

My photographer pal, Katie, and I like to geek out over gear and tech. We're always sharing links to new goodies that we've discovered. Of course this leads to a bad case of GAS. Today, she sent me a link to Morpholio's new app Journal. Instantly I knew I wanted to try it out. I love tools that inspire, organize, and power the creative engine. Morpholio's Journal looks like it could be one of those tools.

If you're looking for a tool that could help get rid of clutter, organize your desk and possibly your mind, and even have a place for your notes, then Journal could be a perfect solution. Granted, this sounds a lot like Evernote at first, but there's so much more. You can create mood boards, journal, sketch, message, markup, and collage. Just to name a few.

Essentially, Morpholio Journal is a sketchbook and journaling app for your IOS device. All that you do and create can be shared, which is very groovy. I think it's worth looking into. I have a couple shoots coming up this month and I plan on giving this a shot. Here's a cool little video that gives you an idea of this amazing app.

Morpholio Journal : Sophie Kelle from The Morpholio Project on Vimeo.

FIX WHITE BALANCE IN PHOTOSHOP

Photoshop is an interesting beast. There's more than one way to do anything. That's the beauty of the software. Of course, which technique you use is based on the situation and personal preference. The same goes for white balance. You could use a grey card, adjust in camera, or just fix it in post. It's up to you and what functions best for your workflow.

Personally, when I shoot, I'm mostly shooting based on the relative area of my light source. Meaning, if it's tungsten, I'm shooting based on that. It typically gets me in the right area and I can adjust in post because I'm shooting RAW. Some times I do a custom white balance with an ExpoDisc, but I've been doing that much less. My white balance now is usually being corrected in post.

Here's a neat trick to add to your bag of tricks for correcting white balance in Photoshop. Create a new layer, fill with 50% grey, and set the blend mode to difference. Next, create a threshold adjustment layer and drag your right slider nearly all the way to the left. Basically until you there are just a few areas in black. These are your midtones and closest to 50% grey. Use your handy color selector tool and select a point in one of those areas. Now, hide the grey and threshold layers and create a curves adjustment layer. Grab the grey point sample too, which is the one in the middle, and select the very same point you created before, the one in the midtones, and feast your eyes on corrected white balance beautifulness.

This trick seems a little long, but hey, it works. And it's another tool to add to your bag of tricks. Check out the video above for a very nice walk through.

SUNDAY FRAMED - FLOWERS FOR YOU

Flowers For You

Happy Sunday! Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Some flowers for you to enjoy. This was our night stand on our recent trip. We had some incredible hosts.

OBSTRUCTION AND REFLECTION FREE SOFTWARE WILL BLOW YOUR MIND

I know I'm not the only one that has attempted to snap a photo of something I find interesting, but find there's some kind of...something in the way. A tree or a fence or even a reflection when shooting through a window. You're excited about the shot, but know that darn reflection is killing the frame.

If you're Photoshop savvy, it's possible you might be able to repair it, but not certain. If you're not, then you're just left with an obstructed image that could have been great. Recently, a software has been developed that just might solve this problem for all of us. The video above will give you an idea of what's going on. It hasn't been released, nor is it perfect yet, but it's definitely headed in the right direction.

Stuff like this gets me excited. I love seeing people create and discover new technologies. Enjoy!

NEW DEADPOOL TRAILER IS DEADLY COOL

Look out world! He's coming our way so very soon. The new DeadPool trailer dropped recently and I have to say, I'm pretty excited about it. It looks fun, witty, and full of amazing comic-carnage. Yep, I will be watching this flick when it hits theaters. Will you?

ANN WILSON MAKES ROBERT PLANT CRY!

It's been over 40 years since the rock anthem Stair Way To Heaven was given to us by the super-band Led Zeppelin. Since then, the song has been covered, smothered, and parodied almost as many times as the band has sold albums. I love the song. There's something dark and brooding, and yet so uplifting about this song.

Somehow I missed this tribute by Ann and Nancy Wilson from 2012 at the Kennedy Center. It's an amazing performance. Ann's voice truly soars and captures the heart... of this song. So amazing that it brings Robert Plant to tears and understandably so.

Enjoy!

FIRST FIRMWARE WORM FOR MAC - WINDOWS FANBOYS EVERYWHERE REJOICE

I'm a Mac user. Always have been. I'm not such a fanboy to think that one system is better than another. That's just ridiculous. I love the Apple environment. It works for me, and that's all I need. I used to get worked up over the argument about viruses and Macs. Now, I just shrug it off because it's pointless really. Macs are not immune. There's no super power that this particular machine has when it comes to dealing with viruses. The people concocting these viruses just aren't really making them for Mac. Theres less of these machines in the market place.

I saw on WIRED the the world's first firmware worm that infects Macs was announced. I'm guessing Windows fanboys and gals everywhere are rejoicing. Let the finger pointing begin. It makes me giggle. A worm is essentially a sub-class of a virus and can travel from computer to computer, but the kicker is that it can travel without human interaction.

The video above will give you a good idea of what happens. It basically changes the code built into the motherboard which means that swapping the hard drive will have no effect and neither will reinstalling the OS X. Apple has started patching these security issues, and I'm sure they will completely patch this all up in the near future.

NOKIA OZO - THE NEW STEREOSCOPIC VIRTUAL REALITY CAMERA

So this is interesting. Nokia, the glorious cell phone manufacturer from yesteryear, is taking a step into the world of virtual reality. Does that strike you as odd? If so, I'm right there with you. However, this is a pretty nifty development. Nokia partnered with Jaunt VR, the virtual reality camera developer, to create the Ozo. I have a feeling that all the credit belongs to Jaunt VR though.

This 6 pound little ball is boasting some cool specs and next gen technology. We're still in the early stages of 3D and virtual reality. This new camera presents some very groovy possibilities. The Ozo has 8 lenses with global synchronized shutters, 8 integrated microphones, 3D stereoscopic video recording, and immediate low resolution stitched video review. Just imagine the possibilities. The synchronized shutters bit is especially exciting. That will save so much many post production headaches.

Here's a little teaser video that gives you absolutely nothing, but it's a cool promo all the same.

SUNDAY FRAMEDAY - LUKE'S INNER GRAIN

Inner Grain

Yesterday I had the opportunity to photograph a friend and very talented woodworker. Here's a piece of his work from yesterday's shoot. Have a great Sunday!