Dog 'tography

No actual film involved here but I did a little stills shoot as a favour to a friend last week and was quite pleased with the results.

It was a joint venture between Style Tails ("Design and Living for Pets"): http://www.styletails.com/  run by my amazing pal Sara White and the excellent restaurant Pips Dish near Covent Garden.  They needed someone to capture their first ever Doggie Sunday:  http://philipdundas.com/dogs-dinner/

I do like dogs but am more of a cat person so it was a bit intimidating being around 11 dogs (and their loving owners) in a very small space where food was being served.  But we pulled it off and I think my pics on the Style Tails blog look pretty good:

http://www.styletails.com/2014/05/21/photos-styletails-pipsdish-dog-lovers-sunday-lunch/

Here are a few of my faves:

The full set is here: http://www.helenrosemier.com/styletails

Some things I learned:

• Take more pics of the owners with their dogs, especially close up
• Use the 70-200mm lens for less intrusive reportage shots
• Have doggie treats to hand!
• Don't drink wine until you have finished working
• Take some pics of the kitchen and more of the waiting staff handing over the food
• Get at least one useable pic of a doggie in the window
  
  
  
  
  It was a fun day with lovely people and a good experience but I really don't think I am cut out to be a pet photographer....
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Mosjukhin outtakes #2

I was afraid this might be a bit too sappy and that it would look a bit like Sara was dead but I think it worked pretty well in the end, considering I was just sweeping up clips from the cutting room floor....

Mosjukhin outtakes #1

I shot quite a lot of footage for the Mosjukhin experiment; some of it work OK and some of it didn't. I then experimented with editing the clips to create some other sequences. This was just for fun... (warning: contains a naked photo of Ron Jeremy!)

Down and out in Berlin

This little film was originally a 'quick and dirty' entry for a monthly competition on Photogdography where we create images/video to match a Tom Waits song. The full gallery is here.

For March's competition I got a little confused and started shooting video and stills for a song called Emotional Weather Report. At the eleventh hour, I remembered that the chosen song was actually Nighthawk Postcards so I had to lengthen to footage substantially and it had a very negative effect on the project.  

Without the soundtrack/lyrics - and after some re-editing on the fly - it just looks like a very amateur mish-mash with a messed up soundtrack.

I did however take some learnings from this which I thought I should add to my blog.

• The combination of moving and still images can work well but the frames need to be planning carefully and fit together smoothly - the narrative is as important as ever
• The pacing is crucial
• There needs to be a strong beginning and ending. And, ideally, a middle...
• Matching colour frame to frame is surprisingly easy in FCPX and quite exciting!
• A dirty lens will ruin at least half of your shots
• Some very cool footage can come from very ordinary things - I love the reflections of car lights on the tarmac and the shop lights in the puddles
• The image quality is pretty poor (shot on a Fuji compact) - this works more for some of the images than others
• It is definitely always worth recording atmos and having some interesting soundscapes to use for still image montages
• The coming out of the bar onto the street segment could have been repeated to good effect
• I deliberately blurred some of the shots and I think they work well in this context
• I like the trees and special effects at the end - a dreamy abstract feel

Overall, I am not satisfied with the final outcome of this experiment, although I am heartened by knowing that I could have got a better result (even with the irrelevant footage I had) if I'd devoted much more time to the editing.  A montage really can be much greater than the sum of its parts.  This is something I will take with me into the rest of my photography study - even when I am finished with this "silly film course" as Clive teasingly calls it.

Next time, I can plan and execute more effectively so it has been a useful process, and there are elements I really like.  Plus I was flattered that a friend commented that the film had an Edward Hopper atmosphere (which was of course one of my aims) - he even created this image to illustrate his observation:

Here is a version of the sequence (with the Waits soundtrack removed and some of the clips re-edited):




Down and out in Berlin from Helen Rosemier on Vimeo.


Edit: I have just read this post from WeAreOCA which mentions Tom Waits and Hopper...
http://www.weareoca.com/fine_art/nighthawks/

Video of venue interior

This was a little experiment for work. We needed a video to show the interior of a new venue we are using for a conference so I got my camera on a dolly and whizzed around. It was fun.  I tried various light sources but it all got a bit Blair Witch so I kept it simple.

Editing snippets

Today was the first time I created something having obtained snippets of footage, this case with a view to creating a taste of Havana video and edited them together. I thought I should tackle this asap as I have been very nervous about using the iMovie software and that has felt like it could be a big barrier to my progression. It wasn't too bad and hopefully iMovie will suffice for the time being.

The video itself is rather boring and I can see a number of areas which could have been dramatically improved:

• Needs a lot more music as that is a constant feature of Cuba
• I should have filmed much more interesting things - I captured the feel of things with the old cars but there is so much else that could have been crammed in
• More people interacting with the camera and with each other 
• People talking 
• Could have included still images (Duckrabbit style)?
• The clips need to have a logical relationship with each other (journey through a day or links from people or views)
• I need to think more about pacing when I am choosing what to film to ensure I have a sufficient variety of footage
• I should have planned the whole project much more deliberately rather than just filming moments that appealed 

All in all though, I am quite pleased to have been able to move this forward without any major dramas...

Onwards and upwards!