Hillman Curtis

Before I saw Gary Hustwit's post on twitter about Hillman Curtis dying at the age of 51 I didn't know who Hillman was.  I went to his site and watched the video below.  I thought it was interesting and wanted to share it.

Story Telling: Iran

One of our athletes in Iran hired a crew and had them shoot video of what it's like to be a body builder in Iran.  They sent me the footage and I edited it to tell the story.  Pretty interesting to see how simple things translate to different parts of the world.  

The Voices

This looks like a really interesting documentary.  I wish the production value was a little bit higher but that won't stop me from watching it.  

Storytelling - Brock

So a lot of what I'm working on right now is for a series called "True Strength".  It's athletes who are at the top of their field, most are bodybuilders or physique athletes.  But in addition to that, they've had moments where they've had tough decisions to make or health issues or something else and they've shown their True Strength (get it) to make it through.  Here's Brock's story...

This has me more excited than the 5d Mark III

Philip Bloom has a much better writeup than I could do, just go here.  The short of it.  A 2k camera that shoots 4:4:4 to CF cards for a little more than $3,000.  Could be revolutionary.  I first looked at their Kickstarter at noon and it had $80k in funding.  Went to pre-order one and they were sold out and had raised almost $250k.  Pretty amazing and inspiring.  Here are the specs...
Resolution 2048 x 1152 (Super 16mm mode) + 1920 x 1080 pixels (16mm mode)
Format Adobe Cinema DNG, TIFF, JPEG Image sequences
Colour depth 12 bit – 4:4:4
File size 2 to 3 MB per frame in RAW
Sensor Kodak CCD: 12.85 mm (H) x 9.64 mm (V) – Similar to Super 16mm
Pixel Size 5.5 micron (compared to the 4.3 micron size of many DSLRs)
Framerate up to 32 fps at 2K, 60fps at 720p, 90 fps at 480p
Sound Balanced, 2 channel, 16 bit, 48 kHz via XLR
Viewfinder 320×240, 2.4” diagonal, with Focus Assist
Video out 640 x 480 B&W via ⅛” video jack (HD-SDI avail in separate unit)
Ports ⅛” video, headphone, USB 3.0, Audio XLR (2), 4-PIN XLR
Data Storage Dual CF card slots, SSD (buffer drive)
Power Internal battery, 12V External via 4 pin XLR port
Body Milled steel and hard plastic
Size (body) Approximately 5”H (without pistol grip) by 4”W by 8”D
Size (grip) 5”H by 2”W by 5”D
Lens mount C-mount comes standard; Optional PL, EF, B4
Weight 5lbs
ISO Options 100, 200, 400
Also in the box pistol grip, USB 3.0 cable, internal battery, 4 pin XLR Battery, cable, video cable, transcoder/raw conversion software

Movie Posters

Paste posted their 100 best movie posters of the past 100 years [see the story here].  Pretty interesting.  I don't know that I agree with the all, but I pulled some favorites.  Scope them out below.

This is PERFECT for HDSLR shooters (and a rant about photogs)

An open letter to Canon from safetyhammer on Vimeo.

As someone who has seen the prosumer proliferation of both Photography and Video, this video is spot on.  I know too, too, too many people who consider themselves "photographers" with shitty equipment, horrible skills, and no compositional ability.  Yet they get labels of staff photographer for a music show or tour photographer on a big tour and even in the MOST ideal environments still can't compose a great shot.  If you can't take a good concert photo on a soundstage lit for TV or in a venue where the tour is rolling in with 3 truck loads of lights then someone should punch you and take your camera.

This project was fun...

So I recently picked up an editing/motion graphics project for a client.  It was really fun to do something a little more "edgy".  The video came out great and the client loved it.  I'm hoping to do some more work for them in the future.

If you work in the creative field, you should watch this

There are few things that I go to regularly for inspiration.  Art & Copy is one, Helvetica, and Lemonade.  Lemonade is a short (38 minute) documentary about people in the creative field who get laid off and it turns out to be inspiration for them to really follow their dreams.  It's something you should watch whether or not you've been laid off or are thinking about a new career.  It's a well put together piece about the uncertainty of things and how you need to follow your dreams or risk never full filling them.  Here's the trailer...

Lemonade Movie Trailer from Erik Proulx on Vimeo.

Doing important work...

As I navigate the landscape of the next couple months I'm trying to make an effort to not watch things on TV or movie's that are useless.  Trying to avoid things like Jersey Shore (not that I was ever really watching it) and watch things more like Ken Burn's Congress or The Modernism of Julius Shulman.  After reading a lot about Tim Hetherington being killed while covering what's happening in Libya, I decided to finally watch Restrepo which had been sitting in my Netflix Instant Queue.  It's an amazing documentary about a platoon fighting in what was once called the most dangerous place on earth.  If you haven't seen it yet, it's time you watched it.  It really makes you think about how the things you think are important in your everyday life really don't compare to what other people are going through.