idea – Page 4 – Journeys of a Hybrid

February 21, 2011

Editing 150 Hours of Footage From a DSLR

As I roll away the miles, driving the ten hour trip to Michigan to rendezvous with my daughter Erin to film the last of our subjects for our documentary Opening Our Eyes, I realize how desperately I needed a long road trip – just cruising down the highway. I have been in utter isolation for the past month, editing over 150 hours of footage that we had shot over our ultimate road trip around the world this past summer. Little did I know that the 99-day journey would be the easy part of this project.

This past month there have been many times that I became so overwhelmed with the process of editing that I wanted to throw my hands up in surrender and just give up. But somehow I plowed through it, many days putting in 14 plus hours. I was on a mission and listening to the words of my subjects got me through it. After all these were some of the most inspirational people I had every met, so revisiting them through their interviews was a constant reminder of the goal of this film which is to create awareness and inspire and motivate others to make a difference and create change.

Ultimately, my challenge is to take ten (soon to be eleven) different stories of people across the globe who are making a positive difference in the world. After finally getting the tedious tasks finished, of transcoding files and sorting through the good from the bad clips, I arrived at a point where I needed to start telling “THE” story. Meaning I needed to determine how I could best structure the film to convey the common themes between my subjects.

In order to see the story clearly – I needed to get away from the technology. So as the miles roll by, the story becomes more vivid in my head. I see the hero(s), the themes, the commonality and the arc of the story as the stories intertwine. I won’t give away too much information other than to say that the solution is simple. They aren’t eleven different stories after all. It’s really a global story about the power of one. How one individual can create positive change and not only effect generations to come but change themselves as well. It’s a basic human story that resonates with all of us.

When I started writing this blog I was going to talk about editing tech tips. Somehow as the miles rolled by and my head became clear of the intense electronic input from the past month, I not only saw the story, but I felt it. I had gotten back on track and gotten to the heart of the story.

February 9, 2011

Grow or Die

I’m borrowing the title from Ian Summers, a creative coach and visionary. Through personal sessions with Ian as well as from his writings, I’ve learned that there is joy in any exploration, especially the exploration of the creative self. Ian expresses what he does more beautifully on his blog: Heartstorming

“ I co-create an environment where people are safe to bring what they love and what matters to come into being by being a compassionate teacher and expressive painter.”

There is so much to learn simply because it’s such an amazing age we live in. I try to take advantage of that and embrace new skills and knowledge to further my creative self. Learning and exploration is a necessary ingredient in my life. It stimulates me, it brings me wonder and joy and it empowers me. The more I learn, the more I grow, and the more the universe opens to me and sets my creative spirit free to be the one I am meant to be. Learning is happiness.

Here are some links to some wonderful sources for learning – some technical and some inspirational – but all valuable in their own way.

To start with don’t miss Selina Maitreya’s Clarion Call 2011, a free 2-day professional photography telesummit.
I’ll be on at 10AM Friday, Feb. 11th.

If you’d rather have the benefit of networking face to face with your peers then sign up for ASMP’s Strictly Business 3
Next one coming up is in Philadelphia Feb. 25-27, 2011.

Here’s a few a my favorite links to continued learning:

Video Vimeo School – Tutorials, articles
Creative Cow – Tutorials, forums, articles
2 Pop – Forum, articles
Ken Stone –Tutorials video

If you have any real or virtual places that you frequent to learn, please feel free to share.

The key of course to learning is to apply the knowledge that you’ve learned. So be ready to grow when you set out on your explorations of learning. Embrace that thought and ready your mind to be open and receptive to new ideas and ways of seeing.

February 7, 2011

Monday Morning Quarterbacking

Ok, I’m just going to come right out and say it. I was one of the few people in America who did NOT watch the Super Bowl yesterday. Before you try to enlighten me as to the merits of the game and sentence me to watch NFL highlights, let me just say I don’t like football. Just never got into the touchy feeliness of the sport. And besides, I’m still chained to my editing station – finally starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.

But this morning I couldn’t escape the pundits grading and scoring the Super Bowl commercials as I clicked through the morning programs looking for the “news”. It was interesting to hear their “take” on what commercials were successful. Most of the pundits made their assessments through the eyes of their “ad men” (and women) persona, debating which commercials caught the attention of the viewers.

One “expert” frequently commented, “now this one had people telling their friends – be quiet – I want to hear the commercial. I’m not quite sure what Super Bowl party this person went to, but no doubt it was a party made up of other advertising folks. Now, I’ve had very limited experience attending Super Bowl parties, but as for the ones I have been to – nobody has ever said “be quiet – so I can hear the commercial”. With that said, as I watched many of the spots this morning via YouTube, some of the most effective commercials required no listening at all. Check out this one for Bridgestone.

I guess the creatives who made this spot go to the same kind of parties as I do – parties where people don’t ask someone to turn the volume up for the commercials. Actually, I’ve learned a lot about editing by watching TV commercials with the sound off. The “story” either becomes apparent – or not.

The New York Times did a pretty good critique of the ads this morning. But what I found most interesting was the running commentary from the “average Joes” via Twitter and Facebook. No doubt some of these advertising experts were paying as much attention to the social media chatter this morning as Mumbarak’s men were. Hands down, the Chrysler “Detroit” spot won the most hearts – mine included. It drew me in from the start and kept me the entire two minutes. Imagine that – a two minute commercial! When was the last time you saw that? A beautiful mini-film told in credible brevity. Quite frankly, to me it would have been just as effective without Eminem or any celebrity for that matter. It evoked emotion – that’s what kept me watching.

At the end of the day, the commercials that resonated most with just about everyone – pundit and laymen alike were the ones that told a simple story that rang true with the human spirit. Works every time. To tell those stories, one needs to get out of the meeting rooms and late nights at the office and spend more time living life. Otherwise, what you end up with is a bunch of people creating commercials about what they think life is like.

February 2, 2011

Telling the Story with the DSLR

The sub-title should read…”or with any camera for that matter”. For those of you not new to this blog, you know that my mantra is “it’s not about the tool”. And my other mantra is “embrace collaboration”.

But back to the thought behind this blog entry and that is “telling the story”. I recently read a great book that a dear friend had given me about screenwriting called “Save the Cat” by Blake Snyder. Snyder’s book is geared more toward writing a fictional screenplay, as opposed to writing a narrative for a documentary, but I thought it would be helpful for me as far as learning more about the dynamics of story telling – and indeed it was.

Snyder talks about the different genres that most movies fall into. The category that my documentary came closest to if I was writing a fictional piece was what he referred to as The Golden Fleece. Blake writes:

“The name comes from the myth of Jason and the Argonauts and yet it’s always about the same thing: A hero goes “on the road” in search of one thing and winds up discovering something else – himself.”

“Like the twists of any story, the milestones of The Golden Fleece are the people and incidents that our hero or heroes encounter along the way. The theme of every Golden Fleece movie is internal growth, how the incidents affect the hero is, in fact, the plot.

“It’s not the mileage we’re racking up that makes a good Golden Fleece, it’s the way the hero changes as he goes”.

Wow, I thought as Snyder’s words resonated with me and how I “saw” the documentary that I was in the midst of editing. In my case, I had many heroes who in setting out to make a positive difference in the world had also experienced intense and rewarding personal growth. I too had changed and grown, along with my daughter who journeyed with me to tell our subjects’ stories.

As I read more of Snyder’s book, my vision of our film became much clearer in my head. This week, I had a meeting with the editor who will be collaborating with me on this film. I’m thankful that I was able to have a face to face meeting with him where we could both get a better feel for each other and more importantly – the story. We had a wonderful conversation about the story that I wanted to tell – the heroes – the conflicts – all those things that are part of a good story. I knew we were on the same page when he said: “It’s not about the trip – it’s about the journey”.

Or as Snyder writes:
“It’s not the incidents encountered. It’s what the hero(es) learn about himself from the incidents that make the story work.”

We’ll see if I can do my heroes justice in telling their stories, but I’m not alone in this task. I’ll be collaborating with an editor who not only has an understanding of “the story” but the skills and ability to make it come to life. What joy.

January 31, 2011

Being Authentic

There are certain words and phrases that tend to become over used just because they seem to express the idea so well. Ironically, the word authentic is becoming over used now in our culture and in a weird way is on the brink of becoming a contradiction to what it means. So, I cautiously use the word “authentic” in the real sense to say – be who you are meant to be. Be authentic.

When I returned from my round the world adventure this past Fall after completing the shooting aspect of a personal project, I discovered that people were responding to me in a different way. Perhaps they sensed there was something inside of me that they wanted to connect with. It’s a very difficult thing to explain but I think what they were sensing, was my contentment. I was content and feeling a sense of “satisfaction” because I was following “my purpose”, both personally and creatively and in the process I was discovering many other people, all over the world, who were doing the same.

On the outside what may have seemed like just a very long, exotic “trip”, was really more of a journey. It was a journey that I had begun a long time ago when I became an explorer, through my eyes and through my camera. I use the word explorer in a literal and figurative sense. Throughout my life, in my never-ending nomadic need to explore the world and its peoples, I was finding my own vision and how I “saw” and I was sharing that with others.

Ethan G. Salwen expressed it beautifully in a recent post on his After Capture blog:

“We always say that learning photography is really learning to see, and this is true. But we tend to express this sentiment in relation to a very limited sense of seeing — the visual sense. Older photographers seem to continue to learn to see on a much deeper level, in terms of what it is to be a working artist and, most important, how this relates to their continual growth and satisfaction as an individual.”

I think Ethan nailed it by talking about “learning and seeing on a much deeper level and how this brings growth and satisfaction as an individual.” I use the words “ being on purpose” to describe “satisfaction” within oneself. I believe that as creative individuals, when we begin to find meaning in who we are and how that fits into the world, it will shine through our work. Some use the word “vision” to describe that certain something that they see in someone’s creative work. Maybe that’s what was in the back of my mind when I came up with the title of my project and film, Opening Our Eyes.

In a way, I use my “eyes” and my camera to do what I do best – to share and connect with others. When I travel, it is not to assimilate with a culture, but rather to learn and exchange our cultural uniqueness, embrace that and share it with others. When I’m being authentic and true to myself, that happens in a magical way. When someone tells me that I’m the “real deal”, that is one of the highest compliments they can give me.

I think Susana Esmoris, one of the subjects of my documentary said it best. “Live life intensely. Wear the color that you want in life. Dance what you want to dance.”

January 11, 2011

SB3 – Get Inspired

If you haven’t registered for the ASMP Strictly Business 3 conference yet, I would highly suggest that you do so. They will be held in three locations starting next week: January 21-23 in Los Angeles; February 25-27 in Philadelphia; and April 1-3 in Chicago.

There’s an incredible line up of speakers presenting workshops on pricing, estimating, copyright, workflow, strategic career planning, successful portfolios and branding and video production. I’ll be presenting two workshops: “Thinking in Motion” and “Shooting Video with the DSLR”.

Branding expert Colleen Wainwright will deliver her keynote “Making People Love You Madly: Selling Yourself in a Postmodern Marketplace”. Tom Kennedy, whom I’ve know since his days at the National Geographic Magazine will give a keynote “Learning New Skills for the Changing Media Landscape”.

This conference series is meant for everyone, not just photographers who are beginning their careers. In fact, I think that photographers who have been in business for many years will benefit equally, if not more than a shooter who is new to the business.

I have been in business for over 30 years and I have found that one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a creative person, is for them to become complacent, especially in a business like photography. It’s even more deadly to become complacent these days in our fast changing world of technology. We not only need to stay current with our skills, we need to keep our vision fresh.

When I got into video and motion more than a decade ago, I was looking for something to excite me. I felt that even though my business was successful and that I had accomplished many of my creative goals, the spark was getting dim inside me and at times I felt like I was reinventing the wheel. So, I set out on a learning curve and have been soaking up information ever since.

I love to learn and I have found that the more I wonder and grow, the better off I am creatively and the more successful I am in business. I’ve also found that networking and collaborating with my peers has opened my eyes to all sorts of possibilities that I never knew existed. I think that’s what makes the SB3 conference so powerful – the sharing of information with our peers. You don’t get that from online learning.

We live in a time where anything is possible. Come to SB3 in LA, Philadelphia and Chicago and be prepared to be inspired.

January 6, 2011January 6, 2011

Crowd Funding and What I’ve Learned

There’s a scene at the end of my favorite holiday movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”

250px-It's_A_Wonderful_Life — It's a Wonderful Life

where George Bailey, a character played by Jimmy Stewart is surrounded by his friends as they come to his aid and bail him out of his financial shortcomings, caused by his crazy Uncle Billy. I’ve seen this film at least a dozen times and ok – I admit it – I cry every time George Bailey’s little girl opens a book that mysteriously appears under the Christmas tree with the inscription “No man is a failure who has friends”.

I felt like George Bailey today when I saw the email from Kickstarter telling me that my daughter’s and my film project, Opening Our Eyes had been officially funded. We actually exceeded our goal of $7500 and raised just over $10,000! What a feeling – what a triumph and all possible because of our “friends”. Through crowd funding – our friends had helped us reach our goal and made our film a reality.

This would not have been possible just two years ago. But, Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites like it, provide other options for artists and entrepreneurs who are seeking funds to make their creative ideas come to life. Many times these ideas might not fit within the confines of what a traditional bank would finance, but there are some great ideas that have a chance now of becoming a reality – and we all benefit by that.

Here are some things that I have learned through the process of getting our film funded on Kickstarter.

•    You have to do the work. Once you launch your project page on Kickstarter, you need to let potential backers know about it, using social media or email blasts or word of mouth. Just like getting traffic to your website, you can’t expect people to stumble upon your project and fund it.
•    You have to make it fun. Have fun with the “rewards” that you offer your backers, and on Kickstarter every project must have rewards. People love to give, but they also love to feel like they are part of something or that they have helped to make something happen. If a backer contributed to my project at the $500 reward level, they will receive an Associate Producer credit in the film and on the project’s website, along with DVD’s of the film when it’s completed, as well as a signed print and an e-book from the project’s journey.
•    Keep your financial goal realistic. Look at other projects that are similar to yours and see what the “market will bear”. See what has been successful and ask yourself why. Remember that if you ask for too much money and don’t meet 100% of your goal by the time the funding period is over for your project, then you won’t receive anything. Only projects that are successfully funded at 100%, will receive funds.
•    Use social media and email blasts with common sense – don’t be obnoxious. If you do send emails – don’t send an email again to someone who has already backed your project. Ask people to share your project link on social media but don’t overdo it.
•    Post updates on your project to keep your backers and potential backers informed. Use visuals if you have them, both on your page site as well as in your updates. Photographs and videos really give a project presence and are a must have. You want to stand out from the crowd.
•    There is no such thing as a pledge too small. They say the average pledge on Kickstarter is around $25 and I can attest to that. Out of our 161 backers – 69 had made pledges of $25. It all adds up. And every time someone backs your project there is also the opportunity that they may share it with someone they know who may in turn make a contribution.
•    Be grateful and appreciative. I made it a point to send each and every one of my backers a personal thank you note.
•    Have faith – because anything is truly possible these days.

December 28, 2010December 28, 2010

Don’t Become a Photo”saur”

A lot of people tell me that I’m way ahead of things since I got into video/motion over ten years ago. Most still photographers weren’t even thinking about video ten years ago. Neither was I. Nor did I have a crystal ball. But I am a visual communicator and that means that I am always looking for the best way to communicate the message or tell the story. And twelve years ago, it became possible and affordable for me to deliver the message with another medium. Not instead of still photography but in addition to it.

My desire to explore video and motion at the time, wasn’t coming from a “tool” point of view. It was coming from a cultural one. When I think about it, I wasn’t fascinated by the technology – I was fascinated by what people were doing with the technology. Fast forward a decade later and I’m just wowed by where all this has gone. Our culture has changed dramatically in the last ten years because of technology. And while that is still “fascinating” and like creative adrenalin, it’s also a game changer in how it has affected the business of photography.

Don’t get me wrong and think that my message is to tell you to get into video or multimedia so as not to become a photo”saur” and become extinct. That’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that the cultural psyche has changed. Take notice and adapt. That doesn’t just mean, change the subject matter you shoot or how you shoot it to stay “fresh”. And it doesn’t mean to buy a video camera or a hybrid and start shooting motion. Those are probably good ideas but probably not going to be what keeps you in business.

The old days aren’t coming back. The ways of doing business have changed. Technology is democratizing when it’s placed in everyone’s hands. Understand that. Know that your clients understand that. So, think past the tool and technique and focus more on who you are and what you can bring to your customers to stay relevant. Some thoughts to ponder:

• Who are you? (why do your customers come to you and not your competition?)
• What services do you offer your client? If you don’t offer video and your client needs to look elsewhere – you’ve lost an opportunity.
• Are you still a one-man band? I don’t mean you need a large staff but have you considered setting up a virtual company when you need it with editors, sound people etc.?
• Do you continue to learn?
• Are you still using a dated business model ? Consider different licensing strategies for new media.
• Do you utilize social media?
• Are you noticing who’s “coming up” – the new talent? Do you try to see them through your customer’s eyes.
• Are you interested in other things besides photography?
• Are you willing to take risks? Creatively and otherwise.
• Ask yourself the question – how would I have approached this if I was just starting out?
• Think of solutions – then look at those decisions at a total 180.

Learn. Grow. Adapt.

Don’t become a photo”saur” and become extinct.

December 11, 2010December 11, 2010

“Here’s an Idea – Have a Point”

One of my favorite holiday movies is “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” with Steve Martin and John Candy. There’s a great scene in the movie where Steve Martin loses it and starts a rant directed toward Candy’s character, Del Griffith. Del, is a “nice guy” who talks incessantly. Martin’s character, Neal Page, an uptight ad man, frustrated by the day’s travel mishaps, finally explodes at his travel companion Del after one too many stories and says – “here’s an idea – when you tell a story, have a point!”

Am I the only one who has been oversaturated with multimedia and video pieces that are little more than pretty visuals to music? Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of pieces that I do like, but there are far too many where I get bored and bail mid-way through because there is no point – there is no story.

Worse yet, the audio or music track many times feels like it has no connection to the visuals. It may be a great piece of music and provide pacing for the video, but it doesn’t complement the story. And there are times that the music is the most interesting part about the piece – if you take it away, what do you have? Most likely a pagination of moving and/or still images – like pages in a magazine or prints on a gallery wall. Independent and isolated vignettes with a music track – but no story- just eye candy.

What holds my interest is a story, where all the elements of audio, music, video clips, stills, text and narrative are parts of the whole and each one is integral in telling the story. I don’t think I’m alone in being interested in the story. Humans have enjoyed “the story” since the beginning of time. It doesn’t matter if it’s told verbally in a one on one conversation, in a multimedia piece, or in a major motion picture – a good story is a key ingredient for human interest. We all love a good story.

Personally, there is so much out there to watch these days on any given site that hosts videos, if I’m going to invest time in viewing something – I want it to have a point. If it doesn’t when I get to the end – I feel somehow let down.

I’m sure some of you will disagree with me on these thoughts and many of you may get loads of satisfaction from watching pretty visuals laid down to music and that’s OK. I’ve just had my fill of pretty content splashed before me, becoming a blurred palette in my head.

So, here’s an idea – have a point.

December 3, 2010December 3, 2010

How Do You Tell the Story?

I’ve said it hundreds of times – “the story is everything”, “without a story, you’ve got pretty pictures to a soundtrack”. So, how do you tell a story? How do you do it?

A friend called me the other day, struggling with this very question, of how do you tell the story? He was putting together a multimedia piece and he had captured sound and had taken photos during an event and was about to record an audio interview. I wasn’t sure at first, if he was asking about the mechanics of how to edit a story together in Final Cut– or was he asking me for guidance on how to tell the story? Those are two completely different discussions.

I thought back to when I was just starting to learn video journalism and had taken the Platypus Workshop. We had to tell our commitment or our story idea to an instructor, before we could start executing it. If the idea wasn’t delivered clearly and concisely, we went back to the drawing board to nail down the idea or the focus.

Every story starts out with an idea. Ideas have always come pretty easily to me, usually in spurts. All sorts of environments or activities can trigger ideas.

Seth Godin did a blog about a week ago titled, Where do ideas come from? Here are a couple of my favorites:

Ideas come out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower, when we’re not trying
Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide
Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner’s mind. A little awareness is a good thing
Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom

Once I get the idea, I then start focusing it in my head. I play out the movie in my mind. What is the message? Whose message is it – mine? – the client’s? What is the motivation for the piece? A call to action? Once I get a pretty clear idea of what the story is that I’m trying to tell, then I start to put the pieces together. First I gather and capture all the assets that I’ll need, the interviews, b-roll, still photos etc. Then, when it’s time to edit the story, I’ll have a much clearer focus of how I will edit the pieces together to deliver the message.

Right now, I’m editing a feature length documentary, that is made up of ten different stories about ten different people in various corners of the globe. All together, the ten stories are unified by the theme of “the power of the individual in making a difference in the world”. Essentially the idea is, global stories about the power of one. That has been my underlying story from the moment of concept, to shooting it, to editing it all together.

So, how do you tell the story? For me, it’s focusing on the “idea” at all times and editing toward that purpose. There are hundreds of ways to tell the same story, but you need to know what the story is before you can begin to tell it.