Everyone seems to be making films these days, but not everyone has a professional photographer on their development team, and most people don't know why they should consider hiring one at all.
A lot of people end up clipping stills right from the video, and the quality of those is never close to even a medium-end point-and-shoot camera. Composition rules, light sensitivity, camera capabilities, lenses - these things vary between video and photo.
When you build up an interest among buyers and apply to festivals, the material that you have to give out better be high quality too. What people see about the film, what things are printed on and how it is presented speaks a lot about the producer and the film itself. Images need to be as attractive as possible, full of energy and tell a story to the person that looks at them.
Attractive posters, flyers, postcards, t-shirts, behind the scenes shots - all of that helps you create the interest even before the screening begins. After screening you want people to take home things that will remind them of your film.
Festivals count on someone who has good give away items to support the film promotion campaign and they will remember you better. They will also include them in press gatherings and screenings that happen before the event itself and you know what that can do for your film.
Posters. POSTERS. POSTERS!!!
Posters attract attention. Even if you don't stop to look at them, your eyes send the information to the brain and when they see the name or something familiar about your film - they will say - I heard about this one! Someone overhearing it is automatically referred to check it out. Buzz is created when something about your movie is present in their brains. No poster - no buzz.
You can ask local store owners to hang posters in their windows, leave cards on their tables - these materials better look appealing! People need to pay to see your film before they see it, not after...
Anything you want to add? Let me know :)...
I'll be putting together some behind the scenes photos from one of the film projects I've been working on. These things are not only full of lots of waiting around, and you'll see why~
Stay tuned!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wine project continued...
The one on the left is as taken, and one on the right is same shot - post-processed. Inside the glass is a mix of different juices. Cran-grape-raspberry I think *lol*.
As you can see the mix is somewhat foggy.
I love learning about it all a bit by bit. The project seemed trivial at first, but now I'm just into shooting more and more glass and other (semi-) transparent things to see what effects I achieve, when and why.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The end of the wonderful day...
What seemed to be a slow starting day ended up very productive and satisfying. The future goals become more and more clear with every experience and new client - that makes me feel very comfortable!
Got to post-production for an old project of mine - old and dry Japanese maple tree leaves - the tree is very young, but the leaves I think are small on big trees too, and when they fall off and crumble.... you can observe a completely different side to them - they become like these little hands and what not! I found so many interesting shapes among them - will never go through all of them here in photoshop! Might make quite an exciting collection actually - with the right processing... *thinks*
This was actually inspired by somebody - of course with my own twist to it, hope you enjoy :).
They made me feel like no dead thing is actually ever dead, it's just in my mind, if I'm allowing it to - it dies. And by it's own, it's just a thing, it's neutral. So I choose to see it as a living thing!
One more...
May be I'll get to do more of these sometime in the future, enough for now, got to deliver photos that are "sponsored" ;)
Got to post-production for an old project of mine - old and dry Japanese maple tree leaves - the tree is very young, but the leaves I think are small on big trees too, and when they fall off and crumble.... you can observe a completely different side to them - they become like these little hands and what not! I found so many interesting shapes among them - will never go through all of them here in photoshop! Might make quite an exciting collection actually - with the right processing... *thinks*
This was actually inspired by somebody - of course with my own twist to it, hope you enjoy :).
They made me feel like no dead thing is actually ever dead, it's just in my mind, if I'm allowing it to - it dies. And by it's own, it's just a thing, it's neutral. So I choose to see it as a living thing!
One more...
May be I'll get to do more of these sometime in the future, enough for now, got to deliver photos that are "sponsored" ;)
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Wine glass project continued...
Here's another setup. I was looking to achieve something different, especially interested in the transparency of the liquid. Again, a good red wine doesn't give that to you, gotta dilute it! Which I did in the next photo :) (coming up...)
Monday, January 18, 2010
Are you willing to take action?..
I wanted to share this story - it's quite simple, and doesn't give any extra points to me, but I feel that I should lay it out here.
I was driving a friend some place here in New Jersey. Had my son with us in the back too. Can't remember where exactly we were going...
Don't remember why I was so distracted that day either - may be it had to do with the fact that I wasn't very used to the new car yet, but on one of the lights on Route 10 (the first one in bunch of cars lined up at the intersection waiting for green signal) - we got stuck. The car engine seemed to have just "died". Light was already green, I tried starting the car and the engine went ON, but died again almost immediately. A lot of annoyed drivers behind me (thank god it was a 2 or 3 lane road *lol*) beeping and cursing... me breaking a sweat... little boy in the back quite displeased - something was clearly wrong and the noise the cars behind us were making - got him very anxious.
That's when I remembered that I wanted to stop at the gas station that morning, but, apparently - among thousands of things daily occupying my mind - simply forgot.
Oops.
I explained to my friend what happened, we got out of the car and started pushing it to the curb. We needed to cross the intersection and push it up to the small parking lot near the flower shop. New Jersey in that area is somewhat hilly, and the parking was higher than the road. I didn't notice when this guy and some police officer joined us in our efforts, they told me - just "drive" it towards there, we'll push it. When that was accomplished, the guy (his name was Chris, that's all I know about him) told us to wait there, he'll go and get us some gas so we could drive to the station and fill it up. 15 minutes later he was back, with a small gas tank (which by the way I went to store and bought later that week, just for a situation like that).
He refused to take any money that my friend was offering him. Explained that he was in the same situation just a few months ago, and that was the reason he had that little gas tank in the car with him.
I took it all somewhat for granted.. no-no, I rrrreeeeeaaally appreciated what he did for us!!! But my friend - he was absolutely fascinated that someone bothered to stop and help out like that - he seemed completely taken by surprise! He mentioned a few times later that day how he couldn't believe there are people like Chris. And with those words I felt bad for the world. But at the same moment there was born hope. As with everything that's going on not to our liking - there's always more and more hope being born :)
I was driving a friend some place here in New Jersey. Had my son with us in the back too. Can't remember where exactly we were going...
Don't remember why I was so distracted that day either - may be it had to do with the fact that I wasn't very used to the new car yet, but on one of the lights on Route 10 (the first one in bunch of cars lined up at the intersection waiting for green signal) - we got stuck. The car engine seemed to have just "died". Light was already green, I tried starting the car and the engine went ON, but died again almost immediately. A lot of annoyed drivers behind me (thank god it was a 2 or 3 lane road *lol*) beeping and cursing... me breaking a sweat... little boy in the back quite displeased - something was clearly wrong and the noise the cars behind us were making - got him very anxious.
That's when I remembered that I wanted to stop at the gas station that morning, but, apparently - among thousands of things daily occupying my mind - simply forgot.
Oops.
I explained to my friend what happened, we got out of the car and started pushing it to the curb. We needed to cross the intersection and push it up to the small parking lot near the flower shop. New Jersey in that area is somewhat hilly, and the parking was higher than the road. I didn't notice when this guy and some police officer joined us in our efforts, they told me - just "drive" it towards there, we'll push it. When that was accomplished, the guy (his name was Chris, that's all I know about him) told us to wait there, he'll go and get us some gas so we could drive to the station and fill it up. 15 minutes later he was back, with a small gas tank (which by the way I went to store and bought later that week, just for a situation like that).
He refused to take any money that my friend was offering him. Explained that he was in the same situation just a few months ago, and that was the reason he had that little gas tank in the car with him.
I took it all somewhat for granted.. no-no, I rrrreeeeeaaally appreciated what he did for us!!! But my friend - he was absolutely fascinated that someone bothered to stop and help out like that - he seemed completely taken by surprise! He mentioned a few times later that day how he couldn't believe there are people like Chris. And with those words I felt bad for the world. But at the same moment there was born hope. As with everything that's going on not to our liking - there's always more and more hope being born :)
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Consciously happy
We all like to feel good, but most of us don't know how to control that. We're happy when good things happen around us and we're unhappy when the opposite is true. But what about times when things go as they usually do, things we're already used to, things that we "normally" take for granted?
I will exaggerate a little bit, but here's the example:
I wake up in the morning in my big warm comfortable bed that's mine for many years already, get the usual "morning hug" from my son, hear him sing while he brushes his teeth in the bathroom, watch him eat his entire breakfast, just like he always does, see him make silly faces while he's getting dressed for school, remind him to take his backpack, put him in that nice car that I drive every day and don't really appreciate unless I remind myself to do it...
... and the day goes on.
It's about the same with the majority of us. Everything is perfectly fine, everything is smacking fantastic, but it just isn't. Until something bad happens when we realize how lucky and blessed we actually are!
We know we all should be deliriously happy, but we need something more to happen in order to get there.
So there's this thing that I wanted to ask you about:
- do you consciously try to be in the state of happiness through your entire day?
- and if you do - what difference does it make for you?
For me the simplest thing would be to try and find something around me right this moment that would make my heart feel a little warmer, then something else, again, that makes it feel even better, then again, and again... I try and keep looking for things that excite me. If I don't find any, I go and make some:
- light a candle,
- put good music on,
- eat a fruit,
- call a friend... etc.
Usually I can find something, but sometimes it gets harder. I guess you get used to that too, and it gets more challenging? Is that what it is? That's not funny...
This morning after I dropped my son off at school (always a sad thing to see him walk away from the car with this face... I can't put it to words... makes me miss him so much!) I was reminded that I need to make a trip to Walmart to get some cables, and I didn't really want to go, but decided to get it done and over with. That's when I reached for something around me that would replace that "worse" feeling with warmth and gratitude, and make me feel good again, but couldn't find anything. So I kept on driving, thinking why it's so hard this morning for me to put myself back together and all of a sudden I notice the magical glow on my left... the sun rising! And you know how in winter it's always spectacular - sunrises and sunsets alike :). There went my heart - TA-DAAAH! *lol*
Next thing I know I'm smiling ear to ear, remembering all the sunrises that I've seen while trying to be "that photographer who makes everyone get up before dawn and freezes somewhere outside with the tripod"
And just because the post is always better with a pic or two - this one's from Escalante a few years back, we were road tripping with my husband and our son - just the three of us - I always keep that vacation deep in my heart:
And here I made a friend wake up real early, 'cause I just had to try and shoot at sunrise on location and he was my "fashion" model *snickers* ;). And we caught this scene when we got there...
And the next thought after all that was to come home and write this post about how practically easy it is to make your own life better, consciously, every day. Just take five minutes right now, and FIND something that you normally take for granted, and make it even bigger-better-feeling by musing over all the small details of what you appreciate so much!
Wouldn't that contribute to a "better place" around us? Just to make sure that YOU are happy! After all you're the only person who CAN do that. When you get used to doing this, it becomes second nature too, you won't always have to remember and work on yourself. Our hearts like to feel good and once we teach them how to - they'll just do it without any effort on our part :)
Have a Fantagraphic Wednesday, I'm thrilled to share things here with you, we're all fabulous and unique, remember that!
I will exaggerate a little bit, but here's the example:
I wake up in the morning in my big warm comfortable bed that's mine for many years already, get the usual "morning hug" from my son, hear him sing while he brushes his teeth in the bathroom, watch him eat his entire breakfast, just like he always does, see him make silly faces while he's getting dressed for school, remind him to take his backpack, put him in that nice car that I drive every day and don't really appreciate unless I remind myself to do it...
... and the day goes on.
It's about the same with the majority of us. Everything is perfectly fine, everything is smacking fantastic, but it just isn't. Until something bad happens when we realize how lucky and blessed we actually are!
We know we all should be deliriously happy, but we need something more to happen in order to get there.
So there's this thing that I wanted to ask you about:
- do you consciously try to be in the state of happiness through your entire day?
- and if you do - what difference does it make for you?
For me the simplest thing would be to try and find something around me right this moment that would make my heart feel a little warmer, then something else, again, that makes it feel even better, then again, and again... I try and keep looking for things that excite me. If I don't find any, I go and make some:
- light a candle,
- put good music on,
- eat a fruit,
- call a friend... etc.
Usually I can find something, but sometimes it gets harder. I guess you get used to that too, and it gets more challenging? Is that what it is? That's not funny...
This morning after I dropped my son off at school (always a sad thing to see him walk away from the car with this face... I can't put it to words... makes me miss him so much!) I was reminded that I need to make a trip to Walmart to get some cables, and I didn't really want to go, but decided to get it done and over with. That's when I reached for something around me that would replace that "worse" feeling with warmth and gratitude, and make me feel good again, but couldn't find anything. So I kept on driving, thinking why it's so hard this morning for me to put myself back together and all of a sudden I notice the magical glow on my left... the sun rising! And you know how in winter it's always spectacular - sunrises and sunsets alike :). There went my heart - TA-DAAAH! *lol*
Next thing I know I'm smiling ear to ear, remembering all the sunrises that I've seen while trying to be "that photographer who makes everyone get up before dawn and freezes somewhere outside with the tripod"
And just because the post is always better with a pic or two - this one's from Escalante a few years back, we were road tripping with my husband and our son - just the three of us - I always keep that vacation deep in my heart:
And here I made a friend wake up real early, 'cause I just had to try and shoot at sunrise on location and he was my "fashion" model *snickers* ;). And we caught this scene when we got there...
And the next thought after all that was to come home and write this post about how practically easy it is to make your own life better, consciously, every day. Just take five minutes right now, and FIND something that you normally take for granted, and make it even bigger-better-feeling by musing over all the small details of what you appreciate so much!
Wouldn't that contribute to a "better place" around us? Just to make sure that YOU are happy! After all you're the only person who CAN do that. When you get used to doing this, it becomes second nature too, you won't always have to remember and work on yourself. Our hearts like to feel good and once we teach them how to - they'll just do it without any effort on our part :)
Have a Fantagraphic Wednesday, I'm thrilled to share things here with you, we're all fabulous and unique, remember that!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Building the STREET TEAM
Looking for you - actors, musicians, dancers, young and aspiring, taking classes and networking... networking and networking the heck out of your free time!
What you get as a member of Sigen Photography Street Team is: FREE photo shoots, whatever it is that you need - a head shot every once in a while? Album cover? Promotional material? You name it!
All you need to apply is to write here, and tell me that you want to participate in our Street Team and what type of photography services you want to accumulate points towards. I will send you detailed info on how this will work, and all you need to do then is:
post about my photographs, talk about my photographs and direct people in need of professional photographs - to me. Every person you bring in gets you certain amount of points and points can be used for... guess what?? Free Photoshoots!
I hope to meet you soon - being very inspired by your focus and determination to make things happen for yourself and this world.
This is supposed to be a win-win situation for everyone, so if you are not excited to jump on board - please enjoy the website, and come back again, hopefully there will be something here for you next time!
I love to keep in touch with fellow artists. There are always auditions and screenings happening where I work with film and music, and I may need to contact you soon - please do not forget to add this page here and to keep in touch!
Sigen Photography on Facebook
Have a Fantographic day!~
What you get as a member of Sigen Photography Street Team is: FREE photo shoots, whatever it is that you need - a head shot every once in a while? Album cover? Promotional material? You name it!
All you need to apply is to write here, and tell me that you want to participate in our Street Team and what type of photography services you want to accumulate points towards. I will send you detailed info on how this will work, and all you need to do then is:
post about my photographs, talk about my photographs and direct people in need of professional photographs - to me. Every person you bring in gets you certain amount of points and points can be used for... guess what?? Free Photoshoots!
This is supposed to be a win-win situation for everyone, so if you are not excited to jump on board - please enjoy the website, and come back again, hopefully there will be something here for you next time!
I love to keep in touch with fellow artists. There are always auditions and screenings happening where I work with film and music, and I may need to contact you soon - please do not forget to add this page here and to keep in touch!
Sigen Photography on Facebook
Have a Fantographic day!~
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The wine glass project
One very cozy night I was in Pier 1 and noticed a box with 4 very nice wine glasses, and since we're always short on those when a good company visits (for some reason all the wine glasses we have are in pairs, not fours), decided that fine italian craftsmanship will be much appreciated during those warm evenings of quiet conversations.
The glass filled with deep red liquid on the cover attracted my attention and I decided to try and reproduce an image exactly as it was on the box!
Little did I know that the liquid in the glass that they photographed was probably not wine, at least not a good burgundy wine, probably something very well diluted if not cranberry juice at all :).
Good red wine that I would enjoy on special occasion just wouldn't reflect and pass the light through the same way.
Also all the edges around the glass were so perfect and I'm yet to discover the way to photograph this glass in such a way where every edge is perfectly lit, and wine shows such awesome color on a completely black background without much of post-processing.
Another issue I found was - no matter how hard I tried to clean up all surfaces, thousands to dust specks will show up on a full blown image.
So, here's one of the first tries I did:
And after that I decided that it would be fun to photograph the same glass of wine every once in a while, to put together a nice collection of ready to use lighting techniques for any sort of table photography. So watch out for more action on this project!
The glass filled with deep red liquid on the cover attracted my attention and I decided to try and reproduce an image exactly as it was on the box!
Little did I know that the liquid in the glass that they photographed was probably not wine, at least not a good burgundy wine, probably something very well diluted if not cranberry juice at all :).
Good red wine that I would enjoy on special occasion just wouldn't reflect and pass the light through the same way.
Also all the edges around the glass were so perfect and I'm yet to discover the way to photograph this glass in such a way where every edge is perfectly lit, and wine shows such awesome color on a completely black background without much of post-processing.
Another issue I found was - no matter how hard I tried to clean up all surfaces, thousands to dust specks will show up on a full blown image.
So, here's one of the first tries I did:
And after that I decided that it would be fun to photograph the same glass of wine every once in a while, to put together a nice collection of ready to use lighting techniques for any sort of table photography. So watch out for more action on this project!
Monday, January 4, 2010
Horizontal portrait vs Vertical
I was taught (by myself and things I read/listened to) that the portrait (and a person in it) always "look better" when the photograph is taken vertically. The subject IS vertical and if their face doesn't need visual widening, then their necks look longer, their cheeks look smaller and what not...
Of course it all can be defined by lighting too, but here I wanted to make just a small point of choosing a vertical head shot over horizontal and the other way around.
Last week I spoke to a film producer Mark Gasper who owns Yankee Oriole company and is by the way very sweet and supporting, and asked him what he looks at when he sees a head shot being sent in by an actor to get a job. And he touched on the whole vertical/horizontal thing for me with a perspective that left no further questions: film producer may actually prefer the horizontal, because that's how the actor will look on their film, and motion pictures are never vertical!
So, that's that. I was all "duh!" of course, but then decided to look into it with all seriousness and take everything into consideration. Just in case if I'm missing another strong point like that. Vertical versus Horizontal will alter the message/mood/feeling of a photograph, and composition rules apply, but do you know of any other situation where the viewer prefers vertical shot over horizontal and vice versa?
Of course it all can be defined by lighting too, but here I wanted to make just a small point of choosing a vertical head shot over horizontal and the other way around.
Last week I spoke to a film producer Mark Gasper who owns Yankee Oriole company and is by the way very sweet and supporting, and asked him what he looks at when he sees a head shot being sent in by an actor to get a job. And he touched on the whole vertical/horizontal thing for me with a perspective that left no further questions: film producer may actually prefer the horizontal, because that's how the actor will look on their film, and motion pictures are never vertical!
So, that's that. I was all "duh!" of course, but then decided to look into it with all seriousness and take everything into consideration. Just in case if I'm missing another strong point like that. Vertical versus Horizontal will alter the message/mood/feeling of a photograph, and composition rules apply, but do you know of any other situation where the viewer prefers vertical shot over horizontal and vice versa?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)