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I just finished cutting the promo and the trailer for a local film titled BRAVO SIERRA. BRAVO SIERRA is an action/comedy that was written and directed by my friend Jason Aupperle. The film will premiere at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center on February 13th at 8pm. Tickets are now available at the box office, and proceeds from the film will be donated to the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. For more information you can check out the films website at BravoSierraTheMovie.com.

I love to cut trailers, editing images and sound together in a tight and kinetic way always excites me. I enjoy having only a minute or two to sell a film, it really forces me to choose the best shots and the most important lines of dialogue. I start by building out small points of action on my timeline and after an hour or two of editing, the trailer starts to show its first signs of life. Little segments form together in to two or three second moments. As the editing continues, the segments snap together into larger and more interesting sections, and this is my favorite part of editing trailers. This is when I start to feel like I’m really birthing something exciting into the world, it’s a rewarding feeling.

BRAVO SIERRA was my first opportunity to cut an action trailer. I chose to accentuate the fast and explosive visuals with loud and dynamic sounds. Check out the promo and trailer below and let me know what you think.

1 min promotional film:

2 min trailer:

I came across this video, or rather, Paul (Designer) showed me this video. It’s comprised entirely of CG, which is nothing new, CG has been around forever. But go ahead and watch it, you’ll be shocked.

I’ve watched a lot of stuff on vimeo over this last year. I thought I’d share some of the videos that resonated with me. Take a look, let me know what you think.

Probably my favorite frame of the year, at the :46 second mark.

Powerful, artistic, NSFW.

Inspiration, with some sweet and sexy lens flares.

A beautiful look at skywalker ranch.

Beautiful underwater footage, with kinetic musical pacing.

Drop the Gun!

Epic and Breathtaking.

Anime adaptation, ninjas, samurai! Um yeah this rules.

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I recently shot an interview with a friend and local director named Jason Aupperle. The interview was conducted to promote his soon to be premiered film titled BRAVO SIERRA. I shot the interview in my living room with my HVX200, letus adapter and a 50mm prime lens. My hope was to black out the entire background so that Jay would really stand out, and if there was anything distinguiable in the background I figured I’d be able to blur it out with my DoF adapter. Unfortunately it didn’t work out as I had hoped.

I was using two small key lights that each had diffusion paper on them. These provided very soft and appropriate light on my subject, but they spilled light all over the wall behind him, which really killed the shot that I was going for. Then I thought, wait a minute no problem! I’ll just stop down on my lens to black out the background. Doing this got the background very black just like I wanted, but now my subject was way under lit. I think I needed a bigger room.

So in an attempt to save the shot, I pulled my entire rig about 3 feet back from where it was and threw on a 135mm prime. I knew a longer lens would blur the background out even more, and I would be able to frame out more of the background, to really focus on Jay. This gave me a much better shot, but moving my rig further away really started to make it feel cramped in my living room.

During the interview I kept thinking, I wish this lens adapter didn’t lose so much light. If I was able to work with the same kit but pick up more of the light that I was throwing, I’d have more for flexibility with my aperture, which means I’d be able to get a better image. As it stood, I had to open my lens up all the way and flood my subject with light just to get a usable shot.

Shooting this interview really made me think about how a camera’s low light performance can make or break a shot. That said, I really want to pick up a Canon 7D or 5D as soon as I can. Mainly because these cameras don’t lose anywhere near the amount of light that an adapter does, and they weigh much less than a full size rig.