The Association’s Canon Boot Camp has a special guest scheduled for Jan 28th’s Pro Level I class.
Eric Schmidt. Though you may not recognize the name, you will certainly recognize the work. Having DP’d commercials for Miller Genuine Draft, Snapple, Toshiba, and Verizon as well as music videos for Coldplay, Michael Jackson, Adele, The Flaming Lips, and Beck, his body of work is not only impressive, but an integral part of pop culture.
Foo Fighters’ music video “Best of You“, which he filmed with director and oft-collaborator Mark Pellington, won an MTV music video award in 2005. A year earlier they earned an ASC Outstanding Achievement Award for their work on the TV series Cold Case. Obscure, he is not.
The imagery in Schmidt’s 2011 movie I Melt with You, starring Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven, and Sasha Grey, is even more striking than his otherwise mainstream work. A story about three 40ish best friends who find themselves revisiting a disturbing pact made years earlier, Schmidt’s cinematography creates a world of chaos, depth, and strange beauty.
A core belief in the filmmaking world is that the image is universal. A film should be able to tell a story without the use of dialogue. If that is true, then Eric Schmidt has succeeded without question, which is why we’re eager to hear what he has to say to our students at the January 28th Pro Level I Canon Boot Camp.
Eric will be giving our students advice, answering questions, and talking to us about using a DSLR, which he used to shoot I Melt with You.
“The freedom to shoot handheld, to crouch down, to throw it under your arm, switch shoulders or stick it out of a window was the greatest part of shooting with [DSLR]” says Schmidt in an interview with HDVideoPro.
Anyone interested in getting trained on the Canon DSLR 5D & 7D can find out all about our Canon camera classes by visiting canonbootcamp.com for the next event dates, or click on the links on the right of this blog for a specific upcoming class date.
Celine Duong is one of the busiest creatives at The Association, and it’s clear that she’s dedicated to the work and her students. We sat down with the 23-year-old production junkie and talked with her about how she got her start, and what she loves most about the Canon Boot Camp.
Where are you from?
Well, I was born in Paris, France and spent the first ten years of my life there, then I moved to Los Angeles.
What do you do here at The Association?
I’m a Canon Boot Camp Instructor specializing in the 7D, I work in the creative division helping develop scripts and concepts for the film projects we do, and I’m a part of the marketing and promotion division for The Association’s Canon camera classes.
When did you get interested in cameras and film production?
During college when I studied abroad and they wouldn’t let us take the production classes, but I realized that was what I was interested in. You know what they say, you always want what you can’t have. That whole year, I was itching to get my hands on some gear, get some guidance and shoot. So, during my senior year of college I completely focused on production.
I took all the production classes, got an internship, and my life became 100% involved in that field because I wanted to mock-up what it would be to be in that career full-time. It proved to me that it was something I loved to do and was pretty good at, so after college I kept pursuing it in LA. Now, here I am!
What’s your favorite camera?
That’s a hard one! I love DSLRs, especially the 60D, the Canon 5D, and 7D. My favorite camera would be a hybrid/unborn child of a 5D, 7D, and 60D. I love the look of the 5D so I want its huge sensor so that I could get the shallow depth of field, the 7D for its slo-mo capabilities, and the 60D for its flip-out monitor. So technically my perfect camera doesn’t exist… [laughs].
What’s the most exciting project you’ve ever worked on?
I worked on a documentary as a camera operator with my 7D, where I filmed at a camp for underprivileged student-athletes. The camp provided them with activities and education that taught them that they were more than just their athletic ability. By the end they had turned into well rounded young men and had such confidence. I was only filming them, but I really felt like I had become a part of their transformation. That was really special for me.
What is the best part about The Association’s Canon Boot Camp?
Our caliber of students is evidence that no matter how experienced you are, you can always learn something new. For example, the DP for Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a past student. We get to teach pretty knowledgeable people a new skill, which I think is really cool.
On the other hand, and just as exciting, are the students who have absolutely no experience. There was a past student who took his camera out of the box and literally did not know how to turn it on. By the end, he know exactly how to operate his camera, all the ins and outs. We have many students from both categories and the pace of the class seems to be right for everyone.
If you have any questions about The Association or want to register for an upcoming Canon Boot Camp workshop, please call us at 818.841.9660, or visit our website. The updated dates and times of the next boot camp are on the right side of the page.
We tracked down The Association’s President, Fletcher Murray, (OK, he was in the next room) and talked to him about his life’s work and dedication to the Canon Boot Camp.
What do you do here at The Association?
I’m the President, Director, and Producer here at The Association. I started out as a still photographer and then as a DP. I love imagery, and at the root of everything, I love to communicate with pictures.
When did you become interested in film what was your first film job?
Well, I made my first film when I was eight-years-old. My career turned upwards in college when I did two films. The first film won a festival. I made another one the next year and it won, too. A producer from ABC saw the film festival results and was intrigued, and thought that he could improve their TV ratings. At the time [ABC news] was ranked number two in the market and they wanted to go for number one. They thought that if they put an interesting little piece at the end of the news each night it would draw more viewers than just more of the same format.
So I was hired to be sort of an Ansel Adams, film student, Charles Kuralt, film guy [laughs]. And so my only directive was “Go shoot cool, unusual stuff and we’ll put it on the news and see how it works.” For example, I would shoot slow motion shorts of kids running in the park in the fall with a telephoto lens, playing in the leaves. I would interview toy makers and people who collected historic guitars, human interest stories like that. They pretty much gave me free reign, so I really liked it there.
What is your favorite camera?
I love the Canon HDSLR 5D because it puts so much in your hands for twenty-five hundred dollars. Plus you don’t have to buy film, you don’t have to pay for the processing or the telecine. It can see in low light, which is a lifesaver. The magic things in life happen in areas that aren’t professionally lit by a gaffer, so with a camera this light sensitive, you can come closer to the reality of life. The Canon 5D can shoot up to 1200 ISO. You can shoot fast and the actors are fresh (because they don’t have to wait for the lighting guy to deliver). So it’s made it very magical. You can shoot almost as fast as you can think.
What is the most exciting project you’ve ever done or worked on?
It was a six camera crew shot. I shot the helicopter stuff. We were flying very fast, very low. It was probably my best work. It actually got funding for a movie that was made with Nicolas Cage. He used the piece that I shot for the helicopter company, so that was exciting.
What prompted you to start The Association’s Canon Boot Camp?
Well, there is a fundamental difference between the way we teach and the way a college professor teaches. With a college professor it’s mainly lecture. You just sit and listen for 50 minutes, you may get a chance to ask a question or two, but it’s kind of all about him or her. We assume everyone here wants to learn a skill. The reason people take our boot camp is that they want to be able to pull off a shoot on their own. It’s not about me, the presenter, unless I have a story that applies to what we’re trying to teach them.
Our main purpose is to empower them to make their movie and not screw up [laughs]. So it’s all about them, it’s about their questions; it’s about their confusions. Most people I see doing those sixty-minute PowerPoint shows [other Canon camera classes] don’t even look at the audience. The people could be asleep, yawning, totally baffled, lost, and the presenter just steams forward with their show.
We have three or four people who are trained in the cameras and ready to answer any questions that people have. As soon as a person hits a point when they’re lost we get them back on track. Also, we ask our students to demonstrate what they were just told. We want them to be able to apply their knowledge in the real world. The boot camp is all about the student; we’re just here to help.
To find out more about The Association, custom video production or the Canon Boot Camp, visit our website or call us at 818-841-9660.
We caught up with Tom Myrdhal, our Director of Photography and one of the instructors at our famous Canon camera classes. Tom has been working for The Association for over 14 years. Constantly on shoots in various parts of the world, we’ve never had a chance to sit him down for an informal interview, and find out what he’s been up to during his career with The Association:
Where are you from and how did you get started in film?
I’m a California boy, born in Pasadena. I went to film school at Loyola Marymount and specialized initially in documentary. I made several award-winning projects in my early period, then I went to work for the UN and did projects in Asia. When I came back I got into IATSE. I was an assistant cameraman along with having my own production company in Hawaii, where I worked on series shows and shot documentaries that were pertinent to Hawaii at that time.
After I came back to the United States, I lucked out and got a job with Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin) and started a career that really never stopped. I’ve been with Lockheed Martin for 25 years. I’ve shot projects with the [aircrafts] SR71, 117, F22, and the F35, shooting most of their commercials in the last couple of years and specializing in their product web videos. Everything I’ve been shooting with Lockheed has been with the Mark II 5D. We’ve gotten such good results that Lockheed Martin no longer shoots anything with their agency. We do everything for them, so it’s been a really great experience. We already have over thirty projects lined up for next year.
What do you do here at The Association?
I’m a Director of Photography at The Association. I also help them put together camera packages and help them analyze creative shooting elements in a script they might have.
What’s your favorite camera?
The favorite camera that I’ve been using right now has been the Mark II 5D, and I’m looking forward to this new C300 and other cameras that Canon will be bringing out.
What’s the most exciting project you’ve ever done?
It’s hard to choose, really. I’ve had a good experience shooting Lockheed Martin’s aircraft carriers. I’ve had great experiences shooting the SR 71, which is the CIA aircraft that spied on Russia for 40 years. Airplanes have been a big part of my life. Also, when I was getting my M.A. at Loyola, I was very much involved in the Chicano movement in East LA and with one of the films I did, I ended up going to about eight riots. The last documentary I did for them was the Chicano moratorium when Ruben Salizar was killed. It became sort of the pivotal event between Los Angeles and the Chicano community. I was honored to give them a twelve-minute documentary on that, which became sort of a historic piece for their movement.
It’s the best Canon camera class because it teaches people the basics. They have checklists that the teachers go through with the students on how to set the camera up properly. You end up fully understanding the still camera and video settings so that you won’t end up making a mistake when you go out to shoot something.
What’s really great about this boot camp is that it not only teachers you how the camera works but it also teaches you about the pitfalls and mistakes you can make on the way. I use the 5D because it gives me the best picture, although it’s not very easy to work with. When you take this boot camp you’re going to walk away with the knowledge to use this camera properly.
To find out more about The Association, custom video production or the Canon Boot Camp, visit our website or call us at 818-841-9660.
This is a series on marketing solutions. Often the simplest solution is the best. Here’s one you might find interesting.
For several decades Alpine and Lamborghini were positioned together as part of their effective marketing plan. Alpine was launching a new technology and wanted a full-blown TV commercial shot on 35mm. The agency, Kalis and Savage, derived the creative storyboard in which a Ferrari challenges a Lamborghini to a race. When the light turns green the Ferrari blazes off into the dark night. The Lambo? Well he’s more entranced by the music flowing out of the new DDDrive speakers.*
So, The Association’s video production crew set it all up. Who won? Ferrari? Lamborghini? Well, I suppose you could say Alpine won…because the commercial production won multiple awards.
Take a look…
*The DDDrive speaker was an experimental speaker in which magnetic flux was poured into an acrylic mold so that the magnet in the speaker would have greatly improved accuracy in the flux fields created.
Often the simplest solution is the best. Here’s one you might find interesting.
Marketing is about making something appealing. It’s kind of making the sow’s ear into a silk purse (although I’ve never seen that done successfully but it’s an attention getter.) This article is about a chopper and a hog of sorts, that The Association took on for a custom video production.
McDonnell Douglas was introducing their new MD 500 Explorer helicopter, which was designed for the Medivac market. It was a complete re-design from the sleek helicopters in the 500 series. It was, well… fat and slow. The bigger cabin made room enough for stretchers and medical personnel, but it certainly lowered the score in the sleek and sexy department. So the marketing problem we faced was how to make a boxy, sluggish helicopter appealing? Our creative department came up with the idea of positioning it with another chopper, i.e. the Harley Davidson Electro Glide. We got a vintage Electro Glide and fueled up the Explorer and off they went into testosterone territory, followed closely by our expert video production crew. Click here to see the award-winning video that premiered the Explorer at the Helicopter Association Internal convention:
The Association has been leading the way for Canon certification on the HDSLR 5D and 7D. Our Canon Camera Classes have been getting excellent reviews from students who need to learn how to use these incredible cameras fast.
Our assumption is that those signing up for the classes lied their way on to a job, and they need to know by the next Monday how to professionally set up and use their camera. As a result, our Canon Camera Classes are super hands-on. We’ve even created a special handbook called “Shooting Movies with the Canon HDSLR” to ensure participants are able to have all the fundamentals down.
We even test each participant at the end of the both levels to ensure they fully understand and can execute the skills we teach.
There was an exponential increase in the number of mainstream television shows and feature films utilizing Canon DSLRs in the past two years. Here’s a list of a few examples:
“24″
“True Blood”
“Memphis Beat”
Captain America
“House M.D.”
“The Tonight Show”
“Saturday Night Live”
Anyone interested in getting trained on the Canon DSLR 5D & 7D can find out all about our classes by visiting canonbootcamp.com for the next event dates, or click on the links on the right of this blog for a specific upcoming class date.
In Social Media Marketing an Hour a Day, Dave Evans remarks on one of the reasons a company wouldn’t want to start an online social networking campaign. Not enough happy customers! In the online world, it takes seconds to share information with hundreds, even thousands of millions of people. If your customers mostly don’t have good things to say about your service or product, opening the door to social media and the uncontrolled conversations that occur online could be costly.
Because small business owners tend to do a lot of the work themselves, and the customers often have direct access to the owner, it usually is easier to get good service. Even custom service. The result is that the customer tends to be happier and there is a better chance customers will be become Brand Advocates. Compare this to a franchised operation! The whole reason for franchising is so you can make a ton of money, in most cases. Customized service tends to be a little lower on the list of priorities.
Ok, so as a small business owner you probably have more happy customers than your larger competitors. And this is where your edge is over big business when it comes to corporate social media. The big companies tend to forget about the past customers and all of their efforts are on gaining new ones. A great example of this are cell phone companies that give the best deals to the new customer, leaving their long-term customers out in the cold.
Why is this an edge for you? Well, because in the case of a small business with a high ratio of happy customers, the customers can do the heavy lifting for you in the “new customer” department. Remember, we are talking about happy customers here. This edge doesn’t exist if your customers are mostly unhappy with your services. The happy customers, however, by blogging and tweeting about their experiences, can affect the new customer’s opinion and decision to buy. Do you research a purchase on Google before you commit? Well, so do your customers!
Here’s a really simple strategy almost any business owner can use:
1. Create a Facebook Fan Page for your business.2. As you come into contact your leads, prospects and customers like you normally do, work out a way to capture their email address with the purpose of inviting them to your Fan Page. This could be as simple as a sheet of paper on a clip board for their name and email address. Tip: When a customer is interested but declines to purchase “right now”, mention you have a Fan Page on Facebook. 9 times out of 10 they are on Facebook and will agree to be sent a link to the Fan Page.
3. Schedule time each week or each month to email the Fan Page URL to these specific customers.
4. Keep updating the content on the Fan Page with news, photos, event dates, etc. Make sure to add the “Reviews” application to the Fan Page!
5. Ask customers to write reviews and have promotions from time to time that give an incentive for your customers to share your company with their friends. Facebook has applications for that too. Actually, getting reviews also provides you with invaluable data along the lines of consumer analysis that can provide vital information for future promotional campaigns.
A really, really good reason to have a Facebook Fan Page for your business is because it is completely indexed by Google. One of my past clients was only been on the Internet for about 4 months, with just a Fan Page. With minimal content, she started showing up on first page of Google when her product was searched for by name. Ever since we started that Fan Page her phone orders have been steadily increasing as well, mostly from past customers re-ordering.
There is a lot you can do with a Fan page, and it’s free so it’s a good place to start! As long as you keep your customers happy with good service, keep inviting people to join your page, and interact (read, “listen”) with your customers, you’ll find that in most cases, your customers start marketing for you. At the very least, you can improve your ranking on Google.
Having a Fan Page doesn’t mean you should avoid getting proper SEO done, or avoid getting a website or even avoid doing marketing and advertising. All of those tried and true actions are valid and should be done if you can. But if you can’t afford them, Facebook Fan Pages are a great way to get started.
Anyway, the point is, as a small business owner you have something the big guys don’t have. YOU. As long as your customers can easily “share” you with their friends (who are likely in the same demographic as your customer!), they can pioneer in areas you couldn’t reach for lack of a budget or other reasons. I can’t think of any other medium where it’s easier to share than Social Media and online Social Networking. Ok, maybe preschool. But 4 year olds are probably not the right demographic!
Need a better understanding of the basics of enterprise social media? Check out my free webinar below:
From chocolate chip to Oreo, kids love ‘em, adults love ‘em. But on the web, the term “cookie” has a different meaning, and many people want nothing to do with them. Internet cookies are bits of text embedded in Web browsers that remember the sites you visit and help advertisers target you for pinpoint marketing. These people know how to get rid of the cookies but there is a new cookie called a “Flash cookie”, that eludes the normal ”delete cookies” procedure.
The Flash cookie, according to a recent article in Forbes magazine, takes a special procedure to remove it. First, open any Flash application (like YouTube), then, right click (or “control click” on the Mac). An Adobe Flash Player Help window should open up that looks like this.
It just took a few minutes to take away the Flash cookies and set my privacy settings to keep Flash cookies from piling up again.
Often the simplest solution is the best. The Association was hired to provide our corporate video production services for McDonnell Douglas. This custom video production had a specific message requiring a creative solution.
McDonnell Douglas developed the No Tail Rotor helicopter, also known as The NOTAR. Removing the tail rotor eliminates the danger of walking around behind the helicopter. Since conventional helicopters’ tail rotor blades spin so fast, they virtually disappear – sometimes people walk into them and get the vegomatic treatment. Another big plus of the NOTAR McDonnell Douglas wanted to feature is the system virtually eliminates noise, as the main noise from a helicopter is the tail rotor, not the big blades above the cabin.
Problem: Show how the new McDonnell Douglas helicopter is incredibly quiet.
Creative Solution: Have it land and take off without awakening a sleeping man and his dog.
The Scene: Historic Old Tucson (scenes of many Western movies).
We cast an older fellow to dress up like a prospector, rocked back on a chair taking a nap on the front porch of the cabin. At his feet, his trusty watchdog ‘Snappy’, who doesn’t miss a thing. The helicopter will land in the background and then take off again and we’ll see if they can do it without waking up either the prospector or the doggie.
The shoot day arrives with excellent weather and the video production crew is ready to go. The prospector looks sleepy and the dog is ready to go, although he looks a little “tight”, like a Swiss watch that won’t wind any more. The dog wrangler says that the dog’s not about to freak out, he’s just shivering in the early morning cold. So, we radio in the helicopter. Here he comes. Roll camera. The helicopter lands. The helicopter starts to lift off. The dog jumps.
Take Two: We radio in the helicopter. Roll camera. The helicopter lands. The helicopter starts to lift off. The dog jumps.
Take Three: We radio in the helicopter. “Roll camera! Steady everybody.” The helicopter lands. Somebody sneezes. The dog jumps.
Take Four: We radio in the helicopter. “Roll camera! Steady everybody.” The helicopter lands. Nothing moves. A lizard a half mile a way skitters down a rock. The dog jumps.
Take Five: Dog jumps.
Take Six: Dog yawns.
Take Seven: Dog wags his tail at his wrangler.
We have a “conference” with everyone EXCEPT the dog owner.
“Have we got a clean landing?”
“Yes”.
“So let’s get a clean take off.”
“It won’t work. The helicopter won’t land in the same place. So we have to re-stage the landing and takeoff until we get a good one.”
We motion over the dog owner.
“What can you give the dog to calm her down?”
“Nothing,” she responds.
“Do you have a staple gun?”
No one laughs.
“She’ll get it this time,” she promises.
Okay.
We radio in the helicopter. “Roll camera! Steady everybody.” The helicopter lands. The dog doesn’t move. The helicopter takes off. We watch the dog.
The dog doesn’t move.
We’ve got the shot!
“CUT !!!!”
It is a very quiet helicopter. See our final cut of the spot below, and compare the noise with the video (not produced by The Association) of a conventional helicopter:
To find out more about creating your own custom video production, contact us here.
