Jason Lew Photography » Video

The Velveteen Rabbit

Jason — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 05:55:55 +0000

I have to admit that I have never gone to see one of the Christmas productions that happen every year. I’ve never seen the Nutcracker, not even in video, and I’ve never seen A Christmas Carol. I haven’t even seen the Hard Nut. I must say though that I am a little more intrigued now and may just check one out next year.

I recently shot ODC’s production of the Velveteen Rabbit performed at Yerba Buena Center’s Novellus Theater and thoroughly enjoyed it. The sets were great along with the costuming, and of course the dancing and choreography were spot on. Oh and it’s also great to have nice lighting!

ICR

Jason — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:58:44 +0000

Some footage from the independent feature film “Infinity and Chashu Ramen”. It is currently in post-production with a trailer to come. I was the director of photography on this shoot and had the chance to work with a great crew. There were many crazy hours involved with this shoot. I don’t think I’ve ever woken up this early for such an extended period of time. I’ll have more thoughts to come on the shoot and this entire process as the film goes through post.

Shot with the Canon 5D and 17-40, 24-70 and 70-200LII lenses.

SYTE: Time Cocoon

Jason — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 04:08:40 +0000

I created this short promo video for Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble’s concerts at ODC theater. It was their last performances with two of their founding members: Jimi Nakagawa and Kallan Nishimoto. It was also one of their best shows. I’m looking forward to seeing SYTE grow and can’t wait for the new endeavors that Jimi and Kallan explore.

Video Reel

Jason — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 03:46:24 +0000

Footage from various projects taken over the past year. Most of the clips came from the 5D and GH1/GH13 along with a few from the HMC150, HVX200 and D7000.

Music: Explosions in the Sky – The Birth and the Death of Day

I’ve been putting off editing this reel for a long time now. It was a pain tracking down all the footage across multiple hard drives but I’m really glad I pushed myself to go through the process. It made me feel rather nostalgic, even though it’s only been a year or two since I shot the footage. It all started back with my poor, overheating D90. With all its faults and hassles it still captured some important moments for me. One shot, with all its aliased glory even made it into this video.

It’s been an amazing year with the explosion of HDSLR video. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes and shooting some more interesting projects. Hopefully this time next year I will be continuing this conversation.

Jellyfish Macro Video With The D7000

Jason — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 03:26:37 +0000

Jellyfish clips from the California Academy of Sciences. Shot on a Nikon D7000 with the 105 VR and 16-35 VR. ISO was between 1600-2500. Focus was really crazy with the 105VR on a crop sensor with the only support being a monopod!

Music: Hammock – Eighty-Four Thousand Hymns

SYTE TEN DVD Trailer

Jason — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:04:07 +0000

Ok, so I finally got a clip up of the video I’ve been working on. It’s been a long project with one almost disastrous computer failure in between, but it should be wrapping up this week and then going out for replication. The project seemed to grow and grow but luckily I had the privilege of working with many great people during the two day shoot and during the many weeks of post production. The concert was shot on 3 Panasonic HVX200′s. All editing was done with Final Cut Pro and graded in Color.

Somei Yoshino Taiko – “Ten” Concert Rehearsal

Jason — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:06:30 +0000

Here is a short video clip from some footage I shot with the Nikon D90 during a rehearsal. I’ll be working one of the three video cameras for the live concert recording next week. I won’t be using the D90 for that though, I’ll be shooting a HVX200 with a P2 card.

The D90 is an interesting animal. You can get some really great looks from the camera and the right lenses but it is very limited. The 5 minute recording limit per clip is normally not a problem when you have a planned shoot, but for something that has to be shot in one take like this rehearsal, it gets to be a little annoying having to work around this. I was using it for about an hour and a half and it definitely was getting pretty hot, but still kept going.?The lack of manual controls is also something I just have to accept and try to make the best of.

I used a tripod and video head most of the time. The lighting levels were very low and came from available light through a bank of windows and tungsten room lights. Nothing fancy here…it was a rehearsal! I shot a gray card to get a color balance in camera and it did a very good job. For this video though, I wanted something a little edgier and played with the colors a little in Final Cut.

The sound from the little mono mic on the D90 is ok and useful for syncing but in a high sound pressure situation such as this rehearsal, it is unusable. Instead I used audio courtesy of a live recording by Darcel Walker who will be doing the sound recording for the concert video. He was using 4 wireless lav mics for this rehearsal. I didn’t process the audio at all and only gave a few tweaks to levels and panning.?

Validation

Jason — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:22:27 +0000

Sometimes I come across things that I just want to share with everybody. If you have not seen this short yet, you must watch it. Yes it is 16+ minutes long, and that is a long time to devote to anything found on a blog post, but I have to tell you that it was the best 16+ minutes of my day today.

While this video is not exactly photo related, it does make you think a lot about interaction with your subject. How do you get the emotion or expression that you’re looking for from your subject? How do you change the mood of the shoot when things are not going as planned? One of the most important things is to make the subject feel comfortable. Sometimes they’re nervous and this tenseness will show up in the image. Try to keep the mood light and have a little conversation with them. Get to know them a little, even if you only have a couple minutes. Be enthusiastic and let them know that you’re both there to make them look good. If all else fails… you could just say, “you, are great!”