David Tausik has worked in Hollywood for over 20 years as a director, producer and writer. He started his career working under Roger Corman. He is now preparing a feature he wrote and will be directing, to be set in Cuba.

1. You started quite young, and I am guessing that your first crews were quite young, and now some have gone on to win Oscars. How did you go about chosing the DPs you worked with?

I chose my DPs in what I imagine are the usual ways, first looking at the work of people who were available to me at my low budgets and singling out those whose look I liked for the project, then asking people who had worked with those DPs if they were fast (since our shooting schedules were very short) and worked well with others, and finally interviewing my top candidate to make sure our ideas and personalities meshed.

Because each film I directed was shot in a different part of the world and we didn’t have the money to fly in and house a DP from L.A., I had to find someone new each time. That was a drag, but the upside was that I learned something from each of the DPs I worked with.

One of the first films I worked on as a writer and 2nd unit director, back in 1990, which was directed by someone else, was an $800,000 comedy that was shot by Phedon Papamichael, Wally Pfister, and Janusz Kaminski. I think Mauro Fiore gaffed a few scenes since he was working with Janusz at the time. It’s not the fault of those incredibly talented shooters that the film doesn’t look particularly good — talent is important but you also need resources.

Janusz Kaminski shot the first film I directed, a very low-budget erotic thriller for Roger Corman. During filming he was hired to shoot Schindler’s List and so, for very good reasons, he took his name off the credits. He did a beautiful job, though, and also worked very fast which enabled us complete on our brutally short 16-day schedule. On the day Janusz had his big interview with Spielberg, Mauro Fiore, who was the gaffer, stepped in as D.P.

Talented people like that were looking for work and were available to anyone who had the ability to see how good they were. And that’s still the case.

2. What was it like working under Roger Corman, and do you see any similarities to what is happening with the DSLR revolution in Hollywood?

It was both wonderful and frustrating to work under Roger’s system in the ’90s. Wonderful because things came together fast, and there weren’t a lot of committees to meddle in your creative decisions. The place was a factory to churn out product for the video market, and if you could figure out how to keep your project contained enough to fit through their chute, you could get it done. Certainly, though, no one would lift a finger to help you make your film better — that was entirely up to you and whoever on your crew you could marshall to your cause.

Typically, people would bust their butts on their first few Corman films and then realize that their efforts were kind of wasted. People who stayed there longer than that were generally making garbage just to pick up a few bucks or because they didn’t know what else to do.

I think the DSLR revolution is an entirely different beast. Roger had a market for his films. The digital revolution means we no longer need Roger’s lumber yard full of old cameras, lights, C-stands, Moviolas, and Nagras, but we’re still desperately in need of an audience.

DSLRs are like the portable equipment that appeared in the early 60s allowing the Nouvelle Vague and the Cinema Verite movements to happen. I believe some great things will come, due to the accessibility and portability of these new instruments. They’ll come from independent, self-starting artists, and not from a factory like Corman’s.

3. When you are writing, are you also thinking about who the actors will be, and how you will direct them, or is that a separate process?

When I’m writing, I’m imagining the entire movie in my head, but I know if the film is made it won’t exactly match what I had in mind, because every collaborator will bring something different. Actors, especially, put their own stamp on scenes. I always have an idea of how I’d like a scene done, but once the actors start working that idea might fly out the window because the characters have to belong to the actors. So, in that way, yes, it’s a separate process. Of course, there’s always the opportunity to re-write scenes to fit the actors — that’s one of the advantages of writing and directing.

4. What is your method of working with editors? Are you in there every day, or do you let them do their thing for a while, and then you look at it?

I always want to hang around and edit the film with the editor. But after a while I get the hint that I’m not really needed, and I’ll usually take a break — perhaps my first break away from the film in a year’s time. It’s valuable because I can come back with slightly fresh eyes and it gives the editor a chance to find his/her own voice in the project. So, yes, I like to let the editor surprise me and I try not to micro-manage.

5. I know that sound and music are very important to you. At what point in the process do you start to bring them in? Do you have a thought on that before you start shooting?

I bring them in as early as possible, especially if they are a part of the fictional world you’re creating. Although sounds can always be substituted later, you can take something away from the authenticity of an actor’s performance that way. It’s better to do your work early, so that the cast and crew can benefit from your choices, rather than trying to slide it all it in during post.

I am very pleased to announce that tomorrow will begin a new series of short interviews that I hope will be a regular feature here. These will be industry people that are of interest to me, and hopefully to you. The series will be begin with David Tausik, Hollywood features director/writer and producer. David is now in pre-production on a feature to be set in Cuba. He was kind enough to indulge my questions with his insights into how he works, his views on the DSLR revolution, Roger Corman, and how he picks his crew. I hope that you find this series interesting and informative. If you have any thoughts or suggestions on the type of person you would like to read about in this space, drop me a note. I would love to hear from you.

The responsibilities of the photographer in a celebrity/magazine relationship is always a bit tricky. David LaChapel makes these fascinating observations in Nowness, on the occasion of his upcoming Shafrazi show:

What was the process like? Were you on set krumping or moonwalking?
You know, I’m really not going to talk about the Michael Jackson pictures, or what went into them. I shot him in 1999 for the millennium cover of Rolling Stone and that was the start of an acknowledgment that I was a supporter. But I’d rather people look at the photos and decide for themselves. We persecuted him. Every person who ever bought a tabloid or watched the news, we all contributed to his death by taking in that form of gossip.

It is definitely true that celebrities are our modern day gods and goddesses, and we build them up and tear them down.
Madonna has been torn down. Michael Jordan has been torn down. Michael Jackson was destroyed. Like no other person in our times. You have to remember that Michael Jackson was innocent. He was proved innocent in our courts. If you read the transcripts of the trial it is insanity, it should never have gone to court. We spent tens of millions of dollars to prosecute him when we don’t have money for schools in California.

Why is that?
Not because he was a celebrity but because he looked different. He was obsessive about privacy and it made him “other,” it made him different, and he went from being the most famous, most beloved singer to the most reviled, joked about—he couldn’t open a newspaper without reading horror stories about himself.

As an occasional photographer of celebrity, I often wonder what my part is, and where my responsibilities are. Is it to the person being photographed, to the magazine who hired me, to the viewers, or to myself to make what I think is a great picture. These are often in conflict, and I don’t think there is an easy answer.

Two of my favorite canines get their mention in PDN Faces contest this month. Thank you to PDN, and to the amazing people at the Missouri Humane Society.

Introducing Dan Chapman, AKA Dante. Dan is the newest member of the team here at DHS. Dan is working as a camera operator on all our motion projects, and helping out with post/media management. He comes to us from Orlando,Fl and Full Sail University. We love working with Dan, and we really love having a camera operator that we can call Dante.

The future, or even the present of publishing, magazines and books, is changing, and rapidly. This is obvious. Where we are going, if you are a content maker, should be of great interest. It is to me. There are two very interesting and related items I have come across recently. The first is Rob’s excellent post in aPhotoEditor about the agency VII publishing its own magazine. There is a lengthy video interview with Stephen Mayes at the end that I recommend watching. The second is an audio of Seth Godin talking about the future for book publishing, and will it go the way of the music industry, or will it come to its senses.

Basically, both discuss how the current models were created a hundred years ago and no longer work. VII is taking its destiny in its own hands by going directly to the people for whom their content most matters. Godin is advocating more or less the same thing. He goes on to say book publishers-the people who print books, get them into book stores, give advances-is a model that is broken in the age of Kindle, the iPad, and the internet. What I like about both of these is that a solution is offered, and that the solution can be wonderfully liberating to the content producer.

I can’t yet really connect all the dots here, but there is something related to in these two items that is fascinating, as in a keep me up all night pondering sort of way. It is the same sort of feeling had when the whole 5DII video thing arrived. I would be very grateful to anyone who takes the time to slog through these and send in your thoughts.

Here is a link to my interview in Pop Photo this month I am incredably excited to be part of this and deeply humbled that they chose me to be interviewed.

What I really hope is that from this more people will be making movies. So many people are intimidated by the process, and it really does not have to be that hard. Yes, once you get into splitting feeds, video villages, follow focus motors and the lot, it can be complex. But you can make a very nice professional quality movie with these little cameras with out all that. This is my message in the interview, just point the camera and shoot. Its not so hard. Isn’t that how we started taking photos?

There is a huge amount of information out there. For me, my day starts each and every morning with an email from Planet 5D. Mitch does a great job of searching the web for interesting developments and videos. I am happy to support them. If you are only going to look at one site, it is Planet 5D. They collect information from all over the world and post it. From there, if I see anything interesting, directors, gear, or videos, I drill down to find out more. I can honestly say, that if not for that site and for Shane’s site, I would not being doing what I do today.

Next comes my RSS feed: A Photo Editor, Canon Rumors, PDN pulse, Shane Hurlbut, ProLost, The Creators Project, Heather Morton Art buyer, Chase Jarvis, Philip Bloom, Nowness, Gizmodo, Vincent LaForet. These sites and the people who write have all been my teachers. They put their hearts into letting all of us know what they do, and I am deeply grateful to them. If there is anything that needs more investigation, I do it. The RSS list is constantly changing. I want to keep changing the people I read so that I don’t get too much of any one persons KoolAid. Because, we all have our own special KoolAid if you know what I mean.

If there is something that I want to know even more about, I send an email to the person. Almost never has someone not returned one of my questions. I love connecting to other creators. These connections are fantastic resource. I now have a pretty good network of professionals out there that I can send a question to.

I also read American Cinematographer. I highly recommend reading every word and save every issue. This is a magazine about the real giants. Even though I probably won’t have a 100 strong camera dept any time soon, it is great to read exactly how movies are made by people who are the best in the world at it. My copies look like porcupines with post-it notes sticking out all over them.

Books: In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch. DV Rebels Guide by Stu Maschwitz, Apple Pro Training Series on Final Cut and Color are the basics. Every book I read, I make notes in. My memory may not be so great, but I have an annotated library to back it up.

To me this is not work. In the words of my friend Jeff Hirsch at FotoCare ” It’s like springtime all over again”. I mean, how many chance in life do you get to re-invent yourself?

Today we are working on the edit of the video for The Skateboard Diaries. The process is, we take a bunch of sub clips and dump them randomly into a FC time line so that we can start to get an idea of what they will feel like. Right away I am thinking about what the sound treatment will be. We go through about 100 stock music clips, and this is always the case, I end up screaming that they are all awful. Yuk. Stock music is like stock photography, I don’t get it. Right now we have some real music tracks selected that we really like, and now I have contact the bands to make sure they are cool with us using them. Almost always this works out fine. And it is real music vs whatever that stuff called “emo tracks” etc.

But then I came across the video below by Brit photog Kalpesh Lathigra. It is silent. Wow, what a revelation. And there is a power to it, it is compelling maybe because it is silent. It is an entirely visually experience, so I don’t want to look away. It is the anti John Williams approach. Ok, John may be a great guy, but it makes me insane when I see a movie he has scored. It is like he thinks I am so dumb, I can’t get the story feeling from the movie, he has to bludgeon me with the soundtrack. Arghhhhhhh.

Which brings us to Vimeo and YouTube. I guess people put bad music on their videos because they think they have to have some music. I am just as much at fault here as anyone else. I mean, if I don’t have music, it will be boring right? But there are so many more options out there. Record street sounds, static, silence, breathing, animal sounds, whale sounds, whatever. Of course, you can always find some $1.99 stock music for your work, but try to make it better. Or try silence, that maybe fantastic, who knows. I know I have become a huge fan Kalpesh Lathigra now. Check out the surfers. Love the wave sounds, and only wave sounds.

In the most recent issue of Pop Photo, I am interviewed about how to make DSLR movies. One of the things that people have been asking me is how did I learn Final Cut? Truth be told, I found FC to be rather daunting when I first opened it. So what did I do? I studied and I learned it. Now we work in FC daily, and I am probably as comfortable at it as I am at Photoshop. These are my 3 totally un-secret tips on how to learn FC:

1. Get the Ripple Training Series on Final Cut. They are podcasts lessons that I can do when I am on an airplane or otherwise sequestered. This is a nice way to go because you don’t need a book, just a laptop, which is handy if you are stuck in an airplane seat.

2. The Apple Training series of books is excellent. We still refer to the Final Cut and the Color ones whenever we forget a quick key command or some other of the varied minutia that is Final Cut.

3. The Apple In Store classes . This is brilliant, and if anyone is new to FC, you should make a point of taking advantage of the added value you get from owning an overpriced Mac. At certain Apple stores, they give trainings. Usually these are something along the lines of ” How to use iTunes”. But they also do Final Cut lessons. I went every Saturday afternoon for 2 hours for months to the Apple store in Santa Monica to have free classes in FC. The guy who ran the classes was a working TV editor. It was great, and it was free.

This will not make you a great editor, anymore than learning Photoshop will make you a great photographer. But what it will do is give you the tools and the language to start. I knew nothing, zero as far as motion goes, and 3 months later I did a 4 minute piece for TIme Magazine. Now 10 months later I am doing a commercial. None of that would have been possible without forcing myself to learn an editing program. If I can do this, you can. It is not so hard, really it isn’t.

One last thing. Don’t make the mistake I did and buy FC Express for cheap, then try to upgrade later to Studio. You can’t. Just bite the bullet and buy Studio, you won’t regret it.

I hate waiting, how about you? I want the fastest way possible to get my stuff into my machine so I can look at it. We have a few different card readers laying around the studio and decided to have card reader speed race. The basics: 4.25 gig video files, Mac Intel tower capturing into its internal hard drive, UDMA 60mbs card.

The Results:

Lexar Pro stackable firewire 800 reader: 1 minute 37 sec
Sandisk firewire 800 reader: 2 minutes 31 seconds
No name USB reader: 2 minutes 56 seconds

THE WINNER IS: LEXAR PRO 800 firewire.

The speed difference here is significant, especially if you have 4 or 5 full 16gig cards laying around. The nice thing about the Lexar is that you can stack them, and copy multiple cards simultaneously into your hard drive.

One of my all time favorite photographers talking about the gear he brings, how he makes images, and why. Loving the Holga.

In The Bag with photographer David Burnett from PhotoShelter.com on Vimeo.

We create a lot of content over here at DHS. At the moment we are finishing up retouching on a complex 8 image global ad campaign. On the personal side, we are crunching through the video of The SkateBoard Diaries on one station, while the station next to it is working on the thousands of stills. Yesterday we shot all day: video and stills personal project of an artist and her process. Tomorrow we go to Oregon where I will do a motion piece staring my mom. Everyday that I am not on a commercial job, we are either shooting, planning or editing a personal project.

This leads to a couple of things. First, a small fortune in digital backups. Second, image indigestion. This is a good problem, as far as problems go. It means that we are creating content faster than we are editing/retouching/publishing. Of all the problems for someone in the image production business to have, this is a great one. There will always be downtime at some point to work through the backlog. We are on a roll right now, and having been here before, I know these things don’t go on indefinitely. When you are in the flow, dive further in. You can always take time off, but you can’t always turn the dial back up on creativity.

If you read this blog, you know my rap is always the same. Less is better. Don’t let technology stand in your way. Here is a picture of my cameraman Dante with our new rig working yesterday on a film we are doing. This is the deal: flag pole carry belt for a huge cost of 29 buckaroos. Small consumer monopod for another 30 big ones. It works great, and he is walking in sand, which ain’t easy.

I have a whole box of RedRock tinker toys. Yes they are useful for certain things, but this rig works better than any shoulder mount, chest mount that we have ever used. Something about the way it is tied into the body makes the movement super natural. Yes all you gear babies out there, we have used it with 4 inch rails and a follow focus. Works fine.

Hey Eagle Mountain Flag, could we do this thing in another color?

Photography, and to a greater degree, film making, are technology dependent art forms. When I get a piece of gear that feels good to me, I get excited. It makes me want to hold it and use it. New gear can lead to new points of view and new projects. Example, my new H3D and my Skateboard Diaries project. However, beware the pull of gear porn and the gear head. By gear porn, I mean the web sites that are constantly pushing every new widget that you must have, and how this will make you a better image maker.

Keep this fact in mind: If you are a working professional photographer or film maker, you are hired for your vision, your storytelling ability, and your ability to put those skills to work on demand. Gear heads can be hired, creative vision is much harder to come by, and thus worth much more. Steven Meisel didn’t come from a photographic background. He hired good assistants to help him with his vision. Gear is great, knowing the tools of your craft is important, but technical expertise can be hired, vision can not be out sourced.

The dual phone solution: iPhone+Verizon dumb dumb cell phone

I have an iPhone. It is a magic device, but the “phone” part just isn’t, well, how to say this, a phone in the normal sense of the word. The reliability level is something on par with carrier pigeons, although I would give the pigeons the edge. On set last week and I saw something fascinating. The AE, who lives by voice communication had an iPhone and a Verizon cell phone. Her iPhone was too unreliable as a phone, so she got a regular Verizon cell phone. This tells me two things. First she loves her iPhone so much that in spite of its failure as a phone, the rest of it was good enough that she didn’t throw it in a lake. The second is that voice counts, and if you want to have a reliable voice conversation, you don’t use an iPhone, you go with Verizon. Hello Apple, pay attention to this. The Google phone is not bad, and it gets better everyday. The killer app there is that it works on Verizon, the best cell system anywhere.

There is rumor that next year the video conferencing function on the iPhone4 will work on the cellular, not just wifi. Can you imagine the effect that will have on the ATT cell service? Are you going to renew your ATT contract once it ends? Are you ready to go with the dual phone solution? Maybe the idea of one device does all is not as good as two devices that do something really well.

Job: Global launch of a pharmaceutical. 7 primary shots, one still life shot. Budget, low 6 figures.

Tuesday: Hello NYC! Arrived late Sunday, the jet lag is fading, thank you Diet Coke. Meeting Robert Kozek, 1st assist, to test lights at Fotocare. There is some talk from the client about wanting to overpower daylight so we need to determine if this is a 35mm job or a Hasselblad H3D job. Finished the light test in the staging area at Fotocare, wow those guys are so good to me, and now have an hour to kill before heading out to tech scout the location. Really wish I could spend the next hour at a gym, but not today. Meet up with LM, my producer, and load the minivan up with some 7Bs and light modifiers. We meet the AD at the huge 15 acre waterside estate (think Steven King meets Gatsby) and start planing for the next days. I have the Sun Seeker App on my iPhone. Fantastic device, the AD is blown away by it. We shoot tests using the 7Bs for about an hour, loading cards into my laptop. Consensus is to go for a natural look: full frontal late day sun with blue sky in the background. 7 locations scheduled and locked. Good to go.

Weds: Still life day at Noho Studios. Whenever I have a still life component to the layout, I use Mauricio Alejo, a brilliant artist. Today he is on the Hasselblad H3D. The ad layouts are a still life shot of a transparent object with some lifestyle shots dropped in. My job today is to make sure the lifestyle shots are going to synch. We take yesterdays tests and rough them in on CS4 so that we, and everyone from the agency can see the composite. I get Samantha, my super retoucher on the phone to go over things. Formal pre-pro at 3, and everyone is stoked. Especially me, who gets the rest of the day off to finally get to the gym.

Thurs: 11am call. Meet up in the East Village with the RV, gear, crew and talent for the drive to the north shore of LI. The client has added one shot to be done mid day. That, plus the growing overcast sky is going to make my easy daylight day more rock and roll. Luckily, I have a van full of gear so we can handle anything. We start to set up for the first shot: over head 12 x 12 white griff blocks the in and out sun, we fill with an 8 ft Octa 45 degrees off center and a small bank to the other side. I like my Octas without the cover using a 1/2 stop china silk instead. For the next shots though, my blue sky backgrounds have turned into a dim memory as the sky getting more menacing by the minute ( Hey Weather Channel, what are you guys smoking? You say it is currently sunny and I am looking at a grey mess in the sky). The client wants to know how I am going to handle the lack of sun. I say no problem, we got you covered. This is why I have a van stuffed with gear. On a job of this scale, you want to be able to handle anything. The plan is to light the foreground, and the talent with the strobes then strip in the sky later in post. We fire up the 5k genny, fly a Pro8 bare tube w/CTO in a 7″ reflector to about 20ft high and 50 ft from the set. I am getting f8 at ASA 200. Loving those mad Swedish engineers. The guys hook a 7b pack up to a medium white Chimera also with 1/2 CTO at 45 degrees to camera for fill. Talent arrives and we fire off some test shots from the 1DSlll tethered into the Macbook Pro. It looks great. The CD takes a look at the screen and slaps me on the back. Happy CD. I just saved him 100k for a weather day reshoot. When the shit hits the fan, and I guarantee that it will, you are there to get it done no matter what.

All the while that the shoot is going on, Dustin the digi tech, is in the RV with an iMac. He and the agency/client are editing the shots in Capture One, taking the selects into CS4 to drop in as layers of the still life shot we did the day before. He is also running triple backup up on the files. My guys outside are doing capture into a MacBook Pro. If I need to go fast, we shoot to card, if it is more methodical, we go tethered. Switching between the two and keeping track of the shots requires assistants who can rock. My guys are the best. They have my back. Note to others: hire the very best assistants you can find. They will save your butt someday.

2 more setups that day using the same plan. The shots are looking great, portfolio material for sure. Everybody is having a blast, mostly from the stress relief that we were able to do the faux sunlight gag so well. End the shoot day at about 7:30 and by 8:30 we are packed and out of there. Just as we leave location the sun comes out. Grrrrrrrrrr.

One of the great things about this day was the amazing RV that LM booked for us. I have spent countless hours of my life trapped in dark tight RVs. Our super duper Shooting Star RV today has a rear lift gate for a rear door, so the entire back of the thing opens up into a giant lift gate. The wardrobe can be wheeled in on intact racks and brought up the lift gate. Happy stylists. Then when we are on set, the entire back of the RV opens up which is s huge lifestyle improvement for anybody who has to work inside it all day.

Fri: 4 shots today and not a cloud in the sky. Excellent. First shot is a similar setup to the yesterdays with the 12 by and the Octa. No worries, and that blue sky is singing today. Second shot is at 5pm, sun is still a bit high so we fill from the side with a Pro8 on AC current and a medium white Chimera with 1/2 CTO. I set the flash at 1 1/2 stops under ambient. Shot 3 is a boat shot. We noticed from the tech scout that the little creek in at the back of the property has a sizable tidal swing. Being a surfer, I am hip to tide charts. It turns out that the plus to minus swing is about 12ft. Huge. I go down with Alistair the PA to check out the situation and launch the boat with the props. We hit the creek at exactly the high point of the tide, so there is no flow at all. Sweet. In 3 minutes he is out in the boat rowing downstream to the point where the talent will get in and we can do our shot. The sun is falling, and we have 2 more shots to do, so no time to delay. I get on the walkies, muster the crew, agency and talent down to the location. The talent gets into the row boat and I tell him to go back about 30ft and to the right. Surprise! Talent has no idea how to row. Isn’t that one of those things like walking that everyone knows how to do? Wrong. The tide is now shifting and the current is starting to pickup. Executive decision time. Alistair has to jump into the creek and pull the boat to its location and throw anchor. I had warned him about this possibility yesterday, so he was prepared with swim trunks. The boat is now anchored and Michael Preiss, my other assist has a line to the stern from the bank. He can maneuver the boat into the right orientation and I can do the photo. The AD and I are laying on a tarp over a bug invested reed bank. I have a 70-200IS at f8. No time for tethering here. We are shooting to card and every 10 shots or so I show the LCD to the AD for comments. 10 minutes later we are out of there. 7pm, the sun is falling and there is one more shot.

As I am crossing the bridge over the creek to run to the waiting van, I see Alistair in the tiny row boat, piled high with props, struggling to get the boat upstream. The creek is now really running and he is having a hard time of it. Oh well, gotta go buddy. I figure worse comes to worse, we can come down after the last shot is wrapped and pull him up stream. That is if he doesn’t get swept out into Long Island Sound.

Last shot. My talent are ages 74 and 94. Wow. Eddy, my 94 year old is fantastic. Super funny guy. He is an accomplished actor, starred in Black Rain. I quickly get them in position, no need for strobe fill, it looks great as is. We have the shot with about 2 minutes to spare. Phew. That as close. Time to head back to the RV, breakdown the gear, backup files and wrap the set. I see Alisatir the intrepid boat rowing PA. He made it. Took him 3 tries but he got back. Alistair is ex-military and has that never say no gung ho vibe. Love that in a PA.

Saturday: I am flying to LA and Robert is to return the van with the gear to Fotocare. At this point, most of my responsibilities are over. I will consult with the agency about their picks, and help with the retoucher. Hopefully Monday will be a down day and I can get some surfing in.

Crew: Stylist, stylist assistant, prop stylist, hair and makeup person, hair and makeup assistant, producer, PA, 2 photo assistants, digital tech, motor home driver.

Talent: 12 adults, 2 children

Agency: Creative VP, CD, executive CD, AD, junior AD, producer

Client: 2 from the brand group

Vehicles: RV, minivan, 15 pass van, equipment van, cube truck for props, 3 cars for agency and clients.

Gear:

5 motorolla walkies
2 Pro 8 packs
2 Pro 7Bs
4 extra batteries
5 Pro heads
12×12 frame, w/1 stop silk and 12×12 white/black griflon
2 medium rollers
1 high roller
500ft AC cord
Chimera Large, Mediium, Small and XSamll banks
8ft Octabank
18×24 Cookie
1 baby roller
200 ft of rope
(2) Canon 1DSlll
Hassy H3D31
Canon 24-70, 70-200 2.8 IS ll, 135 f2, 50 1.2, 17-40 f4
Hassy 55, 80, 100
6 Lexar 16 gig 600x cards
6 Pocket Wizard trans/receivers
Honda 6500 genny
(18) 35lb sandbags
1 6×6 Scrim Jim w/white,silver, gold and sunlight fabics
6ft ladder
MacBook pro 15inch
iMac
5 portable hard drives

I am often asked, how did I get started? How did go from assisting to shooting? Truth, dumb luck combined with the arrogance of youth. I told people I was a photographer, therefore I was. Cute, but not such a good plan these days. Today is whole other planet than when I started.

This is what I tell people:

-You need a consistent vision, it must be cohesive. Toss anything that doesn’t jibe.
-This vision needs to be carried out in a competent way so that buyers are assured that you can repeat it on demand. Crucial.
-Your vision needs to be relevant. If you are really into some obscure niche, like underwater caves or something, that is great, but not so relevant.
-Your vision needs to be honest. If people think you are faking it, or that it does not come from your heart, it won’t be believed. The ADs want your heart and soul into their job, and if you are not fully committed with your vision, there is someone else out there who is.
-Be spectacular. Do something Spectacular. Be the first person to photograph whatever. Do some large, even if it is not so large, call it something large. Get attention! Do something that people can hang a label on.

Personally, I never book a big job without my printed portfolio being called in. I wish that was not the case, they are a real pain to make, but that is the reality.

The order of the book, and the selection of the images is something I work on with my agent. It is essential to get someone besides yourself to help in the editing. Hopefully that person is very smart and is informed about what is happening in the market.

This is what I do for a portfolio:

The portfolio is about 100-120 images, printed double sided on Inkpress Duo 300GSM 11×17, no acetate sleeves, just raw prints. Doing the double sided prints requirers being organized. We print out a PDF of the book first on 8.5 x 11 paper from the laser printer to use a guide. I use an Epson 4800 printer on 8 pass, centered and size to 11×17. (The default is 13×19.) We keep the top and bottom measurements the same, and let the side to side vary. There is no type, no text in the portfolio except for the contact info. I also only show photographs rather than the images in ad layouts. The prints are then trimmed, 3 hole punched and sprayed with a fixative. The binders to the books are made by Richard at Portfolio Creative Design. I have 4 of them, down from 60 books 10 years ago. Thank god for that. We redo the books about twice a year, and it completely consumes my studio for 2 weeks each time I do it. Bring on the iPad!

The above photo is by Jonathan Waiter.

We produce a lot of content around here, but we also are obsessive consumers of content. Blogs, magazines-tons of them, movies, books, everything we can get our greedy little hands on goes down the hatch. This mornings diet: CNN.com, Interview Magazine, NYTimes Magazine on line, NY Magazine, The National Enquirer, Fantastic Man, Rolling Stone, Elle Decor Brit Edition,Jonathan Waiter’s web site,The Financial Times, Surfers Journal, a brilliant piece in the on line British Journal of Photography. This was all before my assistants came in, and the first thing I do with them in the morning is ask have they seen anything interesting. Advice: Be sound in your point of view, but swallow as much other content as you can.

If you are starting out, or transitioning from assisting to shooting, one of the huge differences will be your legal liabilities and your responsibilities. I suggest that everyone speak to someone who really knows the drill on this stuff. When I started, back in the Stone Age, I was a lost 22 year old. It was recommended to me that I hire Selina Maitreya to consult with me about how to go about it. I did, and the few hours she spent with me to help me organize myself into a business is the same way I go about it now. There are other people out there who do this sort of thing, but I know Selina, she is a pros pro, so I will recommend her.

Some of this stuff costs money, sometimes a lot of money, you will have to decide what it is worth it for your to do.

-Releases: get them and understand them. Property, model, and location releases. I have been sued twice on this front, and both times I had fully binding releases. In spite of this, it seems an American right to be able to sue anyone one wishes. If I had not had those releases, I would have been toast.

-Copyright. Do it. All your work, I know it is a pain, but just do it. It is a bit more expensive than it used to be, but so worth it. If someone mis-uses your work you will be in a very strong position, so strong they will settle almost immediately. I know, been there, done that.

-Contracts. Get a lawyer who understands business, not a litigator, but someone who understands the nature of making deals. Contracts and lawyers are a big part of my life. Every time I do a job, there is a contract. You need someone to talk to about them until you get comfortable with it yourself. Under no circumstances sign anything ever that you do not understand or do not like. The nature of these things is that it is the job of the counter parties lawyers to get as much from you as possible for as little as possible. Negotiate!

-Insurance. You will need the following: workers comp, disability, a commercial liability package, in addition to the usual health, life and personal disability. The most important are the workers comp and the liabilty. It doesn’t matter that much in the scheme of things if you lose it camera. It sucks, but it is not a game ender. However, if a light stand falls on a models head cutting her face, that my friends is a major problem. Most of my clients insist on a 2$ million liability package and proof of workers comp. You will need that additionally insured ability in order to rent a location. I use Tom Pickard as my insurance agent. He really knows the business and what you need and don’t need.

-Estimates and bids. If you have never done one, hire someone by the job to do one for you. The art buyer will respect you for it.

My best advice here, is to seek out better advice. Get a list, a system, of what you need. Listen to what people out there who really know the business have to say. APA has some good information. Personally, I would not go out and buy self help books on this. There is too much at stake, the books are going to be at least a year old. Hire someone who you can call up and ask a question of, you won’t regret it.

I will be featured on http://www.1prophototv.com next week in an interviewed by James Sullivan discussing this and other fun and games in the professional photo world.

We get a lot of email here from people who are interested in becoming professional photographers/film makers, or who just want to know how to improve their game. I always tell people the same thing: shoot your way out.

There is a story I remember hearing about Andrea Blanche, the big time 80s photographer and Avedon, whom she earlier assisted for. Sorry Andrea if I have the name wrong here, it was a long time go that I read this story. The essence of it was that she went to Avedon saying she was stuck in her professional work, and didn’t quite know what to do. He told he to get out of her studio, take a 35mm camera and some TRIX and spend the summer at Coney Island taking photographs. Essentially, get back to basics and shoot your way out of the problem. My recollection is that it worked out very well for her.

In an effort to further share what goes on here, and how we deal with the constant challange of making better and better images, here is what my summer projects look like:

-Started making a film project of the skaters down at the Venice Skate park. Slow mo with the 7D of the exhibitionist style avengers at the worlds most gorgeous skate park. Along with this I am doing stills with my H3D. Loving this project.

-Doing a series of studio portraits of young people 17-23 dealing with a moment when something unkown is about to happen.

-A short film of my artist friend Kat. Terrifically talented classical painter. Still working on getting a handle on the look for this one.

-Food. ok, this is a total disconnect, but i love eating, and have been taking snap shots of my dinner plate for years. I want to try something simple, long lens, back lit, of some of the things that i like to eat.

-Mom. Going to visit mom in a few weeks and think it would be very interestig to do something with the 5D and her in her world. She is the worlds healthiest most active senior. An absolute model for how to be happy and older.

Its a lot, but I am obsessed. NOW what are you doing this summer?

Having had 2 cups of coffee this morning, I have decided that the new Beyonce video is genius. Actually, we here at the studio have been mezmerized by a whole series of music videos on line. (Who says that the music videos don’t matter anymore?). The Beck/Charllotte Gainsbourg “Heaven Can wait”, the much hyped MIA video by the current bad boy of video Romain Gravis, anything from the new creative director of Polaroid Special Products Ms Gaga, and our new favorite: Beyonce’s Why Don’t You Love Me. I can’t get over how much fun this is to watch, and am thinking how much fun they must have had making it. Know what I mean?

I sometimes receive emails from photographers wanting to know how to get started in career in photography, what should they do, what should they shoot, who should they approach? I don’t want to say I know all the answers, or even some of the answers for what other photographers should do. Everyone has their own path, and part of the challenge is to first discover that path. I will tell you what works for me: I am best when I am working on a project whose subject I know, that I love, and that I have the technical capacity to carry out. When those elements line up with something that other people care about, then you have a winner. Not everyone is like this. For some photographers it is all about the numbers, shoot what sells, and repeat. You may be one of those people, and that is great, I admire you for being able to do that. It is a much simpler road to follow, but it is not a road that works for me. When I go that way I get myself seriously off the rails and it can take me years to get back on track.

Here is an example of what I mean. I got call from Kira Pollack the photo editor at Time Magazine in the fall asking if I wanted to do a story on some dogs that had been taken in the largest federal raid ever on dog fighting rings. I had no pictures of dogs or any other animals in my portfolio. But what I did have was a long relationship with Kira when she was at The NYTimes Magazine. At the Times, they would joke that if they had someone impossible ( Mike Tyson, Eminem) , or some impossible technical aspect to a job, they would call me. Which I think is why I got the call. They wanted me to photograph 80 rescued fighting dogs in 2 days on location in St Louis. To them this was an impossible task, fraught with danger. I mean, Fighting Dogs are scary, right?

What they did not know, is that I had previously owned a rescued pit, and had also owned a rescued 90 lb Akita, a former drug dealer guard dog. So I knew about these kind of dogs. I was absolutely thrilled to be able not only to make some great photos of them, but to just to be able to meet them. Without knowing it, Kira had probably chosen the single most qualified person in the world to go do this job.

I was determined to show these dogs with dignity and respect, two things are often lacking in the genre. My assistant and I practiced for 2 days with the lights before we flew down. The result is that the story won a PDN award and AP26 award for best editorial. I knew my subject, I had passion for my subject, I had the skill to carry it off, and it was something that resonated with the an audience. Additional to the awards, I was able to do a really good thing, and this is what pushes me to do great work. Money, success, recognition, yea, we love that, but being able to do a really good thing, that is the cherry, that is what really gets me going. What was going on with these dogs was unspeakably barbaric. By me doing a good job, and Time publishing it, we were able to get almost all those rescued dogs adopted, and to shine a bright light on a very dark part of America.

So what is important to you? What do you know and love? Is it of any interest to other people? Can you do it well? Look at people like Ryan McGinley, David Bailey, Larry Clark, Jill Greenburg, Helmut Newton. That is the secret to their success. If you can figure that out, the world will beat a path to your door.

Here is some of the fallout from the Recued Fighting Dogs story. This is the stuff that rocks my world and keeps me pushing for more everyday. These pictures and the Josie the Dog’s Blog, which you must read come from Sara, who brought Josie home after the big dog raid. Big shout out to A Rotta Love Plus in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who made Josie’s new life possible.

If you would like to stay informed of the follow ups to the Rescued Fighting Dogs story, sign up at my FaceBook Fan Page, which is where I will be posting them. Thanks for your attention.

Jason Moriber, from the social marketing company Wise Elephant, and I were talking last week about how Google is effecting direct marketing. Basically, what both he and I have noticed is that for an emailer is sent out the open rate has been increasing, but the click through rate drastically decreasing. At about the same time that the emailer goes out, the web traffic on my site spikes up. Additionally, Jason has been noticing that people are doing multiple opens over long periods of time. Weird, right? Basically what is happening is that people may like the imagery, but don’t trust the marketing, so they are doing a Google search of the name to find out for themselves what the person is up to. Fascinating in a CSI sort of way. Well, the first thing I do is Google my name, and the first 3 pages of info is all about DHS, what I have done, where I am commenting, what awards I have won, etc. Which I guess is great from a marketing point of view, if a bit weird from a “This is Your Life” point of view. From what I can tell, this forensic thing is a fairly new phenomena. If anyone else out there is having this experience, or has any thoughts on it, I would very much like to hear from you. Thanks for your time.

Many people are confused about what a photographers or other visual artists web site should look like. These are my thoughts based on my experience and my many failures. I preset these hoping to save you some money and grief. The web site is the way we present our work to the world, the portfolio is secondary. Did you know that Richard Avedon had a full time art director and picture editor on staff just to help with his graphic design? He thought it was that important, and he also thought they were better at it than he was. Finding the person to work with is tough, but it is worth the hunt.

Here are my 10 suggestions:

-Keep it simple to navigate. Minimize the amount of clicks your viewer has to make.
-No music, ever, unless it is a video. Unless you are a total genius at sound design, it is going to come off amateur.
-Make it simple to upload and change the content. You want to be able to do add/change photos yourself without contacting a web expert
-Make it about the pictures, period. Reveal more about yourself and what you are into in your blog.
-Really think about the look, and make it personal to your work. Stay away from pre-made corporate looking “photographer” template services.
-Keep in mind your viewer’s attention span-short.
-If possible, format it it to work on an iPhone and iPad.
-Your web designer needs technical skills, but also great page design skills. Hard to find, but worth the search. Look at designers who do art gallery sites.
-Look at photographer’s sites who are working at the top end, study and understand what they are doing right, then apply, don’t copy, it to your work.
-If you do not feel good at editing your own work, hire someone who could help you, like an art buyer, photo editor or rep. You need to show your best most consistent work, and if you are like me, you may not be the best judge of what you do.

For everyone who has been following this blog, I want to thank you for your support. I hope I have been helpful to you. Here is something really special, something that if you are a photographer, film maker, or want to be one, is just too good to be true.

The American Society of Cinematographers is offering a Friends of ASC membership for $100. I get no benefit from this, I am letting everyone know because I think this is by far and way the deal of the century for people who are interested in learning about cinematography. Truthfully, I debated with myself if I should keep this one to myself, it is that good of a find. The bennies are unreal, like you have direct email access to the ASC members to ask them lighting questions. How great is that? There are also online videos about lighting, discounts on gear. I sort of can’t believe what they are doing here. This is the real deal, with the people who are the best in the world at what they do, offering to show us exactly what they do. Isn’t that something you would want to know? There is plenty of info and instructionals out there from novice HDSLR film makers, like me, but wouldn’t it be great to hear from the titans of the film world about how they do their thing?

Enjoy and learn. Share the love.

I just posted the Asia Mon Amour Video, which has been getting a lot of attention. Here is exactly what you need to know so you can make your own video:

Here is what I used: Canon 5DII for the normal speed work done at 30p. Canon 7D for the slow mo shot at 60p. I had 4 x 16 gigs UDMA CF cards. A single Zacuto Z finder with a mount on each body. Lenses: 24-70 Canon, 35 1.4 Canon, 50 1.2 Nikon with Fotodiosc adapter, 85 1.2. , Zeiss 21 2.8. I brought other glass, but that is what I used. There was an H4N Zoom recorder used to for drum track recorded live in Bali. I had 2,3,4 stop B+W ND filters, and a SingRay filter (which I will never use again). The only rig I used was for the Tokyo subway and the Monkey Forrest a Fig Rig. Otherwise all hand held.

YOU CAN DO THIS!

The kids in the park clips were done with a with a 7D and the Zeiss 2.8 shot at 5.6 and 1/125 with me litterally holding the camera in the palm of my hand at knee level and chasing those kids. How is that for simple? Got no Zeiss? A Canon zoom would work fine.

YOU SHOULD BE DOING THIS!

There is so much racket out there about all the gear and all the crap we are suppose to need in order to make motion pieces, and I temporarily drank that Kool Aid, but now I am off. Keep it super simple. You will be happier. You will do more videos.

This is the super simple scoop on what to do:

1. Set picture style to Neutral, then Sharpen to 0, Sat -1, Contrast -1, Color tone 0
2. Use only these ASAs: 160,320, 640, 800, 1250
3. If you are using 24p, set the shutter at 50, if you are using 30p set the shutter at 50, If you are using 60p then Shutter at 125. ( unless you are shooting night in a country with 50HZ electric, like Europe, then alway shutter at 50 or 100)
4. The color in the LCD is the color you are going to have to live with. Set the Color Temp to something you like.
5. Point camera, turn on Live View, focus using the 5x and 10x magnifier button
6. For day light, try to keep the lens at 5.6, too high and it gets videoee and too low and it is tough to hold focus. Use the NDs. Night time is easy, because you don’t need any ND.
7. Steady yourself, and Record clip.

YOU JUST MADE A MOVIE! FANTASTIC!

OK, so there is a lot more to learn than this, that whole Final Cut bear, but these are the basics to get you going. You can do something really great with just this. You really can. Questions? I’ll answer everything I can, and if I don’t know the answers, I probably know someone who does.

DON’T DFELAY, MAKE A MOVIE TODAY!