When Ninja's Attack.....

I have to thank my buddy brad for the title of this post as he was the one who came up with it. It is a very accurate description as to what has been happening for the last week or so as it feels as though I have been attacked on all sides by not only ninja's; but as my pals at Bungie would say: Ninja's that were on fire.

That being said I am going to keep this quick and easy. Derby season is on the way. I've got 3 calendar shoots this week to finish everything up, and November 7th is the first bout. You can check out the team here. You can buy tickets for the bout here. I'm hoping to be able to post more things that I've done at work with the 5D Mark II soon. Not that I can't post them now, but I've just been so busy fighting off the Ninja's that I would almost have rather floated over International Falls in a barrel.....Actually that sounds pretty cool so maybe it's not a good example. Been a lot of late nights, lots of early mornings lots of out of towns lately as well. Last weekend was in Lafayette for the Premier of the Independant film: Thick as Thieves.


(Nikon D3, ISO 6400, Nikon 28-70mmF2.8@28mm. 1/100th@F2.8)

The image above is from the Premier. I was hired to shoot the premier, the crowd, the tailgate at the Purdue Football game, and any other interesting events that may have occurred during that day. The film itself was made by Purdue Alumni, and they wanted to premier the film in Lafayette at their Alma mater. I was there when they did the first film,and they were happy enough with the photos to call me again while they were in the area. They did the big premier in Chattanooga Tennessee which was the weekend of the Motorcycle Grand Prix.

(Nikon D700, 200ISO, Nikon AF-S 50mmF1.4. 1/640th@F2)

I find shooting events tough, as most of my day is setting up lights to eithe rmake something look un-lit, or quite frankly to make it look lit. Shooting from the hip, on camera flash, no flash at all, get it or don't......It's all a different kind of shooting to me. I was pleased with what I ended up with though.

The film itself was good. I didn't know what to expect, but these guys know how to make budgets stretch. The entire film was made on around $11,000, and what they did for that money seemed like money well spent. I probably would have lit a few scenes differently, maybe an edit here or there differently as well but EEEEEP! I know nothing about making a feature film so my opinion should be taken as lightly as anybody who has ever used the analogy "shake a stick at" to anything. I'm shakin a stick, but what I say still don't mean nuthin.

Nice job guys, I look forward to your next installment in the series for sure. Until then, as I mentioned earlier; Derby season is among us. I've been playing with a lot of video lately and after shooting headshots last Sunday at practice, I pulled the 5D Mark II out of the case and took it for a whirl. (Manual Focus and all...) I'm no Vincent Laforet with the 5D Mark II, but I think I did alright and am relatively pleased with what I made. The league knew nothing about this video, so if it gets pulled down that could have something to do with it. It was shot in about an hour and a half, edited in about 2 hours on a Macbook Pro, and I don't have any canned audio to throw over the top of it or I'm sure it would be much much cooler. Like Blue hair in a japanese cartoon kind of cool...or pouring a glow stick into Homestarrunner's mountain dew during a Techno song. (I hear they have to pump your stomach if you drink that stuff...) Otherwise the girls are getting ready for Season 4, and so am I. You should be too. More soon.