Shoot Edit Learn » Events and Workshops

Philly Meetup!

Cristina Valdivieso — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:31:33 +0000

Well, it’s been a while but we’re finally having another meetup here in Philadelphia. Join us for drinks, bowling, and some good old conversation on February 7th at 6pm at NorthBowl located at 909 N. 2nd St. Bowling typically runs about $10 per person but it always depends on exactly how many people are in the lane. Look forward to seeing you there!

THIS Sunday – Podcast With Philip Bloom

Cristina Valdivieso — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:46:24 +0000

So it’s that time again! We had so much fun during our last live video podcast and got so much great feedback that we decided to do it again. Karen Abad and I have invited Philip Bloom to join us this Sunday for a live interview and, of course, some q+a from all the viewers.
Both of us have considered Philip a dear friend for years and we’re looking forward to getting technical and hearing all about his latest projects and what’s in store for the future. In case you haven’t had the pleasure of learning about all the great things Phil has done, below is just a bit of info for you:
For the past 22+ years Philip Bloom has been following his passion as a career and it has taken him around the world to places he’s always felt privileged to have seen.
He has filmed, directed and edited short films, documentaries and much more from Clapham to Cambodia and in 2005 he was short listed for a BAFTA craft award for his series of short films for Sky News “If I were Prime Minister”
Philip is considered one of the new breed of digital cinematographers. Over the past 4+ years he has become one of the leading world evangelists for the low budget film look. Through cameras like the Canon 5DmkII and more recently the Panasonic AF100 and Sony F3. Visit his DSLR films section to see just how beautiful they look. He has used these DSLRs on all sorts of projects from music videos to commercials and documentaries. He also recently was also the second unit DSLR DP on the new movie from Lucasfilm, “RED TAILS”.
Philip always brings a real passion, energy and dedication to his projects no matter how big or small it is. He will always deliver the absolute best that he can every single time.
Philip’s site, www.philipbloom.net, has also gone from becoming a place to showcase his work to a place for people to learn and share. There is a wealth of information on the site for both the seasoned and junior film maker.

We’re looking forward to having all of you join us!
Watch it here: www.shooteditlearn.com/podcasts

And Our Podcast Surprise Guest Is…

Cristina Valdivieso — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:15:25 +0000

As you already know Karen Abad and I are doing our first live video podcast this Thursday at 8:30pm eastern. When we first started discussing doing this we knew we wanted to have a special guest during each show but deciding on the prefect first guest was a little tough. We knew we wanted someone who we respect as a fellow filmmaker but we also wanted someone that could bring something unique to the table so to speak. We’re thrilled about who our special guest is…

The timing really couldn’t be anymore prefect for our surprise guest to be announced. Yesterday was the end of a long journey for him. Over a hundred days of filming towards his first feature length documentary have come to an end and in ten days it will premiere on Showtime. What’s most unique about him is his background. 3 years ago, when I first met him, he was leading the wedding industry with his completely different approach to wedding films. Looking back I would have never guessed that in less than 3 years he’d be filming the Super Bowl but all his success is well deserved.

Without further ado, we’re so excited to announce that Patrick Moreau from StillMotion will be joining us for our first live video podcast this Thursday at 8:30 pm eastern. In case you haven’t had a chance to watch the trailer for A Game of Honor, check it out below. I encourage everyone to check out StillMotion’s website as well. The’ve done so much for the industry including hosting numerous educational events and even developing a music licensing site. Also, make sure to bring your questions because at the end of our podcast we’ll have live q+a with Patrick. You’ll be able to watch it here on ShootEditLearn.com under the podcast tab. We’re both super excited about this & hope that you can join us!

Masters in Motion: The Definitive Recap

Jon Connor — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 20:24:26 +0000

First off: a huge thanks to Preston Kanak of 3 Minute Shorts, whose same day edits and incredible work ethic amazed everyone involved. Also thanks to Joel Graves, Jared Levy, Chad Nickle, Tanner Jobe, and Lindsay Grace who helped out tremendously. Also, without Cristina’s hard work, behind the scenes, coordinating a lot of the details that people don’t think about, this would have been impossible, along with the outstanding support of Eric Kessler and Kessler Crane.

Masters in Motion: Day One

After months of hard work and preparation, with a keen attention to detail, we descended on Austin, two days before the event. Our hotel room looked like an industrial era factory, as we employed family and friends to put the finishing touches together. We stuffed attendee swag bags, in assembly line formation, into the wee hours of the morning. This was going to be something else. You could already feel it.

Sunday night, attendees showed up to pick up swag bags, name badges, and to enjoy the open bar in the Atrium of the Omni Hotel. This was a chance for everyone to mingle and get to know each other a little better before the event really kicked into high gear. With some people traveling as far as Denmark for this, we knew we had a huge responsibility on our shoulders. That’s when you have your best opportunities in life though. All eyes are on you and the pressure is on. What are you going to do? Fold under pressure or step up to the plate? It’s a situation we face daily as filmmakers and this would be no different.

Monday arrived and we woke up early. We were nervous but not in a bad way. We knew we had put in the time and were prepared. Now it was just a matter of execution and all the technical stuff working. In essence, it was, in a way, out of our hands now. Kessler Crane, Marshall Monitors, Manfrotto, and Kata Bags transformed the lobby of the Alamo Drafthouse into a mini-trade show. Over the next few days, people took advantage of drastic discounts for workshop attendees to buy up most of the gear being shown. We took the stage to kick things off. We explained how the first time we were in the theater was three years ago at Re:Frame and what a pivotal point that was for us professionally. We told the attendees to take advantage of the best resource here, each other. It ended with a Breaking Bad reference in which we said there are no more excuses and “no more half measures” ala character Mike in a monologue he delivers to Walter White. I didn’t realize it at the time but that was an excellent mantra for the rest of the week.

Tom Guilmette took the stage as the first presenter ever for Masters in Motion. No more then a minute into his presentation his computer appeared to have gone into the dreaded “blue screen of death” mode. Gasps were heard, followed by groans. You could have cut through the tension in the room with a knife. Things were looking bad. Really,really,bad.I charged the stage in a desperate attempt to fix it. That’s when we realized Tom had just put a jpeg of the “blue screen of death” into his Keynote. Crisis averted and he now had everyone’s full attention. He proceeded to walk us through life as sports shooter. Explaining his aggressive technique and how he was able to follow fast action like a hockey puck being blasted into the net. He was informative and inspiring. He showed his viral internet hit, “Locked in a Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex,” and broke down all the elements that went into the sound design including some Angry Birds sound effects. He set the tone for the event. Educational, inspirational, yet entertaining.

After lunch Austin’s own, Joe Simon, took the stage. His talk was on Applying Movement to Enhance Your Story. He dissected movies from the 30′s to present day to illustrate his points. He showed his own work as well. He drove home the point that you don’t move the camera just to move it. He explained the subtleties of some of these moves and the deeper meaning behind them. He walked us through techniques he utilizes and was also able to be chock full of knowledge while still engaging the audience. The day was off to a wonderful start.

Joe Simon “mastering motion” with a Phantom Flex on the Glidecam.

After a short break, so everyone could stretch their legs and absorb everything up until that point, we had the extremely talented Philip Bloom take the stage. Although no one likes people to see their work until it has been fine tuned, Philip pulled back the curtain, and treated everyone to a first look at a rough cut, of a short documentary style piece, he had shot the day before in Austin, “The Redneck Hippie.” This piece would be revisited later, and the behind the scenes look at how he works was priceless. Philip went over multiple facets of how he goes about shooting documentary work, down to such subtle nuances as how to get the person you are interviewing to be more comfortable on camera. With real world examples illustrating his points, we all left with a bevy of information that we could apply immediately.

More then just knowledge raining down in Austin.

The fun didn’t stop there though. Later that evening we all met up at Beerland for karaoke. Everyone was treated, and by treated I mean brutally subjected , to a duet of the Backstreet Boys “I Want it That Way” by Vincent Laforet and Eric Kessler. Adam Forgione, John Hyland and myself attempted to launch our Masters in Motion Christmas album, but after some confusion with the DJ’s, and the wrong song being played, things devolved quickly. Adam sang his heart out, and during dead spaces John Hyland used observational humor to soften the awkward silences that ensued. I mainly stood there looking like a buffoon, until I was able to jump in on parts where “ooohs” and “ahhhs” were necessary.
Adam Grumbo and many others belted out songs in hilarious fashion until the night wound down. Everyone was finally getting to know one another better and you could feel something building in the air. Or maybe I just had that Phil Simon song stuck in my head, anyway, I digress.

Masters in Motion: Day Two

Day two had arrived. Vincent Laforet gave attendees the choice of him diving right into his presentation or playing Mobius, while he let them all wake up fully. The crowd enthusiastically voted for Mobius. Seeing it play out on the big screen in a proper movie theater was really something else. He walked people through various parts of his career and gave out great advice. Just like all the presenters he took a no nonsense approach and really told it how it is. The B.S. factor over the course of the event was non-existent. After a short break, in which time we covered the first few rows of the Alamo Drafthouse in plastic,obtained a fire extinguisher and collectively crossed our fingers and held our breath, we were set-up with the Phantom Flex for a live demo. Huge thanks to Mike Sutton, from Rule Boston Camera, who was our resident encyclopedia of all things related to the Phantom, and the reason we all got to play with it in the first place. There were bullets dropped,faces slapped, pumpkins smashed, ballons stabbed, hairspray lit on fire, you name it, all played back immediately in glorious slow motion on the big screen. Also, a huge thank you to Abram Letkeman who was absolutely walloped by our own Cristina Valdivieso. All in good fun of course. I’ve never quite seen anything like this at a workshop. There was definitely “no half measures.” Masters in Motion was going hard or going home.

Vincent Laforet and Mike Sutton “Flex-ing”

Which made perfect sense, as our next presenters were certified NGAFer’s, Tyler Ginter, Khalid Mohtaseb, and Jonathan Bregel from Variable. They went over production workflow, divulging a lot of the programs and techniques they used, to manage expenses, clients, invoices, etc. while keeping it all in the “cloud” so they could access it from anywhere. Tyler was an essential part of this basically taking over the a role of producer for Variable. A lot of their work has them jet-setting across the globe so, this is vitally important. In the second half of their talk, they used examples of their work to illustrate an often overlooked but essential part to filmmaking, Lighting. Khalid and Jonathan were clearing in their wheelhouse now, as you could feel their enthusiasm and love of lighting. Again we had a no B.S. approach from these guys. They weren’t saying what you wanted to hear, they were saying what you needed to hear, like it or not. You had to love that.

Certified NGAFer’s in action

Again, the day was not even close to over yet. Joe Simon arranged with the Trophy Room, a small bar two doors down from the theater, to allow us to set up lights and basically take over for the night. Operation Bull Ride: as it was dubbed, was now in full swing. Armed with the Phantom Flex, and again Mike Sutton on hand to help with all aspects, super slow-mo bull riding shenanigans were going down hard in Austin, with Joe Simon manning the camera. People were backflipping, launching off of the bull, general craziness. Day 2 was in the bag.

Vincent Laforet taking the bull by the horns.

Day Three started with people rounding the corner onto Sixth Street, with a lot of eyes squinting, as the Texas sun radiated into weary retinas. There’s no rest for the wicked and this day was no exception. Things kicked into high gear as Philip Bloom again took the stage. This time we got to see the finalcut of “The Redneck Hippie.” It was amazing to not only see the progression of the piece from it’s inception earlier but also to see the timeline and how Philip went about coloring the piece. Oh, sorry, Philip actually went about “colouring” the piece. Again, learning from someone on top of the game is always inspiring. He offered advice, techniques, and as always was more then willing to field everyone’s questions.

The final presenter for Masters in Motion was Adam Forgione. His topic was one, that everyone I know, myself included, seems to know the least about, Audio. Which, is surprising because, it plays such a vital role in distinguishing great work from the mediocre. Adam started off his presentation in unique fashion, he rented a small piano and treated the crowd to a truly inspiring moment. While three minutes of Cinema Paradiso played on the big screen, Adam accompanied it with a live rendition of the score. Everyone was blown away. He then proceeded to take us on a journey. He walked us through step by step on everything we needed to know to get amazing audio. His style of taking complex terms and techniques and breaking them down to simple to understand analogies was extremely helpful. Everyone wanted more. So much so that he had to stay on stage an extra half hour after his scheduled presentation was over.

Adam Forgione giving a clinic on Audio.

Again, the day was far from over. We gathered all the attendees at the Omni Hotel, on two huge buses we rented, and transported everyone over to a skate park. Attendees broke up into three groups. One group went with Mike Sutton, Joe Simon, Jonathan Bregel, and Khalid Mohtaseb, where they were able to get some hands on time with the Phantom Flex. Vincent Laforet and Philip Bloom broke another group up, into two smaller groups, where people learned and shot with the Red Epic. The last group went with Tyler Ginter and Eric Kessler, who went over advanced timelapse techniques, as well as motion controlled timelapses. The groups then continued to rotate until everyone got a chance to partcipate with every station. As the sun set over the park and capped off an incredible day, we all felt like we had been part of something bigger then a workshop. This was not an event. It was an experience.

photo courtesy of @JohnHyland

As if we hadn’t all had our fill already, we headed to the beautiful rooftop deck at Speakeasy for the closing party. 86 the DJ spun tunes all night and the incredibly talented Annie Ray set up an awesome photo booth to get some off-the-wall pictures of everyone. In the midst of all this, some amazing prizes were given out: a Kessler Crane Pocket Dolly, a Zacuto EVF, copies of Plural Eyes, Red Giant Software, and then we asked the question. Did you guys enjoy this enough that we should do it again? After a thunderous response, we made the decision to do it again, in the form of the last prize, a seat to our next event. So, if you missed out on this one and are mad you didn’t come the good news is that there will 100 percent be another one.
Masters in Motion: Day Three

Thank you to everyone who made this possible. Thank you to everyone who attended. You all got “it”. We came to Austin, we took over, we learned together, we networked, we did something really incredible and we feel blessed to have shared such an outrageous and life changing experience with each and everyone of you. Stay tuned as we have some exciting news coming very soon.

A huge thanks to our sponsors:
Kessler Crane
Rule: Boston Camera
Zeiss
Manfrotto
Kata Bags
Marshall
Rode
Zacuto
Red Giant
Planet 5D
Event-DV

25 Days and Counting

Cristina Valdivieso — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:06:15 +0000

After months of planning and organizing every single detail, we’re only 25 days from one of the biggest events of the year. We teamed up with our good friends over at Kessler Crane to bring together an amazing line up of speakers at Masters In Motion in Austin, TX from November 14-16. We’ve been working very hard on developing a unique event that goes beyond gear. Instead, our focus is on filmmaking as a whole, elevating your productions, and developing connections with some of the industry’s best. We’re kicking off the event on Sunday night with a little meet and great and then it all starts Monday morning bright and early. Between Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we’ll be hearing from Tom Guilmette, Joe Simon, Philip Bloom, Vincent Laforet, Khalid Mohtaseb, Jonathan Bregel, Tyler Ginter, and Adam Forgione.

Topics include:

Composition and Imagination with Tom Guilmette

Applying Movement to Enhance Your Story with Joe Simon

Documentary Filmmaking with Philip Bloom

Opposite Sides of the Spectrum with Vincent Laforet

Production Workflow with Khalid, Jonathan, and Tyler

Lighting Theory with Khalid, Jonathan, and Tyler

Color + Story with Philip Bloom

Advanced Audio with Adam Forgione

On Wednesday we’ll head out for some hands on learning… We’re breaking into small groups and get to rotate between stations: Shooting with the Phantom Flex with Khalid and Jonathan, Shooting with the Red Epic with Vincent and Philip, and Advanced Timelapse with Tyler, Joe, and Eric Kessler from Kessler Crane. Of course, at the end of everything on Wednesday night we’re having a huge closing party for all the attendees.

We are so excited about this and can’t wait to meet all the new faces and hang out with some of the great folks we met during the Canon Filmmakers Live U.S. tour. If you haven’t signed up for the event, don’t miss out! The caliber of speakers alone is amazing but the knowledge and relationships you’ll develop from this 3 day event will be invaluable. Trust us, we’ve been to several workshops around the world and they’ve all been so beneficial in our growth as filmmakers.

We want to thank everyone who has helped us make this event a success including all the presenters and our amazing sponsors for Masters In Motion: Kessler Crane, Rule Boston, Red Giant, Rode, Manfrotto, Kata, Zeiss, Zacuto, and Marshall Monitors. Their support is a huge testament to their belief in how important education is. Believe me, without them this event would not be possible. Continuing education is so important to us and we are so lucky to have found so many great companies that are willing to help us.

Also, a HUGE thank you to everyone who has helped us spread the word about the event. Every single tweet has helped and we appreciate it greatly.

Chronos Film Festival in New Mexico

Cristina Valdivieso — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:29:16 +0000

We are so excited to be heading to Santa Fe, NM this November for Chronos Film Festival and want to encourage everyone to submit their work! It’s only $20 to submit one of your pieces that features either timelapses, slow motion, or stop motion before September 1st! Now let me help convince you to take the trip to Santa Fe, NM and hang out with us… First of all there’s going to be two awesome screenings: “Koyaanisqatsi” by Godfrey Reggio and ”Mother’s Red Dress” by Edgar Michael Bravo. There will also be tons of talks with Philip Bloom, John Kapelos, Gary Lux, Brad Kremer, Greg P. Russell, and of course, Jon and I will be speaking as well

Here’s a great example of what they’re looking for as far as submissions go:

Here are the Film Submission Guidelines from the Chronos website:

Duration & Credits : Films should be at least 2 minutes long and no longer than 7 minutes, in duration. Credits for the film should occur only at the End and should not last more than 20 seconds.
Fees for Awards Submissions: Films that wish to enter Awards Categories will be charged a fee via PayPal. Due to the time constraints of our Judges, we have implemented the following Fee Schedule:

Films submitted before September 1st, 2011 : $20

Films submitted September 2 – September 31st : $30

“Late” films submitted October 1 – 15 : $45

Films that do not wish to enter Awards Categories will not be charged a fee; but will be eligible for general screening during our festival. We do not currently have our PayPal account setup, this is coming soon, hold tight for more information.
Content : Do not use copyrighted music in your work without written permission from the artist. Films should be of High Definition (HD) Quality, in a format for widescreen viewing. Your video file should use a 16:9 aspect ratio, with 1280×720 or 1920×1080 pixel resolution. Letterboxing inside of the 16:9 ratio is allowed. For more technical guidelines, please see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section on the Vimeo website at http://vimeo.com/help/faq
Pre-Screening and Film Delivery via Vimeo.com : Chronos will be using the HD video sharing website Vimeo.com for the purpose of pre-screening. If you do not have a Vimeo account, please sign up for Vimeo here. You must then Join theChronos Film Festival Channel at http://vimeo.com/channels/chronos/and Add your film on Vimeo to the Chronos Channel. Only then will we be able to see your film in full HD quality!If your film is selected for final screening at the festival, we may ask you to enable the “Download” link in order for us to obtain the highest quality image for our live audience.
Watermarking : Chronos encourages you to protect and maintain the intellectual rights of your property; a small, tasteful watermark in the lower right or lower left corner of your film is allowed. Please do not put watermarks in the center of the screen; nothing animated, nothing crazy. Chronos reserves the right to ask filmmakers to re-submit their films if we feel the watermark will interfere with the enjoyment of our audience.

Coming Soon: Categories for Awards and more details.

For more information on submitting high-speed or time-lapse short films, please contact submissions@chronosfilmfestival.com

Hope to see you all there!

New event + New site. Our Labor of Love.

Cristina Valdivieso — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 23:39:53 +0000

So as some of you know we’ve been working on transferring all the content from this site to our new site ShootEditLearn.com. We’ve run into a few technical issues but don’t worry, we’re not gonna make the switch until we’re absolutely sure our readers will still be able to utilize all the previous information on this site.

Now it’s been a while since we’ve posted anything but quite a lot has been going on… Most importantly, we’ve been working really hard to finalize our latest project, Masters In Motion. We’ve teamed up with our good friends at Kessler Crane to develop an event that we feel the industry is in desperate need of. Masters In Motion is our labor of love… We’ve been wanting to do this style of event for quite a long time now. Jon and I have attended and hosted numerous workshops. Some are one day, some are four days, some are hands on, some are lecture based but what they all have in common is that the knowledge we’ve gained and the industry connections we’ve made have been completely invaluable. Our goal with our latest event is to really elevate the industry’s knowledge of filmmaking as a whole. While we won’t be releasing the full schedule until September 12th, I can tell you that we’re going to have the industry’s best covering varios topics such as lighting theory, advanced audio, storytelling, production workflow, and that’s all I’ll reveal for now We wanted to create an event that will give you the information no other event is covering that will really help you elevate your productions to the next level.

Take advantage of our early bird rate now… We’re offering $150 off if you book before September 12th so don’t miss out!

See you in Austin!

Lessons from the Road: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love to Film

Jon Connor — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:26:58 +0000

Yes, the title of this blog post is a ridiculous take on the great film “Dr. Strangelove,” but I’m feeling a bit saucy today, so sue me. On second thoughts, please don’t sue me. Seriously
Sorry for the hiatus, but spending 42 days straight on the road for the #CFLive Tour with Philip Bloom stretched our resources a bit thin. We are back at it now, and we hope to continue to evolve with all of you this year.

Lesson #1
The best thing about DSLR’s has nothing to do with technology.
For me, the best part of the entire tour was the meet-ups afterwards. Meeting so many like-minded people was inspiring and reinvigorating. The whole “civil war” that goes on, via Twitter and forums, about what camera is best, and why people with DSLR’s are inferior, etc. is a useless self-mastabatory exercise, that I want nothing to do with. Seriously, I wish people stopped wasting their time being negative, and got out more and created something great. There are no more acceptable excuses. The only thing stopping you… is YOU. That being said, there is a contingent of amazing talented people from the nations capitol of D.C. to the dusty streets of Albuquerque. Local DSLR groups were sprouting up behind us like Fight Clubs as we weaved our way across the country. That made the whole trip worthwhile. So seek out fellow filmmakers in your area and get to it. People are our greatest resource not technology.

Lesson 2
Don’t ask what, ask why?
Philip Bloom made this point and it is a great one. If you ask someone what camera they shot something on, follow it up with “Why?” Why someone chose a camera or lens is more important then what camera or lens.

Lesson 3
42 days is a long time to be away from home.
That may seem like an obvious thing but my point is that sometimes until something is taken away from you, you never fully appreciate it. So, if you have a roof over your head, friends, and loved ones at home, don’t take them for granted. I’m really trying to be more thankful for all that I have in life. Also, if you have a bulldog named Bruiser, he may get so excited when you finally do get back that he pees all over the kitchen floor, so have some 409 and paper towels handy.

Lesson 4
Don’t ever let your ego get too big. Always stay humble.
Philip Bloom has a huge following. He was the headliner of the tour, but when the bags had to get loaded up, and equipment had to get schlepped around. He was right there with us. That’s how it should be.
Someone came up to me at one of the events and said, ” I’m really glad you guys are so down to earth. Don’t take this the wrong way but, I kind of thought you might be dicks.” I was taken aback at first, but then he went on to explain how he had been to other events and some people get a following on the internet and then treat other people like they are better then them. He told me I was “famous on Twitter.” I laughed and said, “I do the same things everyone else does. I eat, sleep and put my pants on one leg at a time.” The minute you start to think you are better then everyone else, even if you are super talented, is the minute you start to lose respect from people when they actually meet you. Plus it’s just a dick move, so let’s keep it classy.

Lesson 5
No matter what the show must go on.
The show can be anything. Work. Life. Whatever you happen to be doing. There will always be snafus, snags, and pitfalls. You just have to keep your head down and keep it moving forward. Whether it was technical problems at venues, delayed flights, or getting sick, we just kept going. You can’t just throw your hands in the air, and say, “This problem is too big. I give up!” The biggest difference between people who are successful, and people who fail in life is just showing up. Talent is obviously important, but persistence is imperative.

Lesson 6
No matter how big the idea, if you put your mind to it and work hard, you can do it.
When we finished the workshop at the last stop in L.A. it was bittersweet. However, I have never been as proud in my life. Philip obviously worked extremely hard on the presentations,helping lug around gear, promoting the event, and we never could have done it without him. That being said: the team behind the logistics of the tour: answering emails from potential attendees, designing the website, contacting sponsors, booking hotels and flights, finding venues, finding meet-up venues, buying all the necessary cables/projection equipment, contacting local video associations, promoting, and countless other tasks we didn’t foresee consisted of Cristina and myself. It was a process that spanned 6 months and consumed countless hours of our lives. It had it’s ups and downs. At the end of the tour, though, we did it. We successfully pulled it off. We made up our mind that we were going to do it, and we saw it through. If the two of us were able to do that, it is proof that if set your mind to it, and are determined, you can do anything you want.

Anyway, that’s a few lessons we learned on the road. Hope it didn’t come off as self-important, it is just a few things I needed to remind myself of, as much as anything. If you happened to attend any of the #CFLive workshops, we’d love to hear what you learned. If you didn’t attend the workshops, we’d still love to hear what you think, so leave a comment and let’s keep the conversation going.

NAB!

Cristina Valdivieso — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 23:19:39 +0000

One more week until we get to Vegas and we couldn’t be more excited. This will be our first time at NAB and we are looking forward to meeting new friends, hanging out with old ones, and, of course, checking out all the awesome gear that’ll be on display at the trade show. We’d love to meet as many of you as possible so make sure to follow us on twitter for updates about what’s going on in Vegas.
We will definitely be at the Kessler Crane booth quite a bit but here are a few other awesome events you don’t want to miss while at NAB:

Monday, April 11th from 11-11:30am we will be at the Teradek booth broadcasting live so make sure you come say hi and check out the rest of the lineup here.
Monday, April 11th at 8pm we’re headlining the All In Film Charity Poker Meetup. Make sure to come hang out and vote for who you think will get knocked out first on the sidebar.
Wednesday, April 13th from 7-10pm we’ll be at the NAB Tweet Up. RSVP here if you’d like to come.

One last thing, you can get FREE ACCESS to the exhibit floor, the opening keynote and state of the industry address, info sessions, content theater, exhibits and PITS – a $150 value… Register at http://nabshow.com/register with the code SM06.

Can’t wait to meet you all there!

The Road Ahead: Being Named Event-DV Top 25

Jon Connor — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 19:50:52 +0000

Our wedding and event filmmaking company Society Hill Studios in conjunction with our efforts here at Canon Filmmakers to help educate with events like Canon Filmmakers Live were bestowed the highest honor in our industry. We were just recognized by our industry peers as one of the Event-Dv Top 25 hottest and most influential event filmmakers in the world! To say that we were honored and humbled, would be an understatement. We were going to list all of the winners here but we didn’t want to steal the thunder so you have to check that out here. Needless to say, to be listed amongst the talent that won this year is incredible. So, to everyone else who won, a huge and well deserved congratulations to all of you. For those of you who didn’t win, but continue to help others and elevate the industry by producing high quality and innovative work we salute you. Keep up the amazing work let’s make 2011 our best year yet.

Organizing a 12 city educational workshop tour has been an absolutely grueling task. We are finalizing last minute details and getting ready to head out tomorrow. The road ahead for the next 6 weeks is sure to be full of unexpected twists and turns as we navigate ourselves across the country from our kick-off in the windy city of Chicago, to our final destination, at the world center of media and entertainment, Los Angeles. From there we will be headed to NAB in Vegas where the three of us are some of the headliners for an amazing charity poker event called All-In Film. All proceeds are donated to the Red Cross and you have a chance to win a ton of really cool gear.

We hope to meet a lot of you while we are out on the road. If you are anywhere near any of our 12 stops, please, try to make it out. Our incredible journey over the last two years started at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin at a workshop called Re:Frame. It is such a cool venue, and such a part of the story of where the last two years have taken us, we absolutely had to go back.

The thing with these types of events is that you end up making so many great connections and learn just as much, sometimes, from fellow attendees. We have plans in place during this tour that I think will go a long way towards strengthening the filmmaking communities at each stop. That all being said, all of us at Society Hill Studios and Canon Filmmakers would like to extend a sincere and extremely grateful thank you to all of you. Without each and every one of you none of this would be possible. We hope that we can give back as much as we have been given.

Hope to see you out on the road!

Photo courtesy of Gary Nevitt Jr.