I recall perhaps one professional moment when I felt like I really knew something – I was a master – yet, within short years easily accessible skills-de-Photoshop shattered momentum. What I honed on the view camera in the studio with lights, filters and finessing the process over 20 years was nearly worthless commercially. I wasn’t alone, except for purists mostly found in the masters of fine arts – aka – not me – creative destruction picked up its pace.  From that point on, my lesson was learned.

I’m a beginner  – at everything. My forced realization back in ’98 caused me to dive into Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki. Don’t mistake me for a deep follower, but rather a man with a new attitude. No longer do I own the luxury of working the requisite 10,000 hours at anything for expert status.

Previous post on Beginner’s Mind

“Shoshin – It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would.”

That leads me to this: Film making; motion making perhaps since film isn’t any more involved in my “films” than in my stills. A year ago I knew nothing (I mean REALLY nothing) – I asked friends, “what does this and that mean. What do I need to post to Youtube. What editing program should I buy?

Beyond story, I started watching movies differently; noticing technical things like camera movement, transitions, editing points and most importantly, how they all that make me feel about a scene. Damn – now THESE guys are masters.  Yet, I read somewhere that Spielberg feels like revisiting breakfast on the floor of his car the first shoot day of a big feature – could this be?

This music video for singer song writer Jeanne Jolly was shot by DeBoer Works LLC (Bruce DeBoer) and a small crew in 7 locations. We used DSLR’s – Canon 5D II and 7D. Additional live show footage was shot by Draw Bridge Media on two RED One Cameras. When we lit scenes we used Kino Flo Divas and Arri 650 Fresnel. It was edited at DeBoer Works using Final Cut Pro and graded using Apple Color and Red Giant Looks. The first 2 minutes of the song was recorded with Jeanne solo on her guitar at Burlap Palace in Raleigh. The full band recording, beginning at time code 2:30, was imported from her CD. Sound effects were added during final edit.

I just finished reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Great book by the way – if you like stories of innovation and inspiration as I do. One of my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs – and there are many – is this:

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs

If you’re anything like me you’ve had that dream of being naked in front of an audience at least once. At some point, someone pointed to you and said, “you ain’t that good” or “that’s too hard, don’t even try.” Chances are it was the mirror doing so.

Further, if you’re anything like me you’ve had dreams – usually of the daytime variety – that haven’t materialized for one reason or another. My excuse inventory included: I don’t have the resources, I don’t know enough, or my talent and skills don’t run that deep – blah, bah – you know, the usual stuff.

A few things are now blindingly clear to me.

• Skill trumps talent in the long run.
• Ignore reality. If you want it bad enough it will happen.
• Discard plan “B” because it distracts from plan “A”.
• Fear is the biggest obstacle you’ll face.
• Doing anything beats simply thinking about doing great things. Do something; lay a brick the best way you know how.

Fear runs deep. We can conquer fear but fear of fear is yet one level harder. It’s best to remember Steve Job’s quote; “… you’re already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Historically – and perhaps some of you can relate – my biggest personal challenge has been finding the right passion to follow. I’m your classic shiny object chaser. They say, “Love what you do beyond reason because any rational person would give up.” Yet, after a time, it seems as though meaning leaks out. My conclusion: That thing you love to needs to touch something in others or its endurance fails; most products are disposable, build something that endures.

Settle for building a successful business and it will close – it’s the basic difference between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Both are great business men but Gates eventually bailed from Microsoft to find meaning – Microsoft is irrelevant. Jobs found meaning in what he built and ended up changing the world through Apple.

I thought I’d share this short video [uploaded at this youtube channel] that a few Facebook friends help me discover. Will Smith – yes, that Will Smith – talks motivation, hard work, talent, skill and passion. Well worth the 4 minutes.

“Do you remember the presentations that were later on videotape? Do you remember the special screenings of movies? Do you remember the crowded cocktail parties? Bumping into a net celebrity?  I don’t.” – Seth Godin commenting on conferences like SXSW and TED.

And, here’s a thought from the blog post of another marketing touchstone, Luke Sullivan:

“I’m not sure where I land on this topic, this idea of trying to pay attention to competing streams of information. Check out this guy.[in the photo]”

The photo is of a lecture attendee dividing his attention between multiple sources of technology seemingly ignoring what is happening in the space he occupies [You’ll have to go to Luke’s blog post to see the photo; I haven’t lost all scruples for what I’ll copy].

“I snapped this picture of him during one of Saturday’s sessions. He’s checkin’ his iPhone for either email, phone messages, text messages or his Twitter feed. He’s got his laptop open and from its screen I can tell he’s not taking notes and has open what appear to be two social streams. Meanwhile, the thing he paid $700 to see is happening 50 yards away and just out of his line of sight.” – via Luke Sullivan’s blog

For those who weren’t born into this techno-info onslaught, it’s a dilemma, a quandary, and a battle for position with conventional creative productivity, i.e. what are we missing and is it replaced one for one by what our tech distractions gain us?

While I’ve not attended SXSW, I have attended my share of conferences and industry exhibitions. I agree with Seth Godin that the biggest value is in personal contact; it’s what I specifically recall. We all know the benefits working the network.

Yet, the ideas tossed about in the break-out sessions burrow themselves into my knowledge base so completely that I forget how they were acquired. I own them; they’re mine – I have no need to remember from where they came. Sometimes sessions serve as mere reminders; equally valuable.

I think we’re relearning the value of staying present. As the message channels explode, we’re also learning selectivity. We’re letting go of the low percentage hits in return for our analog surroundings. When will digital media reach it’s apex, do you think it ever will?

During the chase for ideas, information is more caught than taught, but if we’re to make practicable ideas on our own, it’s time to go old school. Once the chase is over it’s time to go analog and turn off the streams for a time.

As for the second part of Luke’s Listening/Speaking post take his words as gospel: nothing – absolutely nothing – replaces message delivery. If you have the best story ever told you won’t get the message across if delivery is marred with static. Got a great story but can’t speak? Find somebody who can. Have something to show but no visual sensibility? Find someone who does.

3/16 – UPDATE: Also visit Luke Sullivan’s follow-up post on his SXSW experience.

For the record, I’m totally over using Wikipedia as an example of anything except as an example of an overused example. Is a Wiki encyclopedia the only creative thing the internet has produced? Please pardon my digression.

What do the movies Ishtar and Rain Man have in common? They are the consecutive movies in 1987 and 1988 in which Dustin Hoffman starred. I’ve often wondered why an obviously great actor would choose a role in a notoriously bad movie. Couldn’t he see that Ishtar was going to suck? Did he know Rain Man was going to be great? Apparently not.

By now we must all know the secret is in doing, especially since Nike changed their tag line back in the ‘80’s. Take your shot. Be overly cautious and you’ll end up sitting on every idea you’ve ever had.

I’m never “all in” though; I have doubts. Well, don’t. Have no doubt about it, your idea will fail. Your concept at the start will not be the one you take to the goal.

As a photographer I “shoot around it”; my typical success rate is 100:1 if I’m being vaguely creative. If I close the ratio I’m going safe and less with creative instincts.

My new adventure is scripting stories for film – a newbie. In a short 6 months the best quote I’ve applied is that your film is shot 3 times: once in your head, once on film (or video), and once when editing. With each success, the effort that goes out with the trash should be considerable if you’re doing it right.

I guess we don’t know until we try; we’re not as good at predicting success as one might think. Truth is, innovators fail far more than those who aren’t. That’s not what it looks like on the surface. At quick glance, you’re innovative and I’m not. In reality, I’m not failing enough; I’m looking for that 1 in 100 before it happens.

According to Frans Johansson, research tells us that the single strongest correlation between innovator success is the number of ideas they try to make happen. Example: Einstein published 240 unreferenced papers. That’s 240:1.

The secret is in taking the smallest executable step to move your idea forward. What is the minimum investment you need that will convince you to take another step? The strategy is to convince yourself it can work.

Additionally, accept failure of your first step. Start walking northeast even though your final goal may be true north. Do it right and your goal moves, the idea changes as we conduct research, collect resources and create prototypes.

[via the99percent.com]
Frans Johansson is an entrepreneur and thought leader. He is also a consultant and the managing director for a hedge fund. Frans previously co-founded and managed two companies, a Boston-based software company and a medical device company operating out of Baltimore, Maryland and Stockholm, Sweden.

Raised in Sweden by his African-American and Cherokee mother and Swedish father, Frans earned an MBA at Harvard Business School and a BS in environmental science at Brown University.

A successful author, Frans has written on a variety of topics, from business management to healthcare to sport fishing to how to save our oceans. His bestselling book, The Medici Effect, has been translated into 17 languages and was named “One of the Ten Best Business Books of 2004″ by Amazon.com.

TED’s Chris Anderson says the rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated Innovation — a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of print. [via TED website]

The speed in which learning must take place to succeed is rivaled only by the nearly

Bruce DeBoer

overwhelming quantity of what needs to be learned to meet market demands. For me this means learning to produce, shoot and edit motion.

Let’s review:

Demand for professional photography is way up but barriers for entry into the business are way down mostly in the form of available information and necessary skills. Reference: “automation” and “disintermediation”.

Supply and demand puts downward pressure on price while new innovative workflows and rapidly advancing technology allow newer businesses to compete more efficiently than businesses with legacy systems and business models.

The Challenge:

There is good and bad of course but that really doesn’t matter does it? It just is. Deal with it. The old adage, “if you can’t beat’em, join’em” gets a new life.

It’s unavoidable really. Whenever I picked up my iPhone, point and shoot, or DSLR as a still shooter, I also had a video camera in my hand. Eventually it speaks to you, “try me”. I’ve been in love with the still photograph since I was 8 but I’m a business man, I caved. Kicking and screaming perhaps, but I caved.

Still amazing to me is how little of my still shooting workflow migrated to shooting motion, yet how fast one can navigate a steep learning curve through Anderson’s Crowd Accelerated Innovation – aka the internet.

My Process:

• Research and acquire the minimum amount of gear to get the look you want; improvise where you can. Looking at shoots produced on the iPhone will put emphasis firmly on content and further from a lot of expensive gear.
• Learn all the technical video jargon and stuff like: frame rates, shutter angle, rolling shutter, line skipping, timecodes, progressive v. interlaced, color sampling, codex, transcoding, compression, and all the other stuff that video veterans find remedial.
• Learn enough audio technique from your musician and veteran sound recording friends to stay out of trouble; buy digital 4 track and microphones. (hint: Proximity)
• Take multiple test runs; acquire usable experimental footage.
• Own enough computer power to handle large video files (hint – configuring a PC system to meet the need didn’t make sense). Buy Final Cut Studio or equivalent.
• Learn Final Cut Studio essentials but keep your tutorial videos and books close at hand. (hint: learn keyboard shortcuts)
• Practice with your experimental footage. Compare your results with what you see online. Learn. Repeat. Learn more; at best you are a film student with 30 years professional experience. Learning is accelerated but basically you are “guy/gal with camera” to the big boys.
• Choose a project of reasonable risk; stay within yourself, don’t over reach.  You have permission to suck but a catastrophic disaster may be a bit discouraging. If you actually have a client, drop the “suck” part.
• Prepare. This is one area that is very similar to still production with the exception that you are following (or creating) a script/storyboard and not following layouts or simply grabbing shots from a scene you created. While grabbing motion “pick-up” shots is possible, there is so much more involved with directing motion success as a guerilla shooter or “winging it” becomes much less probable. (hint: “Fix it in post” is more limited and more expensive).

In my opinion, the rest is intuitive creativity. Your aesthetics drive content, timing, transitions, etc. and your minds-eye pre-visualizes the flow and edits. To me, this is the fun part.

On a commercial job you will be hiring experts like an experienced, well equipped DP and Sound Man but if you don’t know your way around and can’t talk to them intelligently, your asking for it. Learn their shit and yours.

I think music videos are a great place to experiment because you’ll have a high level of creative freedom, but still have technical and creative challenges like fitting your story in the exact same length as the song.

I used an original song by Will McFarlane; my good and patient friend. His abilities allowed me to shoot the guitar break at 1:54 as he played in sync with the studio recording; something I wanted to show because of his reputation as a world class player.

Viewer suspension of disbelief is fine but I’m not one who generally likes that unfeasible studio sound while on a mountain top feel of musicals. As a guitar player, the fact he nailed the left hand positions so well still amazes me.

Those who prefer the higher quality of VIMEO use this:

“The minute you think the past was better, your present is second hand – yourself becomes vintage. It’s OK for cloths, not so great for people.”

I’m not sure there is any better advice for the day. The caution is not paying attention to his follow up advice to use instincts. Using your instincts as a creative person means staying within yourself.

Make sure that every influence you’re connected to is filtered through your unique voice. Perhaps it’s best to keep it inside long enough to forget inspiration’s origin. Use the artifact of influence before it’s time and you’re work is a copy.

Without an original voice – without artistic instincts – you resemble a marketer. Producing what you think will sell; a trend chaser.

While copies are OK, they aren’t quality in the full sense of the word; they’re a lie as soon as you put your name on them. Influences, given time to incubate, are the nutrients of your unique voice. No matter how similar the final result, if you’re honest with yourself, don’t you instinctively know when they’re yours or a copy?

I know I do.

Permission To Suck Manifesto laws applied:

5. Industry best practices are not creative. Best practices are maintenance and benchmarking is linear: this leads to that, variation is less professional. The state of the art didn’t arrive by formula or recipe.

6. Your creativity is about your heart, not their surface. Creativity is your world view filtered through your talent. It’s your passion, experience, expertise, inspiration and your rules that drive you to create wonderful things that you’re destined to hate because they’re not good enough, and others are open to admire because they couldn’t do it.

8. Ideas are like lightning strikes hitting you unaware after you’ve been rubbing a cat balloon on a wool carpet for months.

17. Imagination accelerates in the abstract and slows with tangibility. Daydream, maintain vulnerability, innocence and a sense of wonder so that your creativity stays vigorous.

Although Thomas Thwaites is a masters graduate of the Royal College of Art Design Interactions, and considers himself a Designer (of a more speculative sort), it seems to me that he’s just a very curious fellow.

My thought is that Thomas’ toaster building project illustrates two main truths:

1) As a civilization with a variety of cultures, we’re all slave to existing technology. Our knowledge is technology dependent.  Go ahead, try building a toaster from scratch. Try and build anything from scratch for that matter; how about a tooth brush or a pencil?

Allen Kay‘s definition of Technology: anything that wasn’t around when you were born.

2) The second and in my opinion the more salient point is, that while we may not be able to build a pencil from scratch, we can find something with which we can draw; we can toast bread, and we can clean our teeth. All of this can be done if we remain creative at the core.

It’s easy to be obsessed with building a toaster and forget that all we need is toasted bread.

Leaning into discomfort, it’s what the creative professional does if they plan to be successful. Brene Brown, researcher, storyteller and TED presenter, helps explain why we’re so miserable except for when we do. This is the closest thing to video therapy I’ve witnessed.

Vulnerability and creativity are intertwined. As soon as we learn to be ashamed of our creative selves we need someone protecting our back. Shame is fear; we fear exile once our unique brand of humanity is discovered. Am I worthy of your affection, admiration, respect; venture further along the career path the fear of shame only gets worse.

At its root is permission to suck; overcoming embracing shame and its excruciating vulnerability. “I’m smart enough, I’m good enough and gosh darn it, people like me.” – Stuart Smalley.

You betcha, it’s joke-bait. That’s because shame fundamental to being human – the need for a sense of worthiness – it gives us the courage to lean into discomfort. Our connectiveness to others, our feeling of worthiness, and moreover, our compassion to be kind to ourselves, gives us the courage to be imperfect. In other words: Forgo who you think you should be for the genuine article; the unaffected you.

Brene Brown gives the best TED talk on creativity without talking directly about creativity.  She also has books called “The Gifts of Imperfection” and “I Thought It Was Just Me.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why bother investing more – money, time, energy – on projects than it takes to consume them? Instead, search the collective for marginally unfamiliar mediocre creativity that will conform by meeting salable expectations. Furthermore, it’s easy to conform because the crowd is on your side when no risks are taken.

It was the mid nineteenth century when Ralph Waldo Emerson lectured about creativity being part influence, part interpretation. What happens when the parts aren’t equal? What if influence devastates interpretation?

We’re getting to the answer. Likewise, around this time – mid/late 1800’s – we find the idea of a meme [understandably a concept returning to the dialogue in this century]. The meme is – more or less – a societal component; a style or concept widely deemed worthy of replication.

The 19th and 20th century memes as influencers evolved much like a childhood game of telephone. Remember? Classmates’ whispers yielded a surprising result of imitation and interpretation. This is a creative model, perhaps a thoughtless one but creative none the less.

One very key creative element is the passing of information in a way that keeps it free for interpretation. It may be as simple as an analogy or an imitation of a meme. Yet, concepts and styles that jump from individual to individual, as if crossing a gap, are naturally interpreted, i.e. Emerson finds his balance, and imitation isn’t duplication.

Don’t underestimate the importance of the gap; it’s a creative gap. The individual owns that interpretive space. Influence is the whisper and senses are interpreters escorted by introspective thoughts and emotions.

The internet has thrown Emerson’s balance out of whack. The creative gap is diminishing as analogy loses to duplication; imitation swaps with cloning, analog becomes digital. On occasion the creative gap literally shortens to Ctrl>C:Ctrl>V; no time for interpretation. Generally yet more precisely, the time of creation comes treacherously close to the duration of consumption.

As if performing on a stage, open on-line culture thrives on recognition. In real life, we tell a good joke and it becomes ours. A reasonably obscure joke has no attribution requirements, i.e. we’re the comedian. Netiquette (on-line etiquette) requires more attribution but only one or two levels back. With independent discovery, you get “finder’s credit” as though the creator is your alter ego; you’re a curator of good taste but deserve byline credit.

The Good: Crowd accelerated innovation. TED’s Chris Anderson presents a notable case in his talk about what the internet has done for creativity.

The Bad: An elevation of mediocrity and low expectations. Consumption is massive and fast with low interpretation and high influence that’s homogenizing creativity.

Following our move from analogy into duplication, we structure our creativity to avoid criticism and receive acclaim deserved or not. It has the effect of homogenizing outcome. The courage it takes to introduce disruptive forms comes with too much risk of ridicule. There is more equity in conformity than rebellion.

To meet the requirements of the “mob mentality” [as defined by Jaron Lanier - American computer scientist, musician, composer, visual artist, and author of  “You Are Not A Gadget”] consuming becomes more important than producing. When culture is completely open, creativity is lost.

The individual matters. The individual makes structure out of mush. Jaron Lanier calls it encapsulation: don’t publish until you’re ready. We are the definers; we have an inner life.

As proof, connectivity has created fame without talent; people who are famous for being famous. In turn, mediocrity (and the occasional garbage) lives an implausibly elevated status because mob members fear the consequence of truth; the massively naked emperor. This is a continual theme in today’s politics.

Consider Wikileaks: here we find – counter intuitively -  mob censorship of individual thought. Give me your honest opinion, and it had better not be controversial or disagreeable. Honesty through transparency, but at what cost? Complete openness destroys individuality; individuality is creativity.

Lanier marks a strong difference between the internet and open culture. In this Jaron Lanier talks about the failure of Web2.0 with Aleks Krotoski of The Guardian.

It’s the time of year that is filled with industry predictions.  No predictions from me this year, just realities.  One reality is that we are able to do much more with less.  What’s more, don’t anticipate clients abiding the same thing only better.  They will not be denied.

Technology and talent has proven itself worthy of turning micro budget into an artful result.  The key is to hold the line on what matters.  When money is tight, the line is paper thin between a film spot resembling a college project and a professional production.  Accept a bid and you’re committing to high expectations.

Friend to Permission to Suck, Director/DP David McCarty,  gave me a heads up on a low budget video spot he shot for Hamilton Jewelers.  Impressed, I asked if he would be interested in answering a few questions for a PTS post.  His response was so generous I reproduced it here along with stills and the finished spot.

Where Style Is Timeless: The Hamilton Jewelers

The inspiration behind the project was the current explosion of interest in the early 1960’s era; almost entirely due to the television show Mad Men. We wanted to stage a dinner theater in 1960 where it would be natural to have men and women very well dressed thus offering a vehicle to feature the client’s diamond jewelry.

The storyline is that of a newly engaged young couple. The scene shows everyone in the room involved with the music with the exception of our young couple who are more interested in each other.

This was a micro budget production, so the first obstacle was securing a cheap location that could play as a 60’s era dinner theatre. Second, it needed to look, more or less, dressed and ready to shoot. Third, we needed the run of the place, controlling everything for 10-12 hours.

We found just the location a short drive from our offices in New Jersey. The brother of one of our Senior VP’s just happened to own an Italian restaurant that had an upstairs dining room. He had designed it to look like the old dinner theaters of that era. It was perfect. He was not only closed on Mondays, but he could handle the catering for us as well.

The second task was talent. We were shooting in New Jersey, outside of Philadelphia, and needed good talent. Our usual suspects for styling, hair and makeup were all out of NYC anyway so we cast our principal talent there. We rented a van and drove our talent, stylists, hair and makeup artists down from NYC. The extras all came out of Philadelphia and provided their own transportation. I recruited my daughter and her fiancé to fill in as our third couple.

My Director of Photographer flew in from SF, and I acted as both Director and second camera operator. We both used our personal Canon 5DMII’s and ultra fast “L” lenses, but rented a Red Rock Micro Shoulder Mounted Rig and a SmallHD DP6 monitor. We also had pro sticks with high-end fluid heads on hand and I provided the 1m Glidetrack HD.

Our Producer handled the rest of the crew and the lighting order, which was small. Basically, we had a lighting truck from which we pulled a bare bones lighting package: A handful of Fresnel spots, a couple of Kinos, some flags, and enough board to block the light from the windows.

Our Gaffer and Key Grip was the same guy who rented us the lighting package. He came with an assistant.

We weren’t shooting with sound so we saved on the sound crew. Our intention was to show the idea of the musicians, a little hint to sell the story without being a focal point.  We anticipated plugging in a piece of stock music during post. Our Producer, who happened to be a musician himself, cast friends of his for the shoot.

I’d asked him to see if he could round up a stand up bass player and a horn player. We’d pay them out of our “extras” budget, which meant I’d have two less people in the audience. As it turned out, the producer’s friends were real pros, and they played while we shot them. I was so thrilled with the quality, that I asked the Producer to find out if they’d be willing to record an original piece of music together and license it to us to be used for the piece. In the end, that’s exactly what we did.

The lighting setup was designed to be pretty simple. A key light composed of a couple of fresnel spots bouncing off a wall, flagged to prevent spill. We had another fresnel bouncing off some broken mirrors to provide a little ambiance, and some hair light. The only light that ever moved all day was the hair light, which we used to provide the edge.

The DP shot almost entirely hand held using the Red Rock Micro rig, while I shot almost entirely off sticks, much of it locked off. We added a couple of “dolly moves” using the Glidetrack set on a couple of apple boxes.

Originally, we had no intention of having video playback for the clients. When you’re working on a micro-production, there are just things you don’t get. Video village is one of them. But the Producer and the AC had worked on some other DSLR shoots and had come up with a pretty effective system.

Using a Black Box video splitter with an aux. battery attached to the rig, we output the HDMI signal to a 17” monitor in the other room for the clients. It worked beautifully. The DP used the new SmallHD DP6 monitor, attached to the rig and fed into the splitter. I could either stand behind him to view, or watch playback through the camera after each shot. The client could watch both live and playback of all feeds, at least from camera A. She just had to trust me on camera B.

The room pretty much came as is; they even had the table lamps. Only problem was they were candle powered. We needed more light so we rented a dozen 40wt lamps and tied them into a dimmer. The restaurant provided the desserts, stemware, drinks and dishes.

We planned to handle hair, makeup and styling on the principals, while the extras were asked to show up ready to go. In the end, while we could get away with everything else, even the extras had their hair done. Our hair guy was a maniac; total overachiever.

Once the talent (both principals and extras) had gone through wardrobe, hair and makeup, we were ready to shoot. Except one last thing. The jewelry. The client actually had a small crew herself.  Together they got the correct jewelry on the correct people, keeping track of exactly who had what. This stuff was the real deal complete with security.

The DP and I had discussed the look we wanted at length, and while there were a few key shots we knew we needed, beyond that, we simply found our shots as we came to them. There were no storyboards, just a story. We work together a lot and had discussed the shoot at length. By the time we had the talent in place, we just went to town.

The shoot was based on a 10 hour day, with talent on a 12 hour day door to door from NYC.

The DP and I worked pretty hard to set the white balance to what we wanted before we started shooting and our cameras were calibrated to one another. We wanted to be a little warm, even to the extent that our whites were warm.

Since we couldn’t show people actually smoking, a smoke machine helped give us the needed atmosphere. The intention was to desaturate the footage slightly in post, but the added smoke pretty much took care of it for me. Therefore, there was almost no grading done in post.

Because of the limited 8 bit color depth on these cameras, you are pretty limited to how much you can manipulate the footage in post. It’s best to go old school and get it right in camera. This is by far the most important thing I’ve learned in several years of shooting with the 5DMII.

The shoot went off without a hitch and we finished on time. (Well almost without a hitch. The van with the talent showed up an hour late because of traffic. We still got it all done.)

The footage was backed up to several drives and that evening I transcoded all the 5DII video files into ProRes 422 (HQ) 1280×720.

The next day the DP, Producer and I all had to catch a flight to a location scout for another job, but when I got back a few days later, I was able to begin editing.

By then, our musicians had banged out a few options for me. They sounded great. Only one problem. The sound was too good. Since they had recorded in a studio, it didn’t feel right, so I imported them into Apple’s Soundtrack, added some room tone, ambient sound effects and even a little reverb to give it an authentic sound. It sounded great and I was ready to edit.

I edited in Final Cut Studio. Because we went to the trouble of getting the look we wanted in camera, I needed only a few slight adjustments here and there; nothing that couldn’t be handled in FCP’s 3-Way Color Corrector.

The voice over was originally done as a scratch track using the voice of an audio editor at our local production house. I loved his voice, a Gene Hackman sound alike, but the client wanted a more traditional VO, so we re-recorded it using non-union talent.

The beauty of creating video for the web is the story can be as long as you can maintain interest. No more :15’s or :30’s. Make it as long or as short as you want. In the end, the piece came out exactly how we wanted. It was a team effort including a trusting client. The client got extremely high value and we all got a nice piece of film.

There is no question that you can do amazing things with micro-production DSLR shoots, but if, and only if, client expectations are managed. You have to know what you can and cannot do being upfront and clear with the client. They also have to trust you. If they begin micromanaging the shoot, you will be lost. When you’re shooting a bare-bones production, there is no room for error.

One good idea, if you can swing it, is to have access to a larger lighting package than you think you’ll need. Something you can pull from, a la carte, if you have to. I’ve not needed the extra, but knowing it’s there is certainly a little added insurance.

Critical is your ability to think on your feet and take advantage of opportunities and the inevitable opportune mistakes. On micro-production jobs, you’re going to be more run and gun so you’ll need good instincts and be ready to make quick decisions.

I find another important aspect of successful micro-production is to have good ideas.  Everyone wants to be a part of something with quality. The budget is irrelevant. If you have a good concept and a good plan, you can get highly talented people to come along for the ride. If you’re a demanding asshole that’s trying to do too much with too little, you’ll create a catastrophe. Build a team of creative professionals and treat them like gold. They’ll break their humps for you and thank you for the opportunity to boot.

My final thought: be realistic. You can shoot a $500k film or something 1/10^th the budget. Either one can be great. They won’t be the same scope, but if you maximize what you have and do everything you can to bring every dollar on the screen, it can be great. The trick is to never try to shoot a $500k film for $50k.