Remake, Remodel

Bravo Top Chef & Kraft

Here are the two films I made for Bravo's Top Chef brand and Kraft's Philadelphia Cream Cheese brand.  The first film features Top Chef All Star C.J. Jacobson and his roasted beet and cream cheese crostini and the second film features Casey Thompson's cream cheese deviled eggs.  

 

 

Blue Avocado :: American Designer Series - Video 2

Here's the 2nd video in the Blue Avocado American Designer Series.  This one focuses on the food pieces that Ross Bennett made, including his cool Lunch Attache Case which is based on a Japanese bento box.

 

Blue Avocado :: American Designer Series

Last spring I was asked by Blue Avocado to create two videos for the launch of their new American Designer Series.  This first line was designed by Ross Bennett, who had been a contestant on the first season of NBC's Fashion Star.  Ross also happened to be a buddy of mine, so I was very excited to be able to work with him.

 

The video was shot on 3 Canon 7D's using the Canon 70-200mmL, Tokina 11-16mm 2.8, Canon 85mm 1.8, Canon 28mm 1.8 and the Rokinon 8mm 3.5 for the scooter POV stuff.  The camera mount for the scooter wasn't as good as I had hoped, so I had to use the After Effects Warp Stabilizer to help smooth it out.

The line launches at the end of the month and the video will be playing on Amazon and other sites where it's being sold.  The second video will most likely be coming out in the next couple weeks.

Update

Sorry about the long post...been a while since I updated.

A lot has been going on over the past couple months.  I've been doing more and more traveling, more and more jobs and, becuase of that, had less and less time for blogging.  So here's a quick rundown of some of the projects that I've been working on, some new gear that I've got and other happenings...

First off, the last two episodes of my Hong Kong trip with Chef David Myers went up and they got an amazing response on Huffington Post as well as Twitter, etc.  You can find them on my website.  Hong Kong was an insane trip and I'm really excited that I might be going back there to do it all over again in the next few months.  The HKTB was really happy with the results and we're trying to figure out a way to do it all again.

I've also started directing for Food & Wine Magazine.  My first shoot with them was a month ago in Chicago and I'm flying to New York today for my second shoot.  Food & Wine is one of my favorite magazines, and it's always been a goal of mine to work for them, so this has been incredible.

I was also in Los Angeles recently, directing for Bravo.  Can't talk much about what I was doing, but you'll be able to see the results soon and I'll post it up when I can.  Bravo has always been a big supporter of mine, posting up my Uchi Staff Meals piece on their website as well as a Huffington Post piece I did on Paul Qui's pop-up restaurant in NYC last year, so it was fun getting to direct for them as well.

As for gear, I recently bought two new lenses that I've been wanting for a while.  First off, the Canon 70-200mm f2.8L II which is one of the best zoom's I've ever worked with.  The Mark II lens has enhanced image stabilization as well as an incredibly sharp (and very warm) image.  The IS is incredibly helpful when you're shooting video and zoomed all the way in at 200mm.

The other lens I got was the 100mm f2.8L Macro which is a must if you're shooting food.  I'd been borrowing one from a friend and got very used to having the ability to shoot crisp, clear close up shots to get the detail of a dish, and it was just time to have one of my own.  There's something beautiful about macro photography and having the ability to go in extremely tight to highlight one part of a dish really makes all the difference in the edit.  This lens also has advanced image stabilization which is incredibly helpful when you're shooting video.

The addition of these two lenses makes my lens kit pretty much where I want it.  There are a couple other lenses that I'm planning on buying (mostly faster prime lenses), but I can walk into any shoot now and feel very comfortable with what I have.

I also recently upgraded to a new MacBook Pro with the retina display.  Julie had been wanting a laptop for a while and was using mine a lot, so I decided to just give it to her and get a new one.  The new retina display makes all the difference when you're playing back footage for a client or transcoding/editing in a hotel room.  The USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt interfaces meant that I had to go out and buy new drives to travel with (I got two 1TB Lacie Rugged Drives with Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interfaces) but the footage transfers at the end of the day go SO much faster and I can actually start transcoding in my hotel room with it.  The new Pro is lighter, mostly because it has the internal flash memory instead of a regular hard drive and has dropped the optical drive, and it's thin...almost half as thin as my previous MBP which was the version before this latest one.

The next purchase is going to be upgrading my cameras and it looks like I'm going to buy a 5D Mark III and a Sony FS-700.  I've been using the 5D MIII for a while and have fallen in love with the image quality, especially in low light.  The 5D III will also pair nicely with the FS700 and allow me to have a larger camera and a smaller camera when I need to get into tight spaces (like kitchens).

I've been wanting to upgrade to a bigger camera system and the FS-700 seems to hit that sweet spot for me.  It's got a great image, you can record audio on-board and the slow motion on it is incredible.  You can shoot up to 240fps at full 1080 HD and up to 960fps at a cropped, lower resolution.  I can also use all my Canon lenses on it with the Metabones adapter and the camera has the ability to record full 4K RAW if you buy an external recorder.  The internal compression is 4:2:0 at 28mbs (not good enough for broadcast) but you can record through the HDMI-out to an external recorder at 4:2:2 50mbs if you need to go to broadcast.  You can also record out to full 12-bit, 4K RAW which is something I hope to upgrade to next year.

Chef David Myers' Hong Kong :: Episode 2

Here's the 2nd episode of my Hong Kong series.  In this episode, Chef Myers takes a look at the fashion, shopping and relaxation that Hong Kong has to offer.

 

Next week's episode will focus on Hong Kong's inaugural year of Art Basel and show off a lot of very cool art that was on display there.  The final episode will go back to examine more of the culinary landscape of Hong Kong.  Keep checking back!

Chef David Myers' Hong Kong :: Episode 1

Last January, my manager Alex told me that the Hong Kong Board of Tourism had contacted him about having me travel over there to direct a travelogue series with a chef from Los Angeles acting as the host.  Turns out the chef was David Myers who had opened Comme Ça a couple years earlier and had recently opened Hinoki & The Bird which was getting all kinds of press for being the hottest new place in L.A.

It took some time to put the trip together, but I finally hopped on a plane last May (let me tell you, business class is the way to do a 15-hour trip) and spent a crazy week in China, shooting some of the most incredible food, fashion and art that I've ever seen.  Brought back a TON of footage and finally got it all edited down to four episodes.  The first is below and I'm mighty proud of how it turned out.

 

Huge thanks to Alex, David Myers, the HKTB and Paul Toohey who joined me on this crazy trip as my 2nd camera, audio person and sometimes food-taster.  The rest of the videos will be coming out in the coming weeks, so keep checking back :)

CamRanger Review

Haven't done a gear post in a while, mostly because I haven't been buying much gear this year.  Having stocked up on lenses and cameras and all that jazz, my inventory was pretty set.  But about two months ago, I saw a piece of gear that really got me excited.  It was the CamRanger, and I think anyone who shoots with a DSLR (stills or video) should take a look at it.

The CamRanger takes the video signal from your DSLR's AV Port (Canon or Nikon only right now) and transmits it over its own self-generated wi-fi network to a device like an iPhone, iPad or laptop...but it's so much more than that.  You can also control the camera from the CamRanger interface.  For example, if you want to make sure that the focus is set, tap on the area of the image you want it to focus on and it will set that focus.  If you want to change the f-stop, color balance, ISO, etc., you can do that.  Want to snap a photo from across the room, you can do that.  Want to start or stop the video recording, yep, you can do that too.  It also has a real-time, on-screen histogram (which the 7D doesn't), works as an intervelometer, takes and creates bracketed HDR photos and acts as a wireless monitor for video shoots.  And, because it creates its own wi-fi signal, you can use it anywhere.

I bought the CamRanger about a month ago, but actually didn't break it out until a shoot I had last Sunday.  I was shooting a set of straight-to-camera presentations in a suite at the W Hotel here in Austin when I decided to use it.  I was shooting on a Canon 5D Mark III and it was sitting behind a Teleprompter which was in a corner of the room, so there wasn't much room to get behind the camera to monitor it or make adjustments.

The first thing that really got me excited was when the gaffer took my iPad mini and walked around the room, adjusting lights while looking at the monitor.  What normally would take 20 minutes (going back and forth to the monitor to see how his adjustments had effected the lighting) took about 5 minutes.  Once we got started, I was able to sit off to the side and monitor the video without sitting right next to the camera.  I could start and stop the video, adjust the focus and keep an eye on the exposure all from one device and the client was sitting right next to me, watching it as a monitor.  

The CamRanger site says that its wi-fi signal should reach about 150 feet (depending on how many walls, doors, and other stuff that's between you and the device), which will make this useful in situations where the camera is in a tight space and it's hard to monitor (which was really helpful for us) and the quality of the application was great, no crashes or bugs.

My first battery went dead at about the 4 hour mark, and the second battery I purchased took us through the rest of the shoot.  I ended up buying three batteries, only because there's no external charger available for the CamRanger batteries, you have to charge through the device.  So if you're on a shoot, and plan on using it all day, it might be best to have some spares.

The only thing that I would hope for in the future would be the ability to pair more than one device to a single CamRanger.  Allowing multiple people to sign on to the wi-fi signal and monitor the image would be a great way for clients and crew to see what's going on without having to pass one device around.  The first sign-in could be the one that allows you to make changes (focus, ISO, etc.) while subsequent sign-ons would be in a "client mode" where you can only monitor the image.

But for $300, this is a steal.  And if you already have an iPad, iPhone or laptop, then you're in business.  The downloadable app is free and they're working on versions for Android phones and tablets as well.

TRACE :: Lawrence Kocurek

Been in Washington D.C. for the past few days on a directing job.  Leaving today to fly to L.A. and then Hong Kong where I'll be spending the next week, directing a series of culinary films for a client.  Then I'll get home and sleep for as long as I can.  

A lot of other stuff in the pipe as well, looks like I'll be in Los Angeles for a week, directing a launch piece for an eco-fashion brand as well as some fun directing work popping up in Austin as well.  Looks like it's gonna be a crazy summer.

Wanted to post up a film I did for The W Hotel in Austin.  They recently apponted a new head chef for their restaurant, Trace, and it turned out to be a good friend of mine, Lawrence Kocurek who I met while making my Charcuterie documentary back in 2011.  Sadly, their business went under about a year and a half ago, but they both bounced back quickly and now Larry is heading up one of the best restaurants in the city.  The guy is a rockstar and you can learn all about how he plans on putting his mark on Trace here:

I directed a second short doc for The W which will be going up mid-June.  That one is a bit different and I'm excited to see it when it's finished.

I'll try to post some stills and stuff from Hong Kong, might be too crazy there, but we'll see...

 

 

Taking Off

Got back yesterday from a 3-day trip to San Francisco where I was directing a micro-doc for a national brand (can't talk a lot about it just yet).  I took Paul Toohey with me to shoot 2nd cam and run sound during interviews.  We landed in SF on Sunday morning (the 6am flight from Austin hurt) and were going to be shooting with a chef in the city, but she had to cancel.  With all this time on our hands, we decided to head to Chinatown and get some soup dumplings.  One amazing lunch later, we headed up the coast to Davis where we found our hotel (the always wonderful Comfort Inn), dropped off our gear, saw a movie (Pain & Gain - It's horrible), had dinner, went for a swim and then crashed out.

Day 1 was a long day, we shot on three different farms, and it's already getting hot in northern California.  After a 12-hour shoot day, we drove another two hours southwest to our second location.  We checked into our hotel (this time, a Best Western) had dinner and I stayed up until 1am dumping footage and backing everything up.

Day 2 was much easier.  We were at a winery in the morning, really beautiful stuff.  Shot there for a few hours and called it a day.  Drove down through Napa, stopping along the way to see the sights, have some lunch and taste some wine.  Finally made it back to the SF airport and hung around there until our red eye flight left for Houston at 11:56pm.  Landed in Houston at 5:20am (got no sleep on the plane) and our flight to Austin wasn't until 9:20am.  Hung out at the Houston airport (which is GIANT) and finally got home around 11am.

Only took three days, but it felt like a long trip.

Wish I had today to relax and sleep, but I booked a directing job for this morning (which is why I'm up at 4:45am) that I'm actually pretty excited about.  More on that later.

On Monday, I'm off to Cincinnati for a 4-day shoot (unrelated to SF) with my buddies at Production For. Once that shoot wraps, I head straight from Cincinnati to Grand Rapids, MI (meeting up with Paul) for 3 days, to pick up more footage to add to the SF shoot.  

Back home for a week and then I go to Washington D.C. (again, with Paul) to finsh up the SF project.  I'm there for 3 days and then go straight to Hong Kong (D.C. to L.A. to HK - something like a 20-hour flight, thank god for business class) for 8 days on another directing job.

Julie's threatening to marry Ryan Gosling, can't say I blame her.

Moretti Shoot

Directed another spot for Moretti Beer on Sunday night.  My buddy Paul Toohey was there with me, shooting.  We loaded in at 9pm and left at around 4am...'twas a long night.  We shot at a great restaurant in Austin, Sagra.  I made a short film about Sagra a while back, but since then they've moved to a place on the east side that is really nice.  Made for a great location.

Here's one of the product shots.