Q. Ajimine

Title Boxing Club – Greenwood Village, CO (2013)

Runtime: 1 min.

Description: Title Boxing Club – Greenwood Village, CO, is a fitness center where people can go to get a good boxing/kickboxing based cardio workout and personal training without the pressures of a traditional gym. Owner, Shawn Kirkpatrick opened this franchise in October, 2012 and plans to expand this franchise to three other locations. This gym is equipped with free weights, treadmills, a speedbag, doube-end bag and 60 six-foot heavy bags. It also includes a merchant area that is full of Title brand merchandise. Its popularity and membership grows by the day and classes are filling up quickly.

This was one of those shoots that didn’t have a lot to offer creatively and was kind of a last minute job. I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for this job, so I had to think outside the box to make it interesting. I was given this task with about a week’s notice. The majority of the footage was shot during the grand opening of the gym and since only the members and staff had signed releases, I didn’t want to interrupt the business side of the event to get the guests that came in to look around, some of which had concerns about being filmed. I alleviated this by putting my Sony FS100 in the boxing ring, which gave it a natural boundary (via the ring ropes) from the guests, and was opposite of the business counter, so the majority of people would either be facing away from the camera or at a profile. I also set the camera to record in a timelapse mode; roughly between 1 to 4 fps (frames per second). I say, “roughly between,” because I shot multiple takes throughout the day at varying frame and shutter speeds. By doing this, whenever a guest would have a comment or question about being filmed, I would simply explain (and sometimes show via an external monitor) how the footage was being filmed. Luckily, after seeing that every face was blurred due to a slow shutter and the frame speed, this was enough to dissuade any further concerns and no one ever complained beyond their initial inquiry. By being open, honest and courteous (a.k.a., being professional), I was able to get through the day without a hitch.

Because this was technically a commercial shoot and the deliverable was for the web, I was able to use multiple cameras. On this particular shoot, I used my Nikon (12.4 Megapixel) DSLR, my Sony FS100 and even my iPhone 5 (to shoot the panoramic shot of the gym). Knowing the deliverable format enabled me to think well beyond the box and what I’d be able to get away with. I could have easily shot the panoramic shot with my Nikon, but it would’ve taken at least an hour to convert the RAW files, stitch them together in Photoshop, then color correct and grade properly, but I wasn’t being paid for that. With the iPhone, I did it in a matter of minutes; and that includes enhancement and grading, which was all done in the phone. I think that this is an important lesson for all videographers (especially those new to the craft), know your deliverable. By knowing what your intended output is going to be before hand you can prepare properly and know what options are available, and even how spontaneous you can be at a moments notice.

BlueDrink Studios (2012)

Runtime: 30 sec.

Description:  BlueDrink Studios is a web design and development, marketing and creative strategy, and a graphic design company. The owner/creative director, Gerhard Kaaihue, is a former corporate marketing manager and a current art director with a BFA in graphic design. His wife, Maarit, is an award-winning web designer and developer, who also has a BFA in graphic design. Gerhard and Maarit received their degrees from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. BlueDrink Studios currently has clients in and around the Denver, CO area as well as in Stockholm, Sweden.

I shot this video with the Sony FS100 in 1080p at 24fps. I lit the scenes with two-500W and one-300W lights. I used gels, flags, reflectors and bounce boards to create texture with the lighting. I also used practical lights for ambient coverage. Creating the textures on the relatively plain walls was probably the most fun I had on this shoot. Setting up lights isn’t always the most entertaining or interest part of a shoot, but when you get the opportunity to be creative and build textures with light, it makes all the hard work worth it.

Zak Kinsella – Comic Book Artist – Interview (2012)

Runtime: 3 min.

This is a promo video of an interview I did with Zak Kinsella. Zak is a freelance comic book artist and illustrator that has traveled all over the country pedaling his latest comic book, “Mid Space,” a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi series. Zak has taken his comic book to almost every comic convention, coast to coast, and has been able to make a living as a freelance comic book artist.

In this interview Zak discusses who he is, what he does and his future goals. I was able to produce this piece in a very short period of time while being creative with my lighting setup. I had to setup the lights and camera in a very small space. Though I used practical lighting on-camera, off-camera is three 500W lights used to light the overall scene. Matching the lighting to make it invisible to the conscious viewer was a challenge, but I was able to get the lighting right in a relatively short period of time. I used color correction and conversion gels and a flag kit to make the scene look like it was lit naturally via practical lighting. Another aspect was getting the talent to play along with the humoristic side of the interview. In the lead-in and out portions of the video, Zak portrays himself in a silly, highfalutin manner, which was a lot of fun to shoot. It always nice to have a subject with a sense of humor and willingness to poke fun at one’s self. The point of the project was to have fun while making something creative that was both, usable and functional, which I think we were able to pull off.