Photograph of Philip Bloom leading his DSLR workshop at Rule Camera taken from my front row seat.

There is no doubting that Philip Bloom has made himself a force in the DSLR world. Phil bills himself as a Director of Photograhpy, and his certainly is that, but he is also a leading advocate of the DSLR revolution currently changing the world of film making.

I first saw Phil’s work when searching for video that replicated the shallow depth of field look that we were using to photograph events. My editor found this movie, Piccadilly Furs, that Phil made using a 35mm lens adapter on a Sony video camera. We were blown away, and we’ve been fans of Phil ever since. So when Phil’s traveling workshop, Harnessing the Power of Your DSLR, came to Rule Camera, I made sure that I was in attendance. I’m glad that I did.

Piccadilly Furs was made right before the new HD video capable DSLRs hit the market. We knew that we wanted to recreate this look, but we were not fired up about having to invest in the clunky, finicky, expensive lens adapters, which made that look possible. Fortunately, at about the same time we were pricing adapter gear, Canon announced the first HD video DSLR camera. Great news for me, devastating new for folks selling lens adapters. Anyway, I bought one of the first Canon DSLR’s to come off the production line, and began making “digital films” with it the next day.

Phil was also an early adopter of the new cameras and new way of film making. He did a masterful job of positioning himself as the leading expert in the field through his very successful blog and training programs. Much of Phil’s success has to be due to his infectious creativity and enthusiasm for film making. Maybe it’s the English accent, but he shares his vast technical ability in a fun and reassuring manner. He delivers real value that makes  you want to follow him. Read the rest of this entry »

Screen grab of Pixelwiremedia's ustream channel during a live iPhone 3Gs broadcast. Notice the screen grab dialog box being captured by the iPhone camera during the broadcast.

We’re setting up a uStream channel to broadcast our how-to-series, “Practicing What We Preach”. Of course we had to do a little branding on the channel page’s background. Look for the series to begin in a week or so. Until then, the 1st Live Broadcast video is available to watch on the channel. It’s a minute or so. Just a little piece of history. -Jack

Screen grab of the revolutionary iPhone 4 from the Apple website

The new iPhone 4 officially went on sale yesterday. This machine is truly worthy of the cliche, “Game Changer”.

It wasn’t long after Margaret Kadlick was diagnosed with breast cancer that she called me about helping her with an idea she had. Before hearing any of the details, I blurted out, “I’m in.” Margaret was my cycling coach. I had a lot of respect for her, both as my coach and as my friend. Now she was really sick. I was willing to do whatever I could to help her.

Margaret is not the type that allows herself to wallow in a pool of self pity. Instead of letting cancer beat down her spirit, she was determined to beat it first. Frequent visits to the Livestrong website made her realize that her experience could serve as an example to others. She had found her own inspiration at the Livestrong website, where she would go to admire the photos that fellow cancer patients had posted. She decided to make her own “Livestrong” photo. She wanted me to shoot it. I was honored that she asked me.

Margaret wanted the photo to illustrate the support that her triathlon teammates were giving her, so we setup a photo shoot that would include them. The result was a powerful set of photos that Margaret was able to post to the Livestrong site. During the shoot we also shot some quick video clips and did a brief interview with Margaret and her husband Chris. The edit above was made with the footage from that day. Read the rest of this entry »

A fellow creative professional sent me the link to this video last July. I immediately threw it up on my personal blog when I received it. I’d give you the link to that blog, but I’m re-posting all the business related information here in the next couple of weeks anyway.

I have lived through each and everyone of the scenarios parodied in it, so the clip really spoke to me. As painful as those experiences have been, I LOL everytime I watch it. It’s very funny, especially if you’ve ever tried to get paid for your creative work.

I wonder if Spielberg gets this kind of treatment when he’s pitching a new project?

-Jack