Fashion Photography

Here's a test video that was made at the Animoto website. Animoto is a way photographers can easily (maybe too easily) display a variety of images in a fast-paced "music video" style. The event was the Hospice "Fashion for Compassion" Show. It's really nice to see some "real women" as models.

Photography and video by Peter Salo.

Yes, Joe.

Yes, I was at Woodstock. It was a pretty fantastic time. Hung mostly with Dave Duryea - lost Frank Colin and Don Lowry somewhere. Peter Mac rode his motorcycle right to the middle of the hillside so you can spot him in some of the pictures. Someone from Suffern, I can’t remember who, was hanging off the big speaker scaffolds and had to be removed. Saturday night I remember as a high point that lasted all night. Sly Stone, Janis Joplin, capped with the Who singing "See Me, Feel Me" as the sun came up. I had never seen that many people, let alone kids, in one place. After it was over, everyone dispersed. All 500,000.

Me too. I wasn't going back to that lame-ass summer job, and for months there was a great feeling in the air… of “if you can help someone out, do it.” There was a feeling that you could build a social system on these principles. As I hitched around Massachusetts, you didn’t need to ask if someone was at Woodstock; it didn’t matter. We were all part of the generation, and shared something. Some of my best days. Later, after a few months, I returned home from school to find most of the dads had grown their hair longer, everyone was wearing hip aviator glasses, and the Mall had store displays featuring headbands and ponchos. It was the beginning of the end.

Panasonic branding ID video on LA Live BIG Screens

Check it

Looks pretty.
These are LED screens that are lower res but big, and can be bright even in daylight.
At D2 Creative, we had 2 days to plan, design and create these in After Effects. Client was LRG Marketing Communications.

Photoshop Job at Fox News

The job posting below is from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,27906,00.html

As many of you know, Adobe Photoshop is software the visual effects industry uses for just about every image editing task under the sun. I've been following the news story wherein Fox News used the program to alter and distort the photographs of two New York Times reporters who wrote an article the network didn't like, specifically that Fox's ratings have been in a long slide. Editors at Fox News modified photos of the two journalists by making their teeth yellow, receding the hairline, putting dark cirles under the eyes, and generally attempting to make them appear ugly and untrustworthy to their viewers. We distort. You decide.

Judging from the photos, Fox News could use the help in the Photoshop department. The "impeccable news judgement" seems to be open to interpretation.

Ironman: You down with DLP?

I've made the pilgrimage to see movies projected digitally before, but hadn't seen digital projection making many inroads at the local multiplex. In fact, when a new movie theater opened in Monroe, NY last week, I asked if they would be digital... and was treated to a long list of the usual arguments: Studios will benefit, but won't pay. Theater operators have to shell out big time for new technology while a used projector is so cheap right now. New technology is unstable: you're investment could be obsoleted by better or cheaper technology in a couple of years.

So I took the kids to see Ironman this weekend at a fairly new multiplex in Toms River NJ. The picture was beautiful, bright, and about 35 feet across horizontally. Now TR is not really what you call a media center, but Marquee Cinemas made a decision about a year ago to install Christie 2K DLP projectors in it's theaters, and those theaters are in places like Glasgow KY, and Beckley, WV. These new projectors can provide the same resolution, the same brightness, and a much cleaner and more stable picture as opposed to 35mm film. Instead of a expensive and fragile 35mm print, ferried to theatres around the country, titles are distributed on a hard drive and can be played repeatedly without a scratch. There is also a satellite receiver on the roof of the theater that can grab a just released title off the bird and program it on multiple screens in a couple of hours.

For me, this movie going experience was clearly better in digital than the multiplex down the road. My kids sensed the same thing, "a bigger brighter screen" they said. This won't be lost on the ticket buying public, but for content producers it could be an opportunity.

Once digital projection becomes ubiquitous, as seems to be happening, the theaters, less constrained by the physical distribution models, will be more in control of the material they provide. They could shop around for content outside the studio's distribution networks.
So now someone with an independent film or 90 minute documentary might be able to get programmed in for a midnight show or a run within a specific geographical target by dealing with the chain. My guess is the theaters, if they thought it would draw an audience, would jump at not giving up the customary high percentage of the ticket price to the studio. Anyone with a (marketable) film on a hard drive could lobby the local theater for a spot on the schedule. This will also impact the traditional film marketplaces as well. Marquee's theaters are fed by AccessIT, a digital distribution company. I'm sure they are aware of the possibilities of supplying content they've acquired vs. distributing digital prints for the studios for a fee.

The DLP projector, installed across the country, will be a disruptive technology beyond 3D or anything else the studios are doing. I know I"m not the first to expound on these ideas, but sitting in the dark, in the pinelands of New Jersey, not in a Sony Theater on 42nd street, it seems there are big changes coming in the how we watch, and maybe what we watch.

Working with the Pilobolus Dancers

I've been holding off on posting this until the video was released at the ASCO convention in Chicago.

D2 Creative was hired by Centron, an advertising and branding agency, to create two pieces of content for Easai Pharmaceuticals' use on the floor at the premier gathering of Oncologists in the US. First, a 20 foot LCD video wall evoking the commitment Eisai makes every day in it's human healthcare initiative to patients and the provider community. This would be semi-abstract, have no narration, and speak to both the scientific, and human, consequences. It would have to be simple, written big, and visually captivating across a crowded convention floor.


Centron had brought with them the idea of using the Pilobolus dancers. Pilobolus works in creating shadow plays in which dancers move to form human and non-human characters of a scene. Very simple. Fascinating to watch. We held some group phone consultations with Pilobolus in which the writers associated some key words with scenes and scenarios that could illustrate them. D2 Creative, Centron, Eisai, and Pilobolus all convened in New London CT at Sonalyst Studios' huge sound stages for the filming.

Collaboration with Pilobolus was mind-opening experience. If you know the work they do, you can understand the need for good communication and working together well. A dozen or so dancers physically build the tableaux projected onto the screen seen by the audience or camera. The director would discuss with us the scenes and ideas, then communicate it to the dancers who would work out in groups how best to achieve it. This process spawned new ideas and "what ifs" that we all hashed out. So from the idea... immediately you have the "hive mind' of 15 or more brains working on it.
Creatively, this kept a "buzz' going for the two days of shooting and gave us variety and options in the editing room. There is a lesson in this for all creative endevors I think.

The footage of the shadows on the screen was all captured in 1080p video onto hard drive. The raw footage went through a short edit, but the real work was done in compositing. The raw images were re-keyed into clean silohuettes and I started to play with color and transfer modes in After Effects. Frederick Rescott, Creative Director at Centron, had type design ideas that were in keeping with the concept: clear, always moving and choreographed to the dancers.
We had a rough comp together in a few days. More to follow.

New Fuji Video

Here's a good example of work that is fun and stretches the imagination. D2Creative, the company I work for, was asked to help tell the story of Fujifilm and how they've migrated from a well known film brand name, to a technology company that influences lives everywhere in ways we never see. It had to be 3 minutes or less. We had a lot of freedom to imagine, create, and even trash ideas and start over, so long as the main idea was communicated. Much of it was created and composited in After Effects, with design and 3D by Pat Sodano, Art Director.
I posted this on Youtube and would like to hear comments.

Fujifilm. From What You Know, to What You Can't Imagine.