Re:Frame

Barbi Chan and Jörg Friebel from Jason Magbanua on Vimeo.

Jessica Claire & Jeff Norwood’s Wine Country Wedding from Elysium Productions on Vimeo.

Belle & Daniel :: A Fairytale Love from bliss productions on Vimeo.

Veronica + Dominic from Cloud Nine Creative on Vimeo.

Re:Frame San Francisco : The Ending from Cristina Valdivieso + Jon Connor on Vimeo.

Re:Frame San Francisco – The Middle from Cristina Valdivieso + Jon Connor on Vimeo.

What a week, and it’s still going strong! We started off the morning with Jason and then headed to the Palace of Fine Arts with gorgeous models in tow draped in jewels from Haute Bride and designer gowns from Gabrielle’s Bridal. {Stay tuned for footage from the shootout} Philip Bloom has created another dazzling masterpiece capturing the tone of the week. He’s done so using the 7D in stills mode. The film below is shot entirely using still…. amazing!

“Lucky Lucky”: 7D and 5dmkII photo movie from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a week since Re:Frame San Francisco ended.  We’ve been absolutely overwhelmed with the positive response to the event and would like to thank everyone that helped make RF:SF such a huge success.

First of all, thank you to our attendees: Some of you came from far and wide to attend Re:Frame and for many of you it was a repeat trip after having attended Re:Frame New Orleans, Re:Frame Austin, or both. For others Re:Frame was a new experience for you so we appreciate you putting your trust in us to put on a worthwhile educational event for you.  Thank you so much for spending 4 days with us laughing and learning.  It was such a rewarding experience for us to welcome you to The Clift and work with you to try and help you improve your businesses and your craft.  We look forward to seeing you at our next Re:Frame event.

To our presenters: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to share your expertice.  You came from Moscow, NYC, Texas, Canada and even as far away as LA!  Our attendees truly appreciated hearing from you and the feedback from our attendee forms has been outstanding.  You helped make RF:SF a huge success!

Our presenters were: Oleg Kalyan, Kevin Shahinian, Joe Simon, Jason Magbanua, David Robin, Dennis Lennie, Philip Bloom, Jasmine Star, Leila Khalil, Alex Hill, Angela Desveaux, and Loyd Calomay

To our sponsors and press: Thank you for coming to San Francisco and showing your new gear and chatting with our attendees.  It’s always great for people to get hands on experience holding the products that you sell and having a representative there to explain things makes it all the better.  We realize it’s a big job setting up a booth and spending long hours at the show, but we really appreciate your support.

Our sponsors were: Canon, EventDV Magazine, Zacuto USA, SmugMug, Adobe, Glidecam, Red Giant, F-Stop Academy, and Americhip.

Our press were:  Scott Bourne from Photofocus , Ron Risman from Cameratown, and Syl Arena from Pixsylated

Thanks again everyone and we’re looking forward to seeing all of you at our next Re:Frame event. Below is a group pic at the shootout.  Until next time everyone!

~ The Collective

Well it’s been a great conference so far and we’re really happy with the response from our wonderful attendees. Our speakers have also done a phenomenal job so everyone seems to be having a great time all around in San Francisco! Tonight it’s time to let loose a little and have some fun high up in the sky at the top of the Clift hotel. Re:Frame always has some sort of event night built into the conference and to fit with our theme of “modern luxury” nothing made more sense than the Spanish Suite at the Clift. Expect a lot of photos with backdrops of the city by the bay or timelapses later tonight, I’m sure.

Stay tuned for more updates throughout the week as the conference continues until Thursday.

~ Bruce

The Hotness… this yummy film by RF Austin Alumni Cristina Valdivieso + Jon Connor shows the vibe… the beauty… the atmosphere of last night as everyone arrived to The CLIFT for Re:Frame San Francisco.

Re:Frame San Francisco – The Beginning from Cristina Valdivieso + Jon Connor on Vimeo.

Today’s kick-off was incredible. Much more to come…

We are so excited to share with you the official schedule for RF San Francisco!

Each RF event always has a fun theme…. Mardi Gras in New Orleans… Old Western in Austin…  and now Modern Luxury in San Francisco. For The Collective this is our favorite to date as modern luxury is really the crux of what each of our businesses seeks to offer our clients with the products we deliver : A Luxurious Experience.

As you look through the schedule of events below, we want to encourage you to come to San Francisco ready to absorb not only the technology + networking, but also the details that surround you such as the cuisine, architecture, sculpture, etc. Regardless of whether you are local* or coming here from the other side of the globe, the RF:SF experience is about providing YOUR BUSINESS with luxury so that you in-turn can pass that experience onto your clients with the products and customer service you offer.

We are excited to share this journey with you!

*to get the full experience of RF we strongly suggest booking at least one night at the hotel.

We are honored to have Re:Frame SF featured on the homepage of PixSylated today. Seats are now going fast {and so are hotel rooms!} reserve your seat today or miss the learning + networking opportunity of a lifetime.

What’s PixSylated? An email and web based publishing that provides honestly-biased insights on the trends, tools and techniques that are shaping the world of digital photography today. Randomly… PixSylated wanders through photography’s past and also peers into photography’s future.

Check out the Re:Frame love here: Learning HDSLR

This is a shout out to all the photographers that want to enhance their portrait sessions… Re:Frame is open to you! Come to SF to learn how to shoot + edit + deliver Canon 5d video and stay ahead of your competition.

Learn 5D Video Workflow at RF:SF from Re:Frame Collective on Vimeo.

Perya (Town Fair) – a Canon 7D Short from Jason Magbanua on Vimeo.

This project was initially a fun collaboration between friends and colleagues. Never did it occur to us that it would be received as well as it did. I’m still blown away by the fact that it still averaged 10,000 views on the third day. But I don’t deny the fact I’m loving every minute of our 15 minutes.

1. I initially met up with Canon Philippines for possible involvement with ReFrame San Francisco. Canon USA was already onboard so their sponsorship was iffy. But small talk led to this “new camera” coming in, in a couple of days. Would I like to test it out and do a video for the launch? Hell Yeah!

2. The camera (still unidentified) was given to us at 5pm Tuesday. We were to return it Thursday noon.

3. Over Greek food at Cyma, the team brainstormed thoughts about the shoot. The initial consensus was, whatever we would do, there had to be a skimpily clad hot babe in there somewhere, somehow. Nudity was an option too. In hindsight, I’m glad we didn’t take that route. The idea shooting in a perya came up all of a sudden. Without fully realizing that it was a perfect testing ground – for lowlight, wobble checking, color rendition and motion. A perya was perfect.

4. I facebooked our hunt for a town fair within a 3 hour radius of Manila. Yet another advantage of social networking.

5. It was very uncomfortable to watch Shortbus with six other guys on the drive to the fair.

6.  We were blown away by the 24p mode.  Really awesome.  Wobbling is CONSIDERABLY minimized as compared to the 5d.  Banding due to certain lighting temperatures were worse though.  The workaround is shooting at a slower shutter and tighter aperture.

7.  The “barbeque” shot at the start is really coagulated pigs’ blood.  Delicacies in the Philippines (including chicken heads and feet, pig intestines and ears)

8.  We exported using Carbon coder using an XDCAM preset.  It’s strage though that there was no 1920 setting.  We settled for 1440 instead. perhaps we were rushing.  Yes in hindsight, we would have wanted to do full HD. Forgive us for we have sinned.

9.  We edited using Bob’s new handbuilt PeeCee with Intel’s new i7 processor.  Transcoding time is roughly 50-60% real time.  Editing in CCS3 was like slicing butter with a hot knife.

10.  My friends are masters at color grading. But we opted not to so we can show how colors are handled out of the cam.

11.  I won a giant inflatable shark with “quarter game”.  Fifth attempt went right smack inside the jackpot circle.

The 7d is a fine camera and right now, honestly, I believe it to be on top of the video DSLR food chain, above the 5d.

Through the generosity of Canon Philippines, we were able to test a pre-production model of arguably the most talked about camera (video or photo) today – the Canon EOS 7D.

Some thoughts culled from two days of handling it”

1.  Full HD recording in 30p and 24p

2.  1280×720 recording.  I tested this and it plays much much smoother in my editing app natively than the 1920 files of the 5d.

3.  A dedicated start/stop button for video recording.  This may seem trivial at first glance, but on deeper reflection, this may mean that Canon is finally considering their DSLRs are real video acquisition devices.  A great step for future devices.

4.  The lowlight capability is comparable but not as good as the 5d’s (understandably because of the smaller sensor).  ISO 5000 is grainy but useable, perhaps like the VX21000 cranked to 18db.

5.  You can actually edit the footage in-camera, (but TRIM would be a better term).

6.  The cropped sensor may be a deal breaker for some.  But consider this – your 200mm becomes much much longer and provides for better composed tight shots, a major advantage at ceremony venues.  If you get  a 10-20mm, you’re good to go for nice establishing wides.

If you don’t have the 5d, you won’t know what you’re missing.

If you already have the 5d – it’s a great second cam.

Hell, I have two 5ds and I’m still getting one (but I do hope they’ll give me one).

We’re editing the footage as I type but will post as soon as Canon gives us the green light.

Production Team:

Bob Nicolas
Cinemaworks
Jason Magbanua
Threelogy Digital Video

Zacuto USA has released another new episode of Film Fellas today which features Re:Frame San Francisco headline speaker Kevin Shahinian. Watch as the panel discusses gaining respect as wedding filmmakers, the photography World and how to achieve the freedom to create their films on a wedding day.

www.zacuto.com

The sign up for Re:Frame San Francisco visit www.reframecollective.com

When I sent some questions to Oleg Kalyan for his feature on the RF blog, I inadvertently forgot to ask what his “style” was. A common question for videographers to ask colleagues.

In hindsight, maybe it was a silly question. Just when I pegged him as a documentary wedding filmmaker, he comes up with a razzle-dazzle edit worthy of a 3rd, 4th and 5th viewing. I was kinda glad I didn’t ask that question.

No matter the style, the output is fresh and brilliant.

Oleg studied film in the US and is formally trained as a DOP. He stumbled upon events, applied his skills to weddings and never looked back.

Oleg Kalyan is a reminder that the world of wedding filmmaking is not America-centric. If you do your research, you will find out that Russia/Moscow is a hotbed of talent in event filmmaking.

This is his take on the phenomenon:

There are different reasons for the growth. We are eager to learn from our colleagues from around the world, the IT technology allows to see the work of colleagues instantly on resources like youtube, vimeo and exposureroom, I really think that not only in Russia, but overall in the world we see a growth of creativity and the amount of talent in wedding video. I am amazed by the quality of work done by very talanted colleagues from Philippines, Canada, Australia, the US and my home country Russia.

Equal to my admiration for his talent is his philosophy for doing what he does. There will always be clashed in viewpoints but one cannot deny the validity of his rationale. A forum post he wrote that stuck to me was his dislike for “wedding clipmaking”:

A wedding documentary filmmaking describes what personally I strive for in my work.

The direction the industry developed so far was based on short form of representing our work, historically due to internet constraints. What most of us do is cut some beautiful moments captured by a video camera to a music score, more often to a song, thus presenting the essence of a wedding in somewhat highly formalistic style.

I felt myself being directly spoken to. And my eyes were being opened:

The music has the spirit, the life of it’s own, and helps to convey emotional experience, (regretfully we do not produce our music, that is another side to look at), but the nuances, the voices, the impressions of reality in a way that is more meaningful from a historical documentary stand point may be somewhat lost while going for a style, a form, a clinging to a particular popular song. And when our colleagues take the same song and next day you see several similar videos, cut to same song it’s no fun. The accomplishment and originality lost a bit as a result .

Such eloquence! – and English is his second language!

I love it all, don’t get me wrong!
But the form can not be more important than the essence, the images should deliver the meaning. In many years to come the essence of a document of how it really was, the essence of the personalities of the people becomes more important.

And we all want to tell a story of a wedding day, for the history. The degree of creating a truthful convincing emotional experience of any kind, keeping it with a documentary approach determines if can we call ourselves as wedding filmmakers, IMHO.

That is exactly what I would like to share on ReFrame, developing a personal film making approach, nuances of it, a blend of a documentary and a narration. Telling the story, developing a system of relationships from captured images, sound, into narrative that has a meaning!