So this pretty much sums up our business. Yesterday, i was relaxing at home minding my own business, when one phone call changed my whole afternoon. What other job takes you from your chillin on your couch to kicking in doors with U.S. Marshalls looking for prison escapees? definitely got the adrenaline flowing! The nice thing about shooting for America’s Most Wanted is the cooperation you get from law enforcement. The show helps them locate so many fugitives they are willing to help you even when it could put the camera crew in danger. 

i was wondering if i should have had a kevlar vest on, but no one offered. i should just buy one probably.

So one of the things we have been focusing on more this year is production of videos and graphics for the web. While our background has traditionally been in productions meant for broadcast on television, more and more projects are going to an even smaller screen, whether its your computer or iPhone or the new computer chip that is installed right into your eyeball. These videos have been made more efficient to produce by using our p2 cameras. Our HPX2000 and HVX200 are ideal for their versatility in collecting different formats (4:3, 16:9, SD, 720HD, 1080iHD, 24p, 30p, 60i etc). The ease in which our footage is imported to our final cut pro edit suites saves our clients precious edit time by not having to wait for tapes to digitize. We can literally hand our footage on hard drives to our editor and boom, we’re starting to log and assemble.

when i moved here from Detroit 3 years ago i had no idea the depth of the chicago creative community. you have columbia college grads, southern illinois grads, not to mention all those other midwestern transplants. i’ve been lucky to have some great shooting experiences in this town, and its no wonder i’ve put down roots here. chicago is a great city and there are a lot of talented people here. as my mentor bill kubota from KDN would say, “we’re lovin’ life.” 

jaja

Happy 6th of July! I hope everyone had a few days to relax a bit and celebrate America, or as W would call it:  ’merica. I was in upstate NY for July 1-3 on location with the prop stylist for pottery barn. you know those wonderful photographs that make all those tables, chairs, bookshelves, etc look soo good you must buy them when the catalogue comes in the mail? Well Jeffrey Moss plays a huge role in that and i was lucky enough to tag along with him for a couple days to the many places he gets his inspiration. We visited Eastfield Village, a collection of colonial era buildings that have been turned into a museum and workshop – very much like greenfield village at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. We checked out the countless antique shops and a few old farms. And by old i mean about 450 years old, some of the oldest buildings in the country. A great chance for me to experience some of the history of our country before the 4th. The video should be on PB’s website in time for the holidays, so i’ll be sure to link to it when it’s up there. Thanks very much to close friend Jon Ellison, who fortunately for me was travelling to Costa Rica and couldn’t be a part of the shoot, but had the wits to match me up to take care of it for him. I enjoyed using his HVX200 and Miller Tripod… I used to shoot exclusively with a Gitzo tripod, and although they are a bit slow to set up, the range of angles you can get with them is unmatched. the Miller is the same style as the Gitzo, so that was fun getting to use it. Jon’s LitePanel on top of the HVX saved me from shooting in total darkness when we were touring those colonial buildings with no electricity! Crazy how often we rely on practical lighting to get proper exposure…Using bus-powered hard drives, i was able to transfer footage while we were in transit between locations, never had to put the shoot on hold while we waited for data transfer. not bad considering we shot almost 8 hours of HD footage the first day while having ONLY two 32gb cards! i was proud of that one. i can’t wait to see the results!

Joe Hoffman