Jason Maeda

The blood on the lens thing reminded me of that beautiful moment in "The Life Aquatic" by Wes Anderson where a single blood drop finds its way onto the lens, signaling to the audience that, while things seem to be resolving above water, below something must be seriously wrong. A good example of a director asking for something and a DP delivering perfectly. Personally I didn't get "children of Men". It was pretty to look at and the sound was nice but I didn't see where it was going...war is bad for babies? Still everybody loves it so I must be missing something. Good handheld work, btw, and what's his name was great as the aging hippie. Oh and I liked his friend the cop...he was right out of "Brazil"! jk :ph34r:

check out the new bond film. jk :ph34r:

did anyone here check out "climates"? great use of sound but some sweet cinematography too and shot on hd. oh and how about "iraq in fragments"? shot on dvx100's i think. wow i totally didn't even mean to choose two digitally shot films, but it is interesting i did. the commercial/editorial photo world is like 85% digital at this point...the cinema must be around the corner. jk :ph34r:

man, it tears me apart just thinking about that film. how about the scene where the daughter is smiling as she falls asleep on her last trip with her father, then perfectly ozu captures the gut-wrenching transformation her face makes towards sadness. maybe angelopoulos is the only guy working now who cripples me like ozu did. mizoguchi was even worse...all those poor women! these directors share many traits, not the least of which is great dp's! jk :ph34r:

http://www.amazon.com/Ozu-Poetics-Cinema-D...TF8&s=books sam, check out this book on ozu yasujiro by bordwell. as with all of his books it's great. jk :ph34r:

"Frankly isn't it rather amazing that Crewdson figured out how to capture Hopper's look on film?" hal, i just don't think i would necessarily say he did that. he borrowed from it and was influenced by it, yes. as i said before it's perhaps also a case where their work touches down on shared themes. but we should take care in tying these two artists together if for no other reason than because hopper is literally so famous and so overwhelmingly influential that bits and pieces of his work have been revisited by hundreds of others throughout the century and into today. god i hope this doesn't start a huge debate, and if it does i apologize in advance, but many, MANY graduate theses have been written on very specific elements of hopper's work; hopper's use of color, hopper's influence from and on the theater, hopper and isolation etc... i'm just not exactly sure that this depth exists to be mined in the same way with crewdson's pictures, so again i hesitate to draw too many parallels between the two. "Does it make a Cinematographer's work "mediocre" because a visual reference was adopted for a film?" no. an artist needs no help at all to be mediocre. jk :ph34r: "This is more like it... Everyone friends again, and a valuable discussion going on!" agreed. apologies to everyone again. i value the opinion of each and every one of you. jk :)

again, i apologize to everyone for coming down so hard on gregory crewdson. i was never a big fan of his work yet, as i said, i think it certainly is pretty to look at and sure is neat with all those big lights etc. also, i remember seeing a photo he took of fireflies in a field that i thought was pretty as well, although i can't recall where i saw it exactly and a google search just resulted in his recent, more extravagant work. also, it's interesting that he and hopper both use lone figures in the rooms of new england style homes and in suburban urban landscapes as an iconic symbol of the american experience. i recommend the work of eric fischl to anyone who wants to see another contemporary painter (i think he's still working) whose images are influenced by photography and film, without simply mimicing stills, and whose themes share subsets with both hopper (lonely characters, room settings) and with crewdson (uncomfortable family nudity, desperation intersecting sexual shame). also, fischl's stylistic methods echo hopper's at times. jk :ph34r:

give it a rest, stu. jk :ph34r:

point taken. nobody wants to hear someone tell them they are wrong, and in the future i will try to post only when i have something positive to say, or when i think my negative criticism of an artist will not come off as hurtful to his fans. stuart, if you look at fashion magazines than you have seen my work. feel free to judge it, i encourage citicism. jk :ph34r:

calling someone "ignorant" might be considered an insult. what do you think? jk :ph34r:

i disagree. if you make art and put it out there you make yourself subject to critical judgement. i'd hate to think that, along with every other media outlet promising artistic criticism, this forum becomes a place where only positive affirmation is allowed. regarding that, david, you said: "Generally I find it better in these forums to champion what we love more often that [sic] knock what we dislike, within reason." so who decides what is "within reason"... or how much "more often"? hmmm, let me guess... the bottom line is that if we are going to have a serious forum, than we must be prepared to hear negative reaction to the work discussed. and as far as "publically [sic] calling people "mediocre" is an insult" goes, i think you have your moderator cap on awefully tight. just a thought. jk :ph34r:

i'm sorry if i'm ruining your experience here with my bold discovery of the fact the gregory crewdson is a pretty mediocre artist. i don't really know what to tell you. you are welcome to enjoy his photos as much as you like, i just want you to know that there is a whole world of photographers out there that you should investigate. also, i simply don't buy the idea that he and hopper are somehow inextricably connected or share any more than a few superficial traits. if you can come up with a halfway intelligent argument for why i am wrong, i'll buy you lunch at the art school gallery cafe of your choice. hell, i'll take you to the whitney. you'd love it there. gregory crewdson would be far better paired with teresa hubbard and alexander birchler. now you may be on to something, although i wouldn't want to have to go to that show. jk :ph34r:

yeah, here's a link to the book at amazon.com. they are fantastic. a couple of them look like frames right from "the mirror". where did you see it, at BAM? http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Light-Polaro...e/dp/0500286140 jk :ph34r:

when i say he's random, i mean as opposed to a celebrated genius like hopper. i agree crewdson's pictures are not randomly assembled. in fact, a little more inspiration and life may be one of the things they so sorely lack. you are also correct that crewdson revisits the same theme again and again. and again. and again. the problem is that, unlike tarkovsky, his theme is really no more than a feeling, a tone. i've encountered smells with deeper meanings than his photos. and, btw, trust me: crewdson ain't throwing anything he shoots out. what does shooting 8x10 and having a gaffer rig an 18k and a xenon raking a cross a bunch of mirrors have to do with being mediocre or not? his lighting is pretty, that's it... and are you telling me there's something especially good about his framing? i'd love to hear it. you might be right; i may be ignorant about his "work and methods". but i've seen an aweful lot of his work including his wack photos from before he hired a gaffer and a camera operator...and i've probably forgotten more about shooting "large format (8x10) color negative film" than some folks will ever learn, so who knows? maybe i just don't see the genius you see. and my only point was that comparing gregory crewdson to hopper is silly. as for gursky, he is a completely random (oh wait he shoots large format, he can't be random) example of a contemporary photographer who is taken far more seriously by credible artists and critics, used to illustrate how many great talents there are out there worth discovering. one of the reasons people come to this forum is to be exposed to new artists. knowing a thing or two about photography i'd like to point out some recommendations to this person who thinks gregory crewdson is really good, which he is not. i mean, what if your favorite museum had a show called "miles davis and brittney spears: two great musicians"? tell me you wouldn't think to yourself "that's a little weird..." and by the way, you could make the obvious claim about photographers being influenced by films about just about any contemporary artist. the subject has been done to death. i mean for god's sake you're on the internet right now... and "a specific moment in time"? yeah crewdson really nails that. wow. here, i'll help you: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=h...cartier+bresson "I don't care one bit about who was first or who is the better artist." ok. is it alright with you if i still try to make my point? jk :ph34r:

wow. i mean...wow. that is creepy.

its not even that i don't see the implied similarity, which is a vague sense of new england isolationism. it's more the fact that hopper is one of the greatest painters to ever live and crewdson is just a random, mediocre photographer. as an example, here is some of andreas gursky's work. i'm not even really crazy about this guy, he was just the first contemporary photographer to pop into my head, but he's in a whole other league than crewdson: http://www.artnet.com/artist/7580/andreas-gursky.html ...and hey, while we're at it, how about this filmmaker's photos? http://film.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,8544,1226197,00.html ...and here's the work of a commercial photographer who i recall was doing some haunting, magic-realism type work. and keep in mind the sleepwalker series is a fashion story, he probably shot it in 1 night...2 at the most: http://www.artnet.com/Artists/ArtistHomePa...tworks_for_sale not that i don't think crewdson's photos aren't pretty, because they truly are. jk :ph34r:

edward hopper and gregory crewdson shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence. btw, crewdson's primary influence (and that word is not nearly strong enough) is "close encounters..." by speilberg. jk :ph34r:

i usually recognize that i'm in a nightmare when it happens and, with enough struggling, can wake myself up out of it. last night i was so worried about my girlfriend being in some kind of danger i shook her awake. she was not grateful. anyhoo, my favorite signals (oneiric symbols, i think they are called) that the character is entering a dream sequence are the sublime ones. think the sweep of the sheet over the camera in fellini's "8 1/2". any kind of small visual clue, that could also be a normal piece of diagetic material, fits this bill. if you firmly establish a situation (like by showing a character set their engagement ring on the bed-side table) and then make a point of showing that what was true has changed (the character wakes, brushes her hair out of her face, the diamond ring is on her finger), you can use this as a signal to the audience that our reality has been altered. if you refrain from using any kind of non-sync dialogue for an entire film, when you do bust it out it can be used as a symbol. this is true for lots of techniques. hand holding the camera, for instance. i've always been a fan of using a small shutter angle for dream sequences. not that i smoke pot, but if i had i would say it felt a lot like that. i think that ashton kutcher film "the butterfly effect" did a really good job with that. weirdly entertaining movie, btw. good luck. jk :ph34r:

thanks guys. i've got an on camera light that started with a 50w (way too dark) and then i put in a 100w (just enough). but still a 100w light is like the most annoying possible thing to do to someone at a party...and forget about the ceremony. i edit on a g4 mac with final cut. as far as the splices go, i save them in a special file i have for when i need them, but usually i just use them when they occur, if it feels right. the audio on that film is just a looped sample i found on the internet called "people settling in a church" or something. i remember laughing when i found it because it was so aptly named for what i needed. as far as editing, i just do it intuitively at first. i arrange the clips in whatever order i feel tells the best story (usually not exactly in actual chronological order), then i trim them a bit for feel. maybe then i will lay in some music and trim again or re-order the clips. i don't know if you can see it in those tiny quicktime vids, but i sync musical cues to the video very tightly, as opposed to my personal work where i really don't use music very often, and never with such a close relationship to the images. sometimes i scan family photos and interweave ken burns pan and scans into the mix but thats a lot of work. jk :ph34r:

it's a still.

"Well, it would seem that they would if it was AFI." probably a pretty safe guess. :huh: jk

thanks! there are crystal sync options for super-8, especially if you're in cali. also, if you dont sync the sound you can do whatever you want. but be careful: a robert altman style long take with interweaving streams of dialogue might be a hard sell to the bride's grandparents. an editor i met recently told me that back in the day he shot a wedding and did the whole reception from the perspective of the wait staff or something...tracking shots following the waiters out from the kitchen and around the floor, etc. he said it did not go over well. jk :ph34r:

great. i assume your pc is pretty up to date, david, especialy knowing that you don't exactly shy away from technology. i'm going to wait and see if more people complain. yes i have shot several with color super-8 film with mixed results. shooting with tri-x is kind of a "no-brainer" as it always yeilds a romantic image, and it really helps with that timeless quality. with color there are many more cases of distracting information finding their way into the frame, and if the light is glaring from above...yikes. but magic hour and sunset light look absolutely mystical, and all the options available during telecine are really fun. on the other hand, it's crazy expensive to run color neg and then do a supervised transfer... but, then again the extra speed of 7218 is pretty great. i suppose the most difficult problems of wedding work if i had to rate them, are 1. low light levels (pushing super-8 is dangerous territory, and on camera lights are so disruptive to the mood.) 2. access (people hate to have a camera pointed at them) 3. boring weddings (i hate to have to say that it's hard to wring romance out of some ceremonies) 4. editing (it just takes so long to get something worthwhile, and how on earth did they do this in the "old days"?) basically the same problems as any documentarian work, minus funding. to be honest i think if i were really serious about my wedding work or were to start over, i would get a small 24p or hdv ( i don't even really know what i'm talking about here) camera and go that route. it is shocking how good those cameras are beginning to look. did you guys see "iraq in fragments"? wow. i like them because you can turn the screen so your body isn't facing the subject, and because you have more light sensitivity. also it costs less to shoot. and you know if you've "got" something. wait, it's also easier to hold onto two tapes instead of 15 cartridges. man why am i shooting super-8 at all? jk :lol:

I have no idea what kind of codec i used, i am sorry to say. i remember doing a lot of trial and error to find a happy comprimise between window size and download time, but i'm too stupid to write things like that down. to be honest, i expected to have to add every wedding i shot in order to encourage more business, but that first wedding keeps drumming up interest so i haven't touched that website for at least a year...and i think that was only to update my address when i moved to chinatown. tim your films look great, seeing santorini really makes me wish i was back in greece! much, MUCH better than a toaster...or even a bread maker. karl lets just say that a fair price is whatever you can convince someone to pay. i will say that i charge about the same as a good photographer, and most people think it's too much. it costs me a lot of work but this isn't my main source of income so "whatever". also, most people hate my films because they want a crappy video only because it has a terrible audio recording of the vows and three hours of human tripod work. quite frankly, i think those videos are the opposite of romantic, but thats what a lot of people want so dont be discouraged. you dont want to work for anyone who doesn't share your aesthetic or thinks you are too expensive and hates you for it all day. as far as technique i shoot super-8 on a couple of different cameras. the nizo 6080 is the quiet one and the canon 1014xls is the workhorse. i have a wide adapter for both. i shoot however much film i think i need and that's usually 10 or 12 cartridges...sometimes 20. i have lots of experience shooting documentary footage and that's really important. you dont want to miss focus or exposure, and you want to be totally comfortable with your cameras. i can guess exposure very accurately and that is something you will want to learn. with natural light it's not complicated but requires hours of practice. lastly, know the routine of weddings. if you're not ready you can easily miss one of the bridesmaids' entrances and that is an unforgiveable mistake...like not shooting the mother of the bride or groom. seriously. oh yeah and dont drink too much. trust me. thanks again guys. i really appreciate your help. if anyone else out there has a pc, as opposed to a mac, please let me know if this thing is playing correctly. i tried my parents computer and the image was jiggling like crazy, but i don't trust their hardware or software to be even remotely current. jk :ph34r:

http://www.jasonkolliasweddings.com/ Guys, tell me if the quicktime movies play on your computers. Two years with a pretty decent success rate and now, in the last month, at least three people have told me it won't play on their pc's...strange. I hope it's fine because I have completely forgotten how to update my site and really don't have the patience or time to do so! jk :ph34r: