blog

Catching up.

Its been a whirl wind couple of months lately! 515 Just got back from the Vegas premiere of “Where The Trail Ends”. I kid you not, it’s the BEST bike movie ever made. I am really proud to be a part of the production. We are looking forward to the next movie.

We also helped shoot a commercial up in Alaska for a friend of ours, Arctic Media Solutions. Check it out

In other news, we are officially re-located. We have moved into our new HQ in the East Village, and couldn’t be happier. Looking forward to all the opportunities it has to offer.

Off to Utah this week for Red Bull Rampage. More biking in the desert, life can’t get any better!

cheers.

Jammin’ away

Yet another whirlwind couple of weeks at 515, but we don’t want it any other way! 515 was contacted by a client about shooting a campaign commercial for Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley. Campaign commercials have always been on our list of things to shoot seeing as Iowa is full of them. So we jumped at the chance.

While gathering the 515 team for the shoot I got an email from the client asking “are you available for a campaign event on tuesday in cedar rapids?” Now 515’s rule of thumb is the answer is always “yes”, it wasn’t till after I set it all up that I found out is was for President Obama and we would be traveling in his motorcade all day. Not a bad gig! The plan was to follow the President to 3 stops during the day and get footage of him for his next campaign commercial. I have to say, it was a very surreal moment driving down the highways, and neighborhood streets in a motorcade, all the on and off ramps of the highways are closed, no cars in sight, and the neighborhoods are in full lock down mode. The logistics that must go with what should be a simple task (driving from point A to point B) are just mind boggling! The producer, sound op and myself got to sit in on a discussion between the President and a family, then we followed the entourage to his next stop which was a rally at a high school. After the rally, we headed to an ice cream shop and at that point the President may, or may not have offered to buy me ice cream. replaying the moment in my head I am pretty sure he was looking at me when he asked. I could be wrong though.

I get asked a lot after gigs like the trip to China, or the shoot with Bear Grylls, or this most recent shoot with the President, “was it amazing?” of “what was it like?” These are hard questions to answer, as any cameraman will tell you. Our job is to stay in the shadows. To get the best possible footage while not getting in the way. To not miss a nano second because that nano second will probably be the best part of the whole video. So your eye is glued to the viewfinder the entire time. To the cameraman, its a very detached feeling when you are shooting these events. So the answer is “yes and no” and “I have no idea”. You never really get to experience the actual moment or atmosphere when you are shooting these things, but its truly an honor to be there none the less.

The following few days were filled with location scouting, and prepping the team for the campaign shoot. When I say location scouting, I mean it. We were never more than 20 miles away from Waterloo (the site of the first shot) yet we put on 100 miles driving in circles. Always fun! Shoot day started at 5am with the temp at a cool 83 degrees. It was going to be a hot one. The convoy consisted of the 3 ton grip truck, the 515 crew/camera truck loaded to the gills and one more vehicle to bring the Gaffer, Grip and Makeup artist to the location, gotta love convoys! The crew pulled off some amazing things on a pretty tight schedule. lots of resets, and re-locates. They never missed a beat, and everyone had a good time despite the 97 degree heat.

As for the tech side of things, we shot this commercial using our F3 in S-log mode, recording to the Atomos Samurai in ProRes HQ. That codec isn’t ideal for AVID, but for now its all that was available to us. Everything worked great, no hiccups and S-Log never looked so good!

After the shoot wrapped, we hustled back to Des Moines to re-pack the gear for our Whole Foods shoot. They were opening a new store in Iowa and tapped us to handle shooting profiles on some local growers, and then to cover the grand opening of the store itself. The heat wasn’t going away either. Needless to say it was a long week of production for the 515 team, but as I said before, we wouldn’t want it any other way!

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Check it out!

I have spent a lot of time shooting with Freeride Entertainment over the last few years, its been a blast. Lately I have been helping them shoot their newest bike film “Where The Trail Ends”. The film has been shot in BC, China, Argentina, Nepal, and Utah. It’s going to be the biggest, baddest bike movie of all time, and I am really glad I got to be a part of the production.

Shooting was hectic, with tight deadlines, and tensions running high. Being in the middle of a desert and far, far away from home makes everyone a little edgy at times. Not to mention the toll it takes on gear. Dust, wind, rain….all enemies of electronics. My RED 17-50mm lens took quite a hit in China, getting completely dusted out while one of the athletes, Kurt Sorge, was throwing a huge scrub down a jump. it was one of those situations where you weigh the options. The shot could be really cool, or the dust could toast your lens…..in a situation like this you usually have a piece of lexan that you can throw in front of the camera, but in china that’s hard to come by. So I opted to risk it. The shot turned out great. the repair bill for the lens, not so much. was it worth it? yup.

Living in Iowa, the last thing I thought I would ever get to shoot again was biking. I have been extremely fortunate to not only be shooting biking, but be shooting biking with the best of the best. a great experience for sure.

The editors at Freeride have been working hard to meet the release date in September. They just launched the first teaser. They are holding the full length trailer back till it hits a million views, so watch it, love it, share it. Check it out below!

EDIT:

THE FULL LENGTH TRAILER CAN BE SEEN BELOW

 

 

 

The latest and greatest

Keeping true to form, if a new toy hits the market, we want to play with it. Well, this isn’t exactly NEW, its been out for a little bit now. While in China with Freeride Entertainment we were introduced to the Dolly Bros. dolly. A very simple, yet incredibly effective dolly system that can be packed up into a very small case (by dolly standards) and go with you just about anywhere.

Here is a shot of it in the field today on a shoot with one of our clients, Von Maur. It is perfect when you want to add a little motion to what can usually be a boring shot. The Dolly can be laid on the ground, like above, or mounted to a tripod or C stands with appropriate mounting hardware. If you want to get creative, you can do that too, just make sure you have the right rigging to keep it from taking a dive!

 

Rails are supplied and include hardware to keep the rails at the exact width needed for the dolly.

The dolly itself also comes apart which helps it pack away into tight spaces.

all in all, we are really impressed with this. We are currently packing it up and heading to minnesota to get fancy with it on the lake. check back soon for some new videos and pictures!

 

 

 

Lightning bugs.

Lots of editing going on at 515 this past week, so its nice to get the camera assembled and go out to shoot just to keep the cobwebs off. Headed out with Dave Poyzer and shot some stock lightning bug video with the F3 using S-Log and the hyperdeck shuttle. Interesting to see how S-Log and prime lenses do when it is pitch black outside.

What’s not so fun is trying to figure out what the hell that noise was in the bushes when you are all alone in the woods. But in the end the video was worth it, and I am looking forward to shooting some more when the lightning bugs are in full swing.

515 Is going to be jamming on some more edits, then its back into shooting mode. I am going to be spending a lot of time trying to complete some fun projects in between gigs with clients. Last year we attempted to shoot an epic wakeboard video, but ran out of time and next thing we knew there was ice on the lake. With any luck we will get to that again this year. 515 is also teaming up with a special group to shoot a music video or two. keep your eyes open for that.

Till next time.

Been busy!

Its been an insanely busy year so far, one filled with tons of really fun projects. I  have been working with some good friends  over at Freeride Entertainment on their latest bike film “Where The Trail Ends” (just got home yesterday from the latest shoot) as well as a Degree deodorant campaign, and Red Bull Cold Rush. Those projects took me to China, Utah (twice), Arizona and Colorado. Needless to say the locations, and action left me with some lifelong memories. Here are a few pics from the road:

On top of all of that, I have been lucky enough to get to work with some old colleagues from Alaska on a few hockey shoots. Not to mention the work I have been doing with my favorite local clients. So its been hectic, but a blast for sure!

I can’t wait to start working on the next project. The gear has been all cleaned up from its latest trip to utah, and is ready to rock.

 

New website!

Its been on our list for a while now, and its finally here! Thanks to Dave Poyzer our awesome new website is finally live. Feel free to poke around and keep tabs on our latest projects and adventurers here on our blog, we will keep it updated regularly.