Thomas Burstyn

Thomas Burstyn, Director of Photography, Vancouver Canada 

Read More......

2013 Nissan NV Commercial Vehicles

Type your summary here Type rest of the post here
Nissan Commercial Vehicles from Scott Shepard on Vimeo.

Shot on the Arri Alexa using the Zcrane and camera car with Stabilized Flight Head



Director: Tim Baur
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard

Client: Nissan North America

Agency: The Designory, INC.
Creative Director: Carol Fukanaga
Associate Creative Director: Matt Archuleta

Read More......

Lexus ES 350

LEXUS ES350 from Thierry Bearzatto on Vimeo.

Director: Thierry Berzatto
Director of Photograrphy: Scott Shepard
Shot on Arri Alexa

Read More......

2013 Hyundai Veloster Turbo Walk Around

2013 Veloster Turbo | Walkaround from Scott Shepard on Vimeo.

Shot on Arri Alexa supported with a 30' Techno Crane

2013 Hyundai Veloster Turbo
Director: Tim Baur
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Client: Hyundai
Agency: Innocean America
Creative Director: Scott Muckenthaler
Associate Creative Director: Hoon Koo

Read More......

Maserati for Robb Report Magazine

Director: Thierry Bearzatto
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Client: Rob Report Magazine
Creative Director: Ken Debie
Art Director: Rufus Agbede

Read More......

Mazda Sizzle Reel

Director: Tim Baur
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Client: Mazda
Agency: GARAGE TEAM
Chief Creative Officer: Harvey Marco, EVP
Creative Director: Kelly Kleibe,
Creative Director: Sandra Luciano

Read More......

Fujitsu Laptops Parkour

Director: Patrik Giradino
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Client: Fujitsu/ Nicole Fontein
Agency: RED GmbH Branding  Design
Creative Director: Michael Mazanec
Art Director: Stephen Currivan

Read More......

Hyundai Sonata Running Footage

2011 Hyundai Sonata
Director: Timothy Baur
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Agency: Innocean
Creative Director: Kelly Kliebe
Art Director: Andrew Reizuck

Read More......

A More Promising Future – Vandana’s Story

Director: Rodney Rascona
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Producer - Phil Tidy
Writer: Russ Haan
Editor - Warren Meneely
Gaffer: Chuck Linkes
Client: United Nations Foundation and The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

    Just one in a series of short films about the the need and effect of clean burning cookstoves on behalf of The United Nations Foundation. These films debuted at The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil For most of her life, Vandana used a traditional mud stove to prepare daily meals for her family in Jagdishpur, India here. The smoke from the open fire made it difficult for her children to do their school work inside the house and affected Vandana’s health. Daily exposure to harmful smoke is greatest among women and young children, who spend the most time near open fires tending to the family meal or studying by the weak light of the fire. Vandana wanted a better life for her children.
    Watch this video to see how a clean cookstove has allowed Vandana to prepare her children for a more promising and healthier future.

http://www.cleancookstoves.org/

Read More......

Sarah's Story- The global impact of clean cookstoves

Director: Rodney Rascona
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Producer - Phil Tidy
Writer: Russ Haan
Editor - Warren Meneely
Gaffer: Chuck Linkes
Client: United Nations Foundation and The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

Just one in a seriesof short films about the the need and effect of clean burning cookstoves on behalf of The United Nations Foundation.  These films debuted at The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
     In sub-Saharan Africa, 609 million people cook over an open fire, and women can spend up to 20 hours per week collecting fuel to cook their family meals. Before Sarah was introduced to a clean cookstove, she was no different. The long hours she spent in search of cooking fuel in northern Kenya left her little time to do anything else.

Watch this video and see how a clean cookstove has given Sarah more time to help her children with schoolwork and the confidence set up her own shop.

http://www.cleancookstoves.org/

Read More......

Clean Cookstoves and The United Nations

Here we go again... back overseas to shoot a series of short films for the United Nations. You can follow along on my adventure at the super official blog of Cookstove Films.

Read More......

A hand written note

I ran in to Mannie by pure chance. I was up at AFI listening to his son John give a lecture to a group of young film students. It had been so long since I had seen Mannie. While we talked in the hall I couldn't help but be drawn into the sparkle of life in his eyes. I don't know why I asked if I could photograph him.

We brought Mannie a cup of Starbucks on the morning I photographed him. That was so typical for Mannie, a cup of Joe and a little conversation about life or politics or his grand kids. The shoot was really simple. A white roll of seamless paper taped to the garage door of his house and a camera.

These are the images that John had given to Vivian, his mother.








A week or two after John gave his mom the prints, I received a letter in the mail from Vivian. I haven't had a letter sent to me since I was in Iraq in 2003. I won't go on to much but I will say that Vivian and Mannie had a huge influence on me when I was young. It was after hearing their stories of travel and adventure that I decided to leave home at 19 and head for Europe to look for creativity and life.
Vivian's words were so touching and beautiful. I don't think I fully understood how impacting photography could be on someone until I read her letter.
Once again Vivian and Mannie have influenced how I look at life.


Dear Scott,
I was amazed when John told me about all the effort you put into taking photos of my husband, Mannie. However, when John presented me with 3 of the finished products on Mother's Day I was so moved that tears came to my eyes.
As you are well aware since the days of your adolescence and your visits to our home - I am a lover of art and therefore, I was highly impressed with your photographic artistry. You captured the essence of who my husband is. It's almost "too real" when I gaze on the expressions on Mannie's face which you captured most effectively.
I know that when Lisa arrives in town this June she shall also be quite impressed with your talent.
In closing I want to say "thank you" so very much for the photos but also for sharing with our family your talent.
Fondest regards,
Vivian Blas







I wanted to enclose one of my favorites from that day.



Mannie passed away this April and he will be missed. He has touched the hearts of many and I am honored to have known him.
I am trying to swear less because Mannie said "there are so many beautiful words in the English language that there is no reason to use swear words".

Read More......

That's alot of cameras

It started with a call from Tim while I was in Haiti. "Hey brother, do ya know anything about the Red?" Just weeks before I had spent two days down at Clairmont Camera doing some work flow and shooting tests and had immersed myself into the deep menus and great mystical settings the Red had offered. "Sure man, what do you want to know?" I replied. "How would you like to come out and DP a Hyundai Sonata video for me?" asked Tim Baur, Director extraordinaire!

2011 Hyundai Sonata

Director: Timothy Baur

Director of Photography: Scott Shepard

Agency: Innocean

Creative Director: Kelly Kliebe

Art Director: Andrew Reizuck




Flash ahead to the California desert at the HATCI Proving Grounds in Mojave. Hyundai America Technical Center, Inc. (HATCI), is the design, technology and engineering arm for all North American models of the Korean-based Hyundai-KIA Automotive Group. The $60 million California Proving Ground is one of the most comprehensive and advanced vehicle testing facilities ever built. Anywhere.

Our goal was to take the new Hyundai Sonata and accelerate it, turn it, and brake it. We had quite an arsenal of cameras and equipment at our disposal. Let's see, 1 Red One camera with the new Mysterium chip(killer), 2 Canon 5Ds(what's that you say? If it's good enough for "House" and in HD and on the networks....)a couple of Gopros(the new POV standard), a Canon XL H1A, the totally rad X-6(Google it), and last but certainly not the least... the Filmotechnic Gyro Stabilized CRANE on top of a new Mercedes AMG ML63 with 505hp. That's 0-60 in 4.9 seconds! Whew!! What a selection. It's a good thing that we had all this equipment because for almost a week we shot all around the Sonata with cameras on the crane, on sticks, and hand held. We shot on it and under it and in it, not to mention over it. We shot it wet and we shot it fast. Slow motion and quick shutter speeds, from the crane and from exterior car mounts. We put cameras in the suspension under the Sonata and under a HELO over the Sonata. We covered it from here to eternity and back! We shot beauty shots and car to car shots. We shot interviews and test drivers. I could go on and on. Let's just agree that there is a LOT of beautiful footage for our carveboard riding Art Director(Andrew Reizuck) to choose from. Don't be surprised to see the documentary surface sometime in the future.

A few days later we ended up at the old, and near to my heart, El Torro Marine Corps Base(Semper Fi) I could still smell the jet fuel and diesel if I closed my eyes.

The base is now home to the AMCI proving grounds and special events field. Because it used to be an air station, AMCI has miles of flat tarmac which used to be used for aircraft carrier landing simulations. That makes it perfect to run vehicles wide open and still be relatively safe. This time we got to shoot the Sonata going hard and fast into turns, wet tarmac handling tests, and fighter jet length runway braking tests. Awesome! More interviews with the AMCI staff and the most amazing beauty light I have seen in a long time. Things went so smoothly on this job. The only thing that really came up was a few missing generator cables and a rapidly overflowing data capture station. Is that a bad thing? A few new terabyte hard drives later and we were rocking. I've had more problems getting my ipod to work on my home theater during my annual Fourth of July BBQ.

On the last day of shooting we were at Hyundai's design center in Irvine. Aside from having my truck towed the night before and scrambling to get a cab the day went smooth. Sixty bucks later and I was at location and only a few minutes late. The design center is so cool and modern and clean that it made me feel like I had to clean my house. Peer pressure I guess. The shots were mostly of the design team members and some of the facility. We shot a lot of hand held style and multi camera captures here. The Canon 5Ds really shined here. Their small form factor and the amazing footage they created, allowed us to get in with a small production foot print and still be able to deliver some truly beautiful footage. This setup really sings!

After all was said and done I would say we killed it. The agency was very happy with the shoot and the deliverables were above and beyond what they had asked for.

On a side note, I wanted to talk about the camera house we rented the Red Camera from. Keslow Camera is in Culver City, CA. Robert Keslow(CEO) went out of his way to accommodate my camera equipment needs. He went as far as giving me extra lenses and equipment at no additional charge just for me to try out. His shop is large and clean and the tech and support staff are great. Dennis McDonald, Robert's Director of Operations, is just plain crazy but in a good way. The kind of crazy you only get from military service and that was the reason we got along fantastic. Before I left, Robert bestowed a great honor upon me...he gave me a Keslow Camera shot glass. Scoundrels and scalawags!

Read More......

Jacmel

Our first proper tea in our hotel's finest kitchen.

That's my spacious room behind my mug! 1/2 way through our first day of shooting. The 7D keeps overheating and the glue on the viewfinder keeps melting and falling off, but the images and the sound are beautiful.

- Posted from my iPhone

Read More......

Haiti

I will be out of the country on assignment in Haiti for the next few weeks shooting high res stills and HD video in support of an ongoing humanitarian effort. It should prove to be a challenging and rewarding experience.


- Posted from my iPhone

Read More......

Wyn Guitars NAMM Show HD promo

This is a motion project for a custom guitar maker, Wyn Guitars, that I filmed in Los Angeles. It was a live shot capturing the very first moments when Abraham Laboriel and James Lomenzo of Megadeth, received their custom built guitars. What an amazing jam session. The unbelievable location belonged to Randy Fullmer, the owner of Wyn Guitars. It was shot with a Canon 5Dmk2 with ML firmware. On board sound with a Juicedlink CX231 pre-amp. Canon 50mm 1.4 and 24-70mm L 2.8. The final destination will be a HD Flat screen in Wyn's exhibition booth at the NAMM Show which is taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Orange county this month.

Read More......

The Few The Proud The Marines

Today marks the 234 Birthday of the United States Marine Corps! Happy Birthday Marines.

Semper Fi

Read More......

Salvatore Totino

Over the past year I have been shooting quite a few ads for Clairmont Camera. They have all been part of an ongoing campaign for Clairmont that showcases various Cinematographers in "testimonial" type ads. Our latest Director of Photography was Salvatore Totino. Salvatore has an incredible list of projects as a Cinematographer that include Angels & Demons, Frost/Nixon, The Da Vinci Code, and Cinderella Man.
We had been trying to coordinate with Sal for some time to set up a shoot day but because of everyones hectic work schedulale it looked like it might never happen.

I was sitting in the back row of a friends graduation at the American Film Institute. Clint Eastwood was giving a great speech about being a creative in this business when I got a call on my cell phone from Salvatore Totino. I am so Hollywood! A Hollywood legend and total man's man in front of me and one of the most sought after Cinematographers in the Biz on my phone. Good thing I had it on vibrate, not that it mattered much, there were tons of people on their phones throughout the ceremony. A few didn't have the courtesy to turn off their ringers! What nerve! I wanted to go fantasized that Clint would go over and slap them upside the.....I digress. Anyway I got up and went far enough away to speak to Sal and still be close enough to see my friend get his diploma. Congrats LMB!

The ad had a deadline that was just days away and Clairmont thought it was too late to pull this off. "No!" I shrieked, "we can do this". "When will we have another chance with Sal?" I asked. Could be never I reasoned. It was time to seize the moment. Alright short story is we met a few days later at the Clairmont basement my kickass studio. We were under a super tight deadline and had to have selects chosen on set and printer ready art by the next morning. We set up a pretty basic lighting set up against a white seamless.

The kick ass HMI hot lights and Parabolic reflectors were provided by B2PRO in LA. Tristan Fitzpatrick from B2PRO arranged for us to have an awesome lighting package sent over at short notice and he sent along an amazing Gaffer named Tyson Smyer to keep us Profoto goons from looking like knuckle heads with the HMIs. I have to admit that on the Cinematographer ads I am always a little curious to see what the subject has to say about my lighting set ups. I secretly hope that they show up with a crew of twenty Grips and Gaffers and Electricians and a couple of semi-tractors full of gear and light the whole thing so I can show up and act like a rockstar. Hey, this is Hollywood, the land of dreams!

Not this time I guess, Sal showed up with his assistant and no one else. No entourage, no production trucks no dream teams and the best part no attitude! Well so far I haven't had any complaints or critiques from the DPs which means I must be doing something right, or they are just too nervous about being in front of the camera instead of behind it and they don't notice it. I am going with the first answer.

I shot tethered to the camera cart with a huge monitor(monitor rotation is killer) for editing on the spot. Sal and I took a look after shooting a couple of frames. Sal understood what I was trying to do right away and he was on board. What a great guy Sal is. Laid back and cool. Next time some home cooked Italian food would be nice. (big hint)

Sal and I both like images that are a little more Avant Garde. He has quite a few music videos that he shot including artists like U2, R.E.M. and Radio Head to name a few. They are all very creative and visually interesting. His videos were one reason that I was excited to work with him.

I shot most of the images of Sal with Canon's 90mm tilt and shift lens. I love the effect it gives when it is used for portraits. Tyson had brought enough grip and lighting to shoot a major set but we ended up only using one or two main lights.

My new favorite light is the little B2PRO 44 umbrella. It's an umbrella that can take HMI, Tungsten, or strobe heads. The killer part is that it's focusable. The head pushes in and out of the umbrella allowing you total control over the quality of the light. The light quality is insane. It is beautiful on skin and it falls off quickly but smoothly. The shoot went quick. It took us longer to set up than it did to shoot Sal. It only took a few minutes to edit down the selects and soon we had the final. After that Sal sat down for an off set interview with Mardrie Mullen from Clairmont and I had another coffee.

I want to thank Sal first off for making time in his busy schedule to shoot with us. Curtis who was assisting with this shoot was top notch as usual and is always fun to have on set. He is like a big sick twisted teddy bear Jarhead and he can carry more than a pack mule. My beautiful Producer Laurie for taking care of everything that I hate doing, behind the scenes and after the job is over, when the hard part(office work) begins. A special mention goes to Tyson from B2PRO who is a model of professionalism. Every time I thought of something and turned around Tyson had it set up and was ready to go. B2PRO is a one stop shop for any production needs in Los Angeles or NYC. They can handle everything from supplying lighting equipment to full blown production staffing needs and anything in between. Tristan Fitzpatrick (323.960.2424) is a gigantic resource in this industry and he is constantly trying to improve awareness and production skills with seminars and demos for new products and techniques. Check out their event calendar! Last but not least I want to thank Mardrie for giving me the opportunity to work with some of the industry's brightest Cinematographers and let me have the room to be creative. Mardrie understands very well the benefits and value of great images and art direction in advertising, especially in a creatively fueled business like film making.

In case you're wondering, that guy on the skateboard is Peter Lee. Pete is a talented Camera Assistant and surfing buddy who I challenged to bomb down the parking structure through a machine generated smoke cloud on my longboard. Nice one Pete! That makes only two people that I know of who have bombed the basement at Clairmont Camera.

P.S. If you have done it, leave me a comment.

Technorati Tags: Salvatore Totino, Clairmont Camera, B2PRO, Scott Shepard Photography

Read More......

Frankie

Meet Frankie.  He's a little fella who I had the pleasure of meeting in Meru while we waited for some of the women to return from their wood hauling trip to the forest.

Frankie is about ten or so years old although his eyes made him look much older.  He was the first out a group of kids who had the courage to walk up to me.  I had my camera slung over my shoulder while I was leaning up against the truck.  Frankie's only English was to proudly proclaim his name and ask me mine.  For some reason Kenyan people have a hard time saying Scott.  They try to say it over and over but it just comes out sounding like "Schlott".  "How about Shep", I asked. "Shep" he said perfectly.  From then on out I was to be known as "Shep" across Kenya.  "Hey, whatever" I said, "I've been a Shep since birth".  My father was a Shep, as well as all my brothers and I'm sure my two girls will be also.
Frankie followed me around for a while copying my every move.  It was like playing "stop copying me" with my kids!  Frankie led me over to a brightly covered wall down from where we were stopped and pointed at it and said "picta".  He wanted me to take his picture.  Up until I raised my camera to my eye Frankie was all smiles and laughing every time we looked at each other.  Now his demeanor changed completely. He was very focused and he didn't need any direction.  He knew how he wanted to be portrayed.  I took only two frames and they are identical.  I showed Frankie the image on the back of my Canon and he was very pleased and he looked up at me and nodded and then he just walked away.  The few minutes we stood there the other kids were giggling and pushing each other and it didn't faze Frankie in the least.  After the other kids saw Frankie's picture they started howling and laughing and patting him on the back.  King Frankie walked down the road away from me with his head held high and a trail of his subjects in tow.

Read More......

It's not a choice, but a necessity.

A young woman with a child on her back, collects firewood to use for cooking fuel. She will then walk many kilometers back to her village only to return later in the day to do it again.



The beginning of a pile of firewood that this young woman will carry on her back along with a child, to her home in her village a great distance away.

Read More......