Jessica Dimmock and Antonin Kratochvil, photojournalists with the VII Photo Agency, created the video “Double Standard” as part of Starved for Attention, the multimedia campaign about malnutrition created by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The video highlights the disparity between the US government’s approach to preventing malnutrition at home and the food aid it ships to developing countries.
Dimmock interviewed mothers in Johnstown, PA, who use Women and Infant Children (WIC) vouchers– not without difficulties– to purchase nutritious food for their growing children. In Uganda, Kratochvil interviewed a doctor who has treated infants dying of diarrhea, pneumonia and other diseases resulting from malnutrition. She talks about the nutritional deficiencies of the corn-and-soy cereal that the US ships –at great cost– as part of its humanitarian food aid. Kratochvil also shows in expressive black-and-white photos the corn farms in the American heartland where the cereal product originates.
“Double Standard” is one of several videos being shown in a new public exhibition that Doctors Without Borders is staging in four US cities. Visitors can tour an MSF field hospital and get information about an MSF petition which urges donor nations to ensure their food aid meets certain nutritional standards. The videos can also be viewed on the Starved for Attention web site and here.
Adventure photographer Jimmy Chin recently shot a feature story for National Geographic about the derring-do of modern day rock climbing, and Renan Ozturk of camp4collective.com made this behind-the-scenes video of Chin at work. It’s full of spectacular views, sweaty palm moments, and insight about how Chin works while dangling from a climbing rope on El Capitan and other Yosemite cliffs.
This video clip titled “Jump Rope” kicked off Week 20 of the photo series “CC52: A Year of Personal Work by Craig Cutler.” The video features Open Class amateur boxer and two-time Golden Gloves champion Chordale Booker. (We previously featured Week 4: Marshmallows, which can be viewed again at http://bit.ly/lkFg3c.
Format: RED ONE Mysterium-X Camera; 100mm-300mm zoom lens. Shot at f5.6 & f8, 2K resolution, 100 fps.
The three laid-back photographers who make up Camp 4 Collective were a hit at the recent Outdoor Photo Expo, where they gave a seminar on video techniques. Tim Kemple, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk, all of them climbers as well as photographers, showed documentaries they have made for National Geographic. The North Face and other clients. Ozturk, an artist turned filmmaker, showed in one of his videos that he is equally devoted to climbing and the latest tech gadgets. He shot it while recovering from a skull fracture and some broken vertebrae he sustained in a ski accident. Though he was “not technically cleared for physical therapy yet,” he went for a climb and he documented the experience while testing the POV.HD camera from V.I.O and the Kessel Crane pocket dolly motion control.
Ozaturk says of this video, “It was fun to experiment with a fresh roll of duct tape, a bit of stiff steel wire and some thin pieces of PVC.”
More of Camp 4 Collective’s videos can be found on Vimeo.
This slow-motion video of skateboarders, basketball players and a dancer on the subway was shot by dp/cinematographer Jonathan Bregel of Next Level Pictures using a Phantom Flex camera. “The idea behind this video was to document whatever sort of culture we could find within an 8-hour span with literally no pre-production,” Bregel explains on Next Level’s blog. He adds, “I have honestly seen too many slow-motion explosions, face slaps and popping water balloons, that I thought capturing real culture and real emotion would be a cool change of pace.”
Bregel had been called in to serve as DP on a one-day shoot directed by Grand Army and produced by James Douglas, who suggested Bregel use a Phantom Flex. The commercial shoot took place on a Saturday, leaving Next Level Pictures all day Sunday to shoot with the Phantom Flex (rented from Rule Boston) –but no time to scout locations. To stay close to the action, Bregel even got on a skateboard with the Phantom Flex to follow a skateboarding subject as he headed into the sunset.
More videos and commercials by Next Level Pictures can be found on Vimeo.
Photographer Giles Revell frequently merges science and art in his work. He has used electron microscopes, a CT scanner and other scientific equipment to create images that examine the architecture of insects of flowers, insects and bubbles. When Red Bee Media was creating an ad campaign for a new arts program on the BBC, creative director Tony Pipes tapped the London-based Revell to create a 60-second spot that would evoke curiosity and wonder. The tagline is “See something different every time.”
Creative credits for the campaign can be found on Vimeo.
Fine-art photographer Michael Levin says he first came across filmmaker Brad Kremer’s video work in late 2010 and was immediately engaged. “His video “Hayaku” is like a poem told through time-lapse photography. I felt moved along by the kinetic energy in the piece and he had me hooked,” says Levin, who needed some video footage shot in Japan for a separate project. He contacted Kremer with a basic pitch. The resulting video shown here reveals Levin’s personal experience of witnessing Japan as he worked in different locations. “I wanted to show the process, the journey, the adventure in a way that would give the viewer an emotional connection to Michael and his photography,” Kremer explains.
Photographer and director Jason Lindsey, along with photographer jon holloway, shot “Pray For The Soul Of Thomas Gage” in Ireland as a way of exploring, says Lindsey, “the storytelling aspects of filmmaking.” It was a selection at the Freaky Creak Film Festival in Fairmont, Illinois, late last year. Lindsey and holloway recently shot a music video on location in New Mexico and Colorado for the Austin-based band “The Trishas” who hired them after viewing this clip.
The latest story from Zackary Canepari and Drea Cooper of California is a Place looks at a team of elderly synchronized swimmers called the “Aquadettes.” In addition to some charming footage of the swimmers practicing their sport, the film focuses on one Aquadette’s battle with multiple sclerosis and how medicinal marijuana helped her control her symptoms and regain her independence.
For more on the work of Cooper and Canepari see the article from the April 2011 issue of PDN (subscribers only; PDN subscribers can login to read this story).
Photographer and director Kyle Alexander shot this video of the 2011 O’Neill Women’s Pro Surf Team on location on the North Shore of Hawaii, which is probably where we should be right now.
