Jeffrey Buras

One of my photos was featured in Austinist.  This wasn’t the first time I’ve been featured on a Gothamist blog, and it’s always an honor.  Thanks Austinist!

I sat with the director and editor of Mr. One-Note as the footage was being captured. I was happy with the way the film looks and am confident that we had good coverage. It’s dim, but I intentionally shot that way to protect the highlights. I’m more surprised at how creatively conservative I shot, but it’s reasonable considering the small space where we were shooting.

Here’s a few stills:

And H. Cherdon from Humblebee took some behind-the-scenes stills which you can see in her SmugMug gallery.

Brandon and Cherdon from Humblebee, who also worked on the shoot for “Mr. One-Note,” called me last night to come play with their filmmaking gear.  After going through their inventory that spills across their condo, we grabbed a few toys and hit the town.  Armed with our still cameras, a Panasonic HVX-200 and a shoulder mount, we set out for sixth street.  Of course it was too dark to get great footage, but it was a lot of fun to go out and shoot without a purpose.  I should do it a lot more often.

We shot “Mr. One-Note” on Friday.  This was the second film to be produced by the Austin Filmmakers Meetup group.  (I was not involved in the first). It was written and directed by Reagan Peterson and produced by Mike Rembis.  It’s a short, one-location comedy about two females fighting over an uninteresting guy.

Since all of the action takes place in one apartment, it was easy to create several different setups without too much effort.  I shot the film with daylight-balanced lighting since we had a mix of tungsten and powerful daylight florescent lighting.

I shot the film with my Canon HV30.  I did not use a DOF adapter, which probably would have complicated things anyway.  I used a shoulder mount about two-thirds of the time, which made movement a lot easier.  I admit that I used the auto-focus a few times.  The HV30 focus control is so difficult to dial-in and it’s hard to see on that tiny flip out LCD monitor.  I was careful to only use it on wide-angle shots with tricky movement.  For those kind of shots, I trusted the auto-focus more than myself.

The shoot went pretty smoothly.  We could have benefited from a stricter schedule and better planning, but the simplicity of the shoot covered most problems.  It might have been nice to have a grip or two more to work lights since some people (including myself) were working double-duty.  But it was a cramped location, so a few more people may have actually created more problems.  Either way, I was pretty happy with the way it went.

For lack of any real work to do, I decided to take some free headshots.  They are essential for actors and models for getting jobs.  Headshots are a commodity that everybody wants to have but nobody wants to pay for.  I don’t usually like to do headshots for free, but I got really bored and offered the ideal opportunity for any model or actor.  I posted on Craigslist to find some talent.  Some of the work came out really nicely, and hopefully they will pass my name onto someone who will actually help me make rent.

After working through all the legal and financial paperwork, I’ve launched Expressionism Visual Media. Expressionism focuses on marketing materials for small businesses. This includes videos and photography.

Now all I need is customers…

For the last few months I’ve progressively become more attached with a certain look that is warm and desaturated.

It all started with this shot of my buddy Travis taken in Brooklyn:

It was taken very late in the day at the golden hour, where the sunlight was very orange.  The light was far too warm for my white balance setting.  When editing the photo later, I fixed the white balance, but I found that I liked the shot better if I just desaturated the image enough to balance the skin tones.  Everything else just popped.

I started using this technique with other shots and really started to like the look.  It has a very surreal quality, but in a subtle way.  Most people will notice that something is different, but they can’t say exactly what.

The colors are still present at consistent levels, but the blues and greens get washed out.  The reds and yellows stick out.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m pushing this look too far.  After all, it does look unnatural.

I like it so much that I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.

There have been some humorous postings on the Austin Craiglist recently.  Well, humorous and/or infuriating for anyone who actually works in the business.  It all started with this post:

INTERNS Nov. 3-18 (Austin, TX)

**These positions are intern positions. Compensation includes a gas stipend of $50, meals, credit, and copy. Students, recent graduates, or newbies with good attitude are strongly encouraged to apply. We are willing to work with schedules, as well.

Independent Feature is now accepting resumes/inquiries for the following intern positions:

The post then goes on to list positions that, on any other film, would be considered principal crew that clearly needs to be paid for this work.

The post sparked quite a few response posts.

Re: INTERNS Nov. 3-18 -

Are you kidding me? Those are not intern positions, those are jobs. You calling them “interns” to imply that these positions shouldn’t be paid is pretty friggin pathetic. That’s a lot of non paying people your looking to add to your unpaid crew there buddy. Get a clue. Either pay your help or get out of the business.

Re: Re: Interns -

You might also want to include why the budget is so low, and why i should waste my time working for free.

RE: Internship -

Considering their production is coming from Canada and their looneys are worth more here, this is total BS!

This is my favorite:
Interns Re:visited - (The bright lights)

What? No DP intern? No Producer intern? Not even a leading role intern?
Hopefully at least a studio mogul intern! Sheesh!!

I don’t mind working for free, if it’s a project where I feel like I am appreciated, if I can be proud of the final product, and if it will lead to future opportunities.  If it’s something like this, count me out.

I’ve traded in my camera for a new one.  I sold my Canon GL2 on Craigslist.  I got a little over a third of what I payed for it about three years ago; I guess that’s the way it goes with technology.  It was a wonderful camera when I bought it, but that was right before this whole “high definition” trend kicked in, and I was left in the dust.

Canon hasn’t replaced it with any equivalent camera in the HD world, and probably never will.  The Canon XHA1 has many more advanced features than the GL2 and is much bigger.  The Canon HV30 has far fewer features and is much smaller.

Anyway, I used the money to buy a Canon HV30.  I used it to shoot a wedding over the weekend and it worked flawlessly.  Weddings are very run-and-gun so automatic controls are a must.  I was very impressed with the battery life.  But when working on more detailed projects, it would be nice to have more precise focus control and any kind of gain control.  The HV30 is a nice camera for the purpose it serves, but it’s no GL2.

I also sprang for one of the cheapest depth of field adapters available, the JAG35.  I love the look I got for Lucid Dreams using the RedRock, so hopefully the JAG35 has similar performance.  It’s made almost specifically for the HV30.  It’s still in the mail right now, but I should have it next week.

With this new equipment, I’ll be ready for HD and hopefully I can really get creative.