13 September 2009
Chernobyl, New York
19/09/09 07:55 Filed in: Photography
I’m fascinated with the amount of urban abandonment throughout Western New York. Any local you talk to will give you the song and dance that this building or that building is “just about to make its comeback.” We’ve been hearing that about the same buildings for twenty years, and it likely wont change anytime soon. The big hoopla are area’s like the old Central Terminal site, and the Jefferson Projects. While local government insists they will force federal government to invest in these landmarks, it remains to be seen.
I’ve been going to several spots for the last twelve months as part of a two year project about the Urban decay in the greater WNY area. Hopefully I’ll eventually be able to show this in some setting but that also remains to be seen. I’ve entitled the project Chernobyl, New York. Naturally its title gives the project a certain gloom and doom, but it’s meant to be optimistic. I’m in favor of not restoring these landmarks, but that’s a debate for an artists statement.
I encourage you to sample the preview I have posted. I’m hoping to be able to display this exhibit in winter 2010 or spring.
I’ve been going to several spots for the last twelve months as part of a two year project about the Urban decay in the greater WNY area. Hopefully I’ll eventually be able to show this in some setting but that also remains to be seen. I’ve entitled the project Chernobyl, New York. Naturally its title gives the project a certain gloom and doom, but it’s meant to be optimistic. I’m in favor of not restoring these landmarks, but that’s a debate for an artists statement.
I encourage you to sample the preview I have posted. I’m hoping to be able to display this exhibit in winter 2010 or spring.
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Have Heart - Thank You
17/09/09 15:04 Filed in: Photography
Last night, 9.16.09, two hundred and thirty people witnessed a band say their final farewell to that town. Have Heart, a band that has played the Syracuse/Rochester/Buffalo area a dozen times over the last 7 years, said goodbye on their Syracuse leg of their final tour.
Have Heart means a lot to me personally, more than I will ever get into on a public forum. But I will say this, I have never witnessed a band that had more passion, more drive, more integrity than Have Heart. I cannot say there has been a Have Heart performance that I didn’t enjoy, whether it be at the Westcott or in a larger venue. They made the Westcott seem like an arena and larger venues seem like living rooms. Seeing Have Heart as much as I have over the years, last night was a fulfilling conclusion and end of a chapter in my life.
So where does that leave us? It’s time for band to take their place and evoke the same amount of passion in a crowd as Have Heart did. Two bands that could easily do the same are Forfeit and Cruel Hand, both of which played with Have Heart last night. It will be an interesting time for punk/hardcore. There’s dozens and dozens of hardcore bands that are awesome, but will any of them touch my life the Have Heart did....we’ll see.
View the Galleries:]
Have Heart
Forfeit
Have Heart means a lot to me personally, more than I will ever get into on a public forum. But I will say this, I have never witnessed a band that had more passion, more drive, more integrity than Have Heart. I cannot say there has been a Have Heart performance that I didn’t enjoy, whether it be at the Westcott or in a larger venue. They made the Westcott seem like an arena and larger venues seem like living rooms. Seeing Have Heart as much as I have over the years, last night was a fulfilling conclusion and end of a chapter in my life.
So where does that leave us? It’s time for band to take their place and evoke the same amount of passion in a crowd as Have Heart did. Two bands that could easily do the same are Forfeit and Cruel Hand, both of which played with Have Heart last night. It will be an interesting time for punk/hardcore. There’s dozens and dozens of hardcore bands that are awesome, but will any of them touch my life the Have Heart did....we’ll see.
View the Galleries:]
Have Heart
Forfeit
Buffalo
16/09/09 08:22 Filed in: Video
Last night I was inspired to cut together a short using some stock footage of Buffalo that I shot last summer. I used the opportunity to use the short as a lesson in structure. I find that a lot of shorts are very frantic, perhaps it’s this new age of youtube media and if you don’t engage the viewers attention in seven-seconds you’ve failed as an editor. As I hone my vision and technique, I forced myself to be patient with this short and let the image speak for itself. It seems like a very easy concept, but a simple search on the internet shows us several examples of decent video masked behind trendy music or intense motion graphics. All of those examples are fine, if that’s the point. But more and more we find that more video’s are using these to attract hits and views, instead of critical analysis. I fully expect a portion of the audience to not enjoy my work, but I also expect that the percentage that don’t be able to tell me why. An opinion holds no bearing if the only reason they dislike my work is because it lacks in motion graphics or intense music that is also embedded in three hundred other videos online.
Editing is a discipline. As an editor, if I am not disciplined then my work will be overshadowed by the tricks I implement to attract views. I think it’s something we should thing about before we start editing. There’s nothing wrong with motion graphics or a solid music bed, there’s a time and place. There is something wrong with the abuse of these tools, especially to garner fame.
On that note, ‘Buffalo’ is a simple 3-minute short, demonstrating the elegance of the city I love. Enjoy, and if not, let me know why.
Editing is a discipline. As an editor, if I am not disciplined then my work will be overshadowed by the tricks I implement to attract views. I think it’s something we should thing about before we start editing. There’s nothing wrong with motion graphics or a solid music bed, there’s a time and place. There is something wrong with the abuse of these tools, especially to garner fame.
On that note, ‘Buffalo’ is a simple 3-minute short, demonstrating the elegance of the city I love. Enjoy, and if not, let me know why.
Buffalo from Nathan Benson on Vimeo.
Tomorrow a High of Snow with a low of more Snow
14/09/09 19:22 Filed in: Photography
My relationship with snow is love hate. I love to hate it. More importantly I love to photograph it. Luckily I own the proper coat otherwise I’d probably photograph hot water heaters or ovens for a living. Buffalo has the best summers in the world, anyone who lives here is a testament to that. Winter in Buffalo is arguably more beautiful than summer, depending how you look at it.
For my wife who insists I call the landlord if the heat falls before 67.9 in the winter, she wholeheartedly hates winter weather (loves christmas cookies and houses that smell like cinnamon though). For me, nothing is better than putting on layers and walking around the city photographing its wonder.
As it turns out, Lake Erie (at its shallow parts) gets about 15 feet solid during the winter months. It is somewhat intimidating hearing all the ice shift under your feet, especially since any second the ice could cave and I’d be nothing more than a fossil. The mound of ice above was about 9 feet high of solid ice, sand and snow. There isn’t much in this world besides steel that is as solid as that mixture of elements. But everything in Buffalo isn’t as gloomy in the winter:
For my wife who insists I call the landlord if the heat falls before 67.9 in the winter, she wholeheartedly hates winter weather (loves christmas cookies and houses that smell like cinnamon though). For me, nothing is better than putting on layers and walking around the city photographing its wonder.
As it turns out, Lake Erie (at its shallow parts) gets about 15 feet solid during the winter months. It is somewhat intimidating hearing all the ice shift under your feet, especially since any second the ice could cave and I’d be nothing more than a fossil. The mound of ice above was about 9 feet high of solid ice, sand and snow. There isn’t much in this world besides steel that is as solid as that mixture of elements. But everything in Buffalo isn’t as gloomy in the winter:
Hitchcock - The best $20 I've ever spent
13/09/09 09:31 Filed in: Apps
Attention iPhone filmmakers, Dp’s, Directors, Writers, Fluffers and all the below line crew - Hitchcock, from Cinemek Inc, has arrived and boy oh boy is it awesome. HItchcock is a “mobile storyboard and pre-visualization composer designed for Directors, DP’s, Producers, Writers, Animators, Art Directors, film students and anyone who wants to be able to visualize their story.” - Cinemek Description on iTunes.
In lamens terms, its pure glory. I’m a very visual person, and often I would find myself leaving voice memo’s about shot ideas on my phone, or going old school and grabbing a pad and paper. The problem with those methods though is that down the road when you go back to review the voice memo or doodle I tend to forget what I was trying to portray.
Enter Hitchcock. Hitchcock allows me to take photos from my camera roll (or on the spot) add them to a storyboard, determine what type of shot it is, duration of the shot, the ability to add extras, and even watch your story board in real time. Hitchcock also uses the ever omniscient cloud technology to allow you to export your storyboard and download it from their website (72hr availability limit). Another cool feature is the ability to record audio notes within each storyboard frame. Hearing your notes while you watch your storyboard in real time is a very useful feature
When you’re done with your storyboard, Hitchcock lets you export it as a PDF and download it from their website, here’s a quick sample of something I threw together this morning:
So whose going to use this? Hopefully everybody! The indie market will eat this up I hope. As described anyone from a Director, DP, Writer, Animator can take advantage of being able to, on the fly mind you, visualize their story. I know I will be using it for some upcoming projects and really think it will make my job a lot easier when I get behind the camera. I also think it will help editors as well. Imagine as an editor being on the set and snapping shots throughout the day on your iphone and then throwing together a preliminary rough cut before you even get to your Final Cut suite. By being able to watch the story board in real time and adjust the duration of each frame, editors now have a field editor when they normally would have sat on set making notes.
There is only one thing I wish Hitchcock allowed you to do:
• export storyboard to .mov quicktime file
A .mov export would likely be a little difficult, but still plausible I believe. Even if Cinemek only allowed you 24hrs to download the clip so it doesn’t bog down their cloud the ability to throw your sequence into quicktime would be fantastic.
A couple of people I spoke with balked at the price, “$20 for an app!? Never!” I then put it in perspective. How much pizza or beer do you by when working on a storyboard? $40-50 worth? In the grand scheme $20 is cheap and the perfect price. It makes the app worthwhile. As a DP and Editor I will never be at a shoot without using Hitchcock. So go without beer and pizza one night and buy the app, it’s that simple.
Cinemek did a fantastic job catering to a market that probably didn’t even know they couldn’t live with out this app.
Check out Cinemek and Hitchcock at their website: www.cinemek.com
-Nb
Editors Note: I used the free app Swissmaker to create the title. I made the graphic and then took a screenshot of my iPhone.
In lamens terms, its pure glory. I’m a very visual person, and often I would find myself leaving voice memo’s about shot ideas on my phone, or going old school and grabbing a pad and paper. The problem with those methods though is that down the road when you go back to review the voice memo or doodle I tend to forget what I was trying to portray.
Enter Hitchcock. Hitchcock allows me to take photos from my camera roll (or on the spot) add them to a storyboard, determine what type of shot it is, duration of the shot, the ability to add extras, and even watch your story board in real time. Hitchcock also uses the ever omniscient cloud technology to allow you to export your storyboard and download it from their website (72hr availability limit). Another cool feature is the ability to record audio notes within each storyboard frame. Hearing your notes while you watch your storyboard in real time is a very useful feature
When you’re done with your storyboard, Hitchcock lets you export it as a PDF and download it from their website, here’s a quick sample of something I threw together this morning:
So whose going to use this? Hopefully everybody! The indie market will eat this up I hope. As described anyone from a Director, DP, Writer, Animator can take advantage of being able to, on the fly mind you, visualize their story. I know I will be using it for some upcoming projects and really think it will make my job a lot easier when I get behind the camera. I also think it will help editors as well. Imagine as an editor being on the set and snapping shots throughout the day on your iphone and then throwing together a preliminary rough cut before you even get to your Final Cut suite. By being able to watch the story board in real time and adjust the duration of each frame, editors now have a field editor when they normally would have sat on set making notes.
There is only one thing I wish Hitchcock allowed you to do:
• export storyboard to .mov quicktime file
A .mov export would likely be a little difficult, but still plausible I believe. Even if Cinemek only allowed you 24hrs to download the clip so it doesn’t bog down their cloud the ability to throw your sequence into quicktime would be fantastic.
A couple of people I spoke with balked at the price, “$20 for an app!? Never!” I then put it in perspective. How much pizza or beer do you by when working on a storyboard? $40-50 worth? In the grand scheme $20 is cheap and the perfect price. It makes the app worthwhile. As a DP and Editor I will never be at a shoot without using Hitchcock. So go without beer and pizza one night and buy the app, it’s that simple.
Cinemek did a fantastic job catering to a market that probably didn’t even know they couldn’t live with out this app.
Check out Cinemek and Hitchcock at their website: www.cinemek.com
-Nb
Editors Note: I used the free app Swissmaker to create the title. I made the graphic and then took a screenshot of my iPhone.
