LehrerDance is a non-profit dance company based out of Buffalo, NY. They’re the one client that keeps me busy the most. It’s somewhat like Robert Duvall’s character in the Godfather; “I have a special practice, I handle one client.” Except my work is relatively legal. LehrerDance is a company that emerged from the brilliant mind of Jon Lehrer in the summer of 2007. Jon is a former associate director of a little dance company called Giordano Jazz Dance, based out of Chicago. By little I mean they are one of the largest Jazz companies in the world. Jon moved back to Buffalo in winter 06/07 and quickly formed his troupe together with dancers from all around the country. He picked me up to be his Director of Visual Media, encompassing photography/video/web and all that jazz.

I had been working on a new promo for 2009 as the last one we cut together was in early 2008. We had a show recently at Artpark and we had our intern shoot some close up footage with a consumer level Sony Handycam. I’ll admit I wasn’t impressed with the Handycam until I fiddled with it between pieces because our intern commented on the poor quality. I will admit for a consumer level camera there’s a lot of manual features that can make the video look pretty solid, the only problem is they are not readily accessible (all menu based options). That being said below is the video I cut together for LehrerDance:

LehrerDance 09 Promo from Nathan Benson on Vimeo.

There are a few clips that have a little to much noise for my taste but, again, for consumer level you have to expect a little of that. Encoded using H.264, heck of a codec if you ask me. Edited using Final Cut Pro 7, and only one motion graphic was made in Motion because FCP’s text editor and I were not getting along.

You’ll likely see more LehrerDance work up here shortly since, as I said: “I have a special practice, I handle one client.” - The Godfather.

Tags: Promo, LehrerDance

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.

Buffalo from Nathan Benson on Vimeo.

Tags: Buffalo, Editing, Final Cut, Theory

Back in Undergrad, when life was simple, I was charged with a project to do a multi-channel video. Like most ‘art school’ projects the adjunct masters student who could care less about teaching assigned us a, and I’m quoting, ‘multi-channel project’ make the screen have many screens and I don’t care what you do.” Yet another reason why I love college courses taught my masters students who don’t care about anything, Moreover I love it when I know more about software or technical jargin than they do, but their excuse is that they’re a “theorist.” But I digress,

I put together a very simple three channel video. The ultimate goal was to make it look like the female and male were bonded together, but due to some technical limitations in the studio we weren’t able to completely achieve the look.

Ultimately the piece makes no sense as it was more of a technique test. It’s interesting to look at older work and compare it to newer work, and how far we progress at our craft.
Enjoy. If not, that’s fine to, let me know regardless.

Play ‘The Work’ »