A story we shot for ESPN/ABC about Jeff Green and his road back from heart surgery in 2012.

Its so nice to work with prime lenses for these kinds of stories. You can really focus your attention on the storyteller, and I love the look of the soft background without needing much depth to make it happen, even on a wider shot. The workflow with our 2 Canon C300′s for interviews and 5dmk2 for stills was seamless using all Canon glass. The L series 50mm 1.2 has been my go to lens for interviews ever since we got it, especially if its the wide in a 2 camera situation. Nancy had me shoot stills as well, and the 50mm delivered some very pretty images. She incorporated these pictures into the opening of the final video.

Though we spent several days with Jeff and the Celtics, the main interview day was to be shot on an off day, in the Celtics locker room at the Garden. Since time is always limited (though Jeff was very generous with his), we had a second set up ready to go immediately following the interview for our specialty shots. Our versatile team of guys can do a lot of different things, so when it comes time to move, we can jump out of interview mode and into the arty stuff quickly. Jeff was a trooper, letting us shoot his scar and allowing us to direct him into other shots we needed to tell his story. A slider, and small jib captured Jeff alone at his locker with a single light source.

A more detailed blog about this shoot can be seen on DGA’s blog here

We recently shot a commercial in conjunction with ISM Travels for the Tourism Board of St. Lucia. We shot mainly on our two Canon C300′s, with some additional scuba diving footage captured on the Black Go Pro Hero3′s.  We also submerged the C300 for a few shots using an ewa-marine bag.  While the bag kept the water out (the obvious number one priority), we had occasional fogging issues.   Manual focusing under water was difficult as well.  The solution became go wide and close down.  That gave me the best chance to get the shot in focus. The C300 performed admirably at 2500 ISO.  We also made the decision to shoot C-log, Canon’s wide dynamic range capturing option. With this profile, the image initially looks very flat and the blacks quite milky.  There are LUT’s to plug in for preview mode, but its tough on location if time is a factor.  The C300 also has a preview button while shooting in C-log, that tries to reproduce a color corrected image, but I didn’t find it that helpful or accurate. By controlling highlights and allowing for detail in the shadows, C-log becomes the logical choice to shoot in if there is any type of post budget. Otherwise, working in the Canon EOS standard setting looks great right out of the box (and attempts to reproduce the look of the 5d). Please check back after the spot is edited for a comparison between what we saw on location and the final product.

See our St. Lucia Flickr album for the location pics.

A beautiful edifice built in 1884, the Budapest Opera house is stunning both inside and out. More pics from Hungary here.

On location to shoot a commercial for the Tourism Board of St. Lucia. More pics like it from this shoot on Flickr.

On location in Mostar, Bosnia. Divers have been jumping off Stari Most bridge since the 1600′s. See the story we filmed here. More pictures here on Flickr.

Taken from a sit down interview with Chris Berman for ESPN Sunday Countdown.

A trip to Iceland to do a story on silly soccer celebrations was a great opportunity to see the stunning county side. Many more pictures here on Flickr.