Here’s episode 2 of my new miniseries Summer Stories. In this episode I wanted to capture the essence of 1940’s and 50’s horror with silent film storytelling. I shot the entire episode on my new Sony A7S II with a vintage Canon FD 20mm lens for a slightly surreal, off kilter look, and I chose a penguin to be the antagonist because they are inherently funny. Actually, this is an example of a prop inspiring a script. I found a retro plastic penguin statue at my local antique store this spring and the script just kind of fell into my head.
Prepping for Episode 8: My Star Wars Saga Viewing Plan
Star Wars Episode 8 is only a month away! To prep for it, why not follow my elaborate and exhaustive Star Wars saga viewing plan?
1. Star Wars: Episode I – the Phantom Menace
Come for the podrace, stay for the final lightsaber fight. This was one of my favorite films growing up, and though the acting and screenplay are pretty rough, it’s probably the most beautifully detailed Star Wars film to date and the most Flash Gordon-esque of the series.
Summer Stories: Make Films Until They Don’t Suck
Prolific indie filmmaker Jay Duplass once said “Keep making shitty short films until one of them doesn’t suck one day.” So I took his advice and earlier this year my friend Jeremy and I began shooting a series of shorts film scripts I had written. Originally I intended these shorts to be self contained, but as I looked over them I realized they all had some basic elements in common: they were all set in the Midwestern suburbs in the summer, and they all involved slightly paranormal occurrences. Now I’m releasing them about bimonthly on YouTube as Summer Stories, my first ever miniseries! Summer Stories is a loosely connected series of short films about the strange and mysterious things that can be found just around the corner in the summer suburbs. It’s also been a great learning experience for me, and I plan to continue writing and shooting the series into the winter, although I suppose I’ll have to change the name to Winter Stories at some point.
Here’s the first episode in the series, which I released last week, just in time for Halloween.
And here’s the trailer for the series, containing clips from some upcoming episodes.
Making a Magnifying Glass Lens
I’ve always wondered what using a magnifying glass as a lens would look like, and this summer I decided to give it a try. I’ve seen people online hold a magnifying glass up to an exposed camera sensor or lens for trippy freelensing experiments, but I really wanted to see how close I could get to building an actual lens. The build was super simple: all I did was tape a magnifying glass to a macro tube and attach it to my camera. Here’s a tutorial video I made for my company, showing my process.
Grayslake Pinhole: Shooting Pinhole Video with a Homemade Body Cap Lens
Pinhole imagery has always fascinated me. I own a Zero Image medium format film pinhole camera that I shoot with occasionally, but other than my weird pumpkin camera obscura, I’ve never tried shooting pinhole photography with a digital camera. I find the precision made digital pinhole lenses that you can buy online just a little too expensive for the results you get, so the other day I finally did the homework and made my own pinhole lens from scratch.
iPhone Fisheye In The Garden
One of the most peaceful places I know is the Chicago Botanic Garden. I spent an entire day there last summer, walking slowly through the palatial grounds trying to take in all the wonderful designs, colors and smells around me. I had a Sony A7R II and some nice vintage glass with me, but I found myself having way more fun shooting with my iPhone 6s and a little snap-on fisheye lens my friend had recently given me.
Crappy Cookie Lens: The Loreo Lens in a Cap
I can only think that the company Loreo got it’s name from their flagship product, a body cap sized lens that has the look and shape of an Oreo cookie. I recently picked up one of these Loreo Lens in a Caps and I was pleasantly surprised by it.
Sony A7R II at the Shedd Aquarium
Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium is a beautiful and relaxing place to visit, and last week I was able to take a camera there to shoot some video. I used a Sony A7R II, two Canon FD lenses–a Vivitar 20mm f3.8 and my Dad’s old 50mm f1.4–and a Rokinon 7.5mm Fisheye lens, all mounted on the camera via Fotodiox adapters. I shot half the video is 24fps and the other half in 60fps for the slow motion effect. I was going to shoot in a flat profile but I really love Sony’s built-in color science so I ended up going with the standard picture profile and layering on a film emulsion LUT in post. Here’s the video I shot:
After shooting with the A7R II for a little over a year now I’m still regularly surprised by how beautiful it can render photos and video. It’s not great in low-light, but if you have a fast lens mounted on it and stick at ISO 800 or lower, its powerful little imaging device. I guess it should be for the price. I’m so thankful that my work lest me borrow it so frequently!
Fisheye In The Bog
I grew up going on hikes with my family at Volo Bog State Natural Area, and it’s still one of my favorite places to visit in Illinois. A bog, especially in the vanilla Midwest, is a magical place, and when you get out in the middle of it, after crossing acres of quaking ground and floating dwarf trees on a narrow boardwalk, you feel like you’re in another world. This January we had an unseasonably warm stretch that felt just like Spring, and one Saturday I couldn’t help but grab a camera and head out to Volo to check up on an old friend.
Creating a Pumpkin Pinhole Camera Obscura
I wanted to do something special for Halloween last October to help promote my company, and I hit upon the bonkers idea of turning a pumpkin into a pinhole camera obscura. I hollowed out a pumpkin, put a cardboard frame with wax paper attached to it inside, and put a pinhole lens on one side and a hole for shooting through on the other. It turns out that pumpkins aren’t light tight, so I also had to cover the whole thing in black duct tape. The pinhole lens i made wasn’t able to produce the most detailed images, so I focused on creating silhouette images by back lighting the subjects I shot. All of this could have just as easily been done with a cardboard box, but where would the fun be in that? Here are some of the images I created with this bizarre device.
Exploring Fort Sheridan with an Ultra Wide Angle Lens
This Summer I spent a lot of evenings exploring new places and honing my photography skills. Fort Sheridan is an old military fort about twenty minutes south of where I work, and I found it to be a beautiful and relaxing places to explore and shoot. Here are some photos I captured there with a Sony A7R II, a WonderPana 10-stop ND filter and a beautiful Zeiss Distagon 15mm f/2.8 lens I was able to borrow from work.
Probably Okay: The Pie Problem
Here’s the latest video from my sketch comedy YouTube series Probably Okay. My writing partner Michael Golus and I have been stepping up our game lately with more complex ideas and polished cinematography, and it’s helped to elevate the material, which is, as usual, entirely mad. Probably Okay is all about jokes without punchlines, and this video is no exception. When Mike and I write these scripts, with occasional help from the rest of our fluctuating team of actors, we like to play the “what if” game and go as far as we can with it, which ends up generating some pretty bizarre ideas. This alternative humor isn’t for everyone, and I’ve encountered plenty of of people who just scratch their heads when they see our videos, but from those who understand the humor, we’ve been fairly well received. We’ve been making these video for 7 years now and we’ve never really generated a large audience, but for Mike and I it’s never been about the amount of views or the likes. We just enjoy creating funny videos that surprise and hopefully delight the viewer with their unexpectedness, and if we’ve done that for even just a couple of people, we feel like we’ve succeeded.
Winter Walk in 110
110 is my secret weapon film format. With it I can create a dreamy and grainy image that evokes what many people think all film photography should look like. I took these photos on a winter walk with my brother with my trusty little Vivitar 110 Point and Shoot Camera and Lomography Tiger 110 Film.
He is Here!
He is here!
Let us abandon our flocks,
let them run headlong into the sea–
our wealth like pale bread floating,
drowning in the water.
Let us run into this dead night
without coats–without warmth,
dead as frozen corpses–our hearts
dying under the fiery gaze of heaven’s eyes.
He is here! we need no terrestrial life,
no warmth for our twisted bodies.
Let us throw our bodies into joyful contortions,
let us scream his name into the black void of space.
We may freeze on these hills
or melt under a torrent of flaming alien rock,
falling dead from the heavens
in utter, terrored worship.
Let us scream His name across these hills,
running with bleeding feet unto the vast, dead cities.
Let us tell these corpses
rotting in their rotting funeral houses:
“Behold you dead men! The KING OF ALL
is birthed bloody on the hay of a bleak cavern stable!”
His holy heart beats in the throbbing asthmatic chest
of a body already dying–twisted in the body
of a freezing newborn babe, red with fear
and the first feel of frozen air.
He beats the air with fists to pierce,
screams through lips to speak God’s words
to a dead world–to you, dead people!
Wake to this terrible night!
Come out of your graves, tear off your graveclothes,
rip out your silent hearts and set them on fire
and run and scream and gibber with us
through this pitch-black midnight!
We run to pitch-black Bethlehem!
We go to prostrate ourselves before the King of all,
incarnate in a sickly, bloodied babe.
The Similarities Between “The Star Wars” and “Rogue One”
After Watching “Rogue One” multiple times last weekend I was surprised by the similarities between it and George Lucas’s “The Star Wars,” his original draft for what would eventually become “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.” I just re-read “The Star Wars,” which you can find here, and I’ve broken down the similarities between it and “Rogue One” chronologically. Obviously there are plenty of spoilers ahead, so reader be warned!
Chicago, Ice and Holga Lenses
Even though I generally shoot with Full Frame Sony cameras now, there’s just something about lo-fi video. One of my favorite lo-fi digital setups is my trusty Canon Rebel T2i paired with my Holga EOS mount lens and Holga Wide Angle adapter. The images this lens/camera combo creates are dreamy and lo-fi filmic, reminiscent of the Super 8 home video look, and I find they work well for short video essays like this one.
Star Wars Holiday Special 2: My Homage to the Strange Side of Star Wars
What I loved about Star Wars as a kid was the vastness of it’s universe. I read the Thrawn trilogy and all of the encyclopedias, concept art and source books I could get my hands on when I was 13, and then proceeded to dive into the dizzying array of Star Wars comics, cartoons, toys and video games thereafter. It felt like such a big place to explore, and what I liked most was the weird stuff: the off kilter design elements on the edges of the frames in the movies, the weird characters and creatures from the cheapo 80’s cartoons and Ewok movies, and all the ditched concept art and strange pixelated video game characters and locations. To this day I still love to try to find new details in old Star Wars Playstation and N64 games, read old drafts of scripts and even books on the designs of such bizarre Star Wars detours as Shadows of the Empire and the much maligned Star wars Holiday Special.
Autumn Leaves, Close Up
I love autumn! Its colors, sounds and smells have always appealed to me on such a basic level, and a lot of my art tends to be inspired and often centered around the season. This November for work I had the great pleasure of shooting some macro photos and video of autumn leaves, and here are some of my results.