So we are all ready and packed for the first day of the shoot for the music video we are producing for Foreign Stylez Ent. We have a mid day start tomorrow at noon and hoping to wrap by 8pm for a semi-short day for a music video shoot but we have an early rise the next. The call time is set for 7am so we got to be on set super early for a super long day wrapping about 10 to midnight. 

We will be posting some behind the scenes of the music video soon.

Well it's been about 3 years since we last shot a music video in San Diego and this weekend we will be coming back to American's Finest City to shoot another music video. Many that know of me in the city won't hesitate to say that we are probably the best production for the price that you could find in San Diego or Los Angeles and this weekend we will again prove that Giorgio Daveed can produce studio quality videos at a fraction of the cost. We will be shooting this music video in a lot of different places in San Diego including the Embarcadero where we will be placing a Lambo on the grass with the city and Coronado bridge behind us the backdrop. That will be just one of the locations that we will be shooting. This weekend we are going to show San Diego why we are still number one! From our first music video that started everything to the very last one that is in years to come we will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible to create for an independent production company.

The music video will feature up-and-coming artists from the Virgin Islands. There are a total of 3 artists in the group Kash, Wells, and Bongie. This will be their first video with Giorgio Daveed and his team.

The music video will span 2 full production days and include some awesome stun performances from local motorcycle crew, amazing dancers from a local burlesque group, amazing low riders from a local low riders car group and of course the amazing city of San Diego.

Stay tuned to see more behind the scenes of the music video and the music video itself coming in a few weeks.

Going to be shooting the commercial photo's for Cerritord Ford. Creating a unique advertisement photography for local company that will rival the competition's not existent advertisement photography. Creating a commercial/advertisement photography does not need to be expensive we are able to beat the competitions when it comes to creating commercial or advertisement photography because we are able to do everything in house. From creating the concept to development and production to post production and final out put ready for print.

Being able to centralize all the creative and technical process under one roof we can create amazing results at a fraction of the cost.

Skip the advertisement agency and go directly to the creatives themselves.

Like you I am a screen writer but probably unlike you my first screenplay was produced with a name lead and a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) cast. 

I just signed with a sales agent who will take the film to the prestigious European Film Festival (Bernale) in Berlin and then to Cannes to sell it to the world. 

So why me and not you? What did I do that you have not?

First, I can assure you that it has nothing to do with a having a writers' agent (I don't have one).

It has nothing to do with Hollywood contacts (I live in San Diego), nothing to do with luck (it's all about hard work and dedication).

It has nothing to do with having a remarkable - even perfect screen play (I do have a pretty damn good script which successfully jumped the ScriptShark hurdles and it has nothing to do with winning a script writing contest (didn't enter any).

But it did have something to do with making a fundamental decision that you have likely not considered.

You see I decided that I was not so much a screen writer as a storyteller.  Big difference.

I also decided that I would achieve my dream - get my script on the screen - no matter what. You can do the same if you belly up to the bar.

First there's a critical distinction in the movie business between writing and storytelling - script writers simply write scripts and walk; storytellers write scripts stick around and make a movie.

Yes, I committed to producing my script, 5 Hour Friends.

And why not? A friend of mine in college often advised me - "Ron you are what you claim to be."  I decided that I am a screenwriter and a producer.

As you read you'll discover how I raised money... hired actors... built a crew...  secured sales representation... and most importantly you'll see why this may be your best and perhaps your only bet in Hollywood.

I'm sure you're protesting that you don't have any movie making experience... you don't have any contacts... you don't have any money... you don't have a clue.

I didn't have a clue either but I did make a commitment and that was everything.  Never understand estimate the power of decision making.

Now how much of a clue didn't I have?  None.

I'm a 66 year old male and spent most of my life writing and publishing niche financial newsletters.  Never went to film school. Never worked in Hollywood. Never visited a film set. Never nothing - except I can write.

You do need to know how to write because the very foundation of film are the words you put on paper.

As the foundation - as the script writer - you are the brightest star in the universe - you are the big bang from which everything else flows.

But if you walk and merely sell your script, you are instantly so much cosmic dust.  

Stick around and you remain in the power position - you are the emperor of the middle kingdom.

Now before I give the why's, the how's and the secrets to get your story on film let me tell what we accomplished without having a "clue".

5 Hour Friends stars the devilish and remarkably talented Tom Sizemore - of Saving Private Ryan,Pearl Harbor, and Blackhawk Down fame. Our female lead, Kimberlin Brown, played the iconic role of Sheila Carter on TV's The Bold and Beautiful, the world's most popular soap.  Both are great, highly experienced talented name actors.

5 Hour Friends was shot on the Red Epic, a camera so good no HD television can reproduce its brilliant clarity. It's the same camera used to film the likes of many mega budget Hollywood productions.

Our editor, Rebecca (Weigold) Stocker worked on such films as Pearl Harbor and 21 Jump Street.

I could go on but my point is that we got top shelf actors, editors and the same camera James Cameron uses. We got all that and made a film for Hollywood chump change. You can too. And here's how:

Read more: Five Hour Friends: How Ron Jackson Made His Indie Movie Dreams Come True… And How You Can Too!

Today Theo Davies and I had our first pre-production meeting for a music video we are creating. The music video is going to have a great twist and turn. This is going to be our first music video in over 2 years. We have been working so much on films and other projects that it's nice to have a change of scenery and work on a music video project.  We will keep you updated with more information on this music video.

Okay today we had a chance to use the Arri L7-C lights and I must say the Arri L7-C lights are some of the best LED lights that I have ever used. Besides being the most versatile LED light the Arri L7-C also give you the ability to shoot in any situation, with any light temperature, color, and with only consuming Watts peak and outputting 1000watts. Hopefully in the near future we will see bigger and bigger LED lights 5K and 10K LED lights that use only 75% of the power to operate. This will make movie making even better!

Great job to Arri for creating another outstanding light!

So yesterday we had an awesome experience on set shooting for Cochella. This was an extraordinary film project that we had the great opportunity to be a part of everything was shot on the red scarlet in 4k. For those that go to Cochella this is going to be an awesome experience for them! Once Cochella happens we are going to post the BTS footage.

Giorgio Daveed was hired on as to supple chief lighting technician, grip and gaffing crew for this project. Our production mobile unit was out in full force on this awesome project for Cochella 2013. Stay tuned to see more of the Cochella 2013 project in the next few weeks.

This time we are going to be in Pasadena, California. Our mobile production grip unit on location for another film shoot. Will post some behind the scenes images for the production in a few days. 

Our mobile production grip truck is getting the wrap treatment today. Now you will be able to know who is on your set and how amazing your film, video or photography will look. 

Stay tuned for images of the freshly wrapped production grip truck wrap.

Officially wrapped with the Principle Photography for the Time-Lapse Photography project for StonePeak. Well at least the Time-Lapse portion of the video. Once the entire show room is redone we will be back to film it with amazing crane shots, dolly shots, and other cool tricks of the trade. Look forward to the full edited and finished video for StonePeak Ceramics. The Time-Lapse adventure! 

We are on our 7th day of production working with StonePeak Ceramics as they remodel the show room for 2013. This has been a pretty large project with very long hours, Terabits of footage, and countless hours of processing. Time-Lapse photography takes a long time to create and this should be a very unique time-lapse created just for StonePeak Ceramics. 

We are in the pre-production stages of creating a music video for more than a lady. Kash and Wells are on the track that is going to be mixed and mastered by Arun Battish. We have a treatment written for this music video that Kash loved. The music video will probably be a 3-5 day project due to that fact that a music video like this needs to be elaborate and creative.

A lot of music videos that you see these days are studio because of budgets; however, I rarely like to shoot studio music videos since they are not as entertaining and mostly a waste of time. I grew up in the Micheal Bay and Hype Williams era of music video production. That's why our music video production is usually more elaborate and the music videos that we create tend to be on the more creative and story driven music videos. The music videos we are creating for Kash is going to be heavily story driven. 

We are currently working on the selection of the main female lead for the music video. A girl that has class and at the same time looks sexy on camera and can act. A lot of the music video girls can't act that's why finding a music video girl that can act will make your production that much better. I have been lucky enough to work with some amazing ladies that can not only look sexy on camera but bring the attitude that is needed for the music video production. 

Stay tuned for some awesome behind the scenes in making the video.

Since canon released the 5DMK2 with it's 30FPS, I still don't know why in the world they did 30FPS in the beginning. Amway, I had mine 2 days after the release of the Canon 5D Mark 2 and shoot my first music video with that camera 3 weeks later. At that time I had to shoot the music video with 30FPS because the camera could not record in 24FPS. But that's a whole different story the main focus of this article are DSLR cameras suited for film. 

Here is my answer, NO! I think that people that shoot "movies" with DSLR's are crazy! They are not film camera's, they will never be film camera's, please stop shooting movies on 5D's! Okay, lets be serious about all of this. First, DSLR's are great for music videos, commercials and anything that is not going on a 4K screen. If you are planning to shoot a film and your director of photography recommends you using a DSLR because of budget RUN! Run as far away from that Director of Photography as possible. Because all that means is they are lazy! The price difference between the RED Scarlet and a Canon 5D Mark 3 is about 4 thousand dollars. If you can't afford to shoot with a RED you should not be doing films. You should stick to music videos. I had to vent because I have seen this too many times. I have been offered to many gigs for movies that the "producer" wanted to shoot it on the DSLR because of budget, well to all the producers that are saying that you should not be making movies, films or anything else. Four thousand dollars is nothing in a real budget movie! 

Cinematography has changed over the last 10 years so dramatically. Directors of Photography use to shoot with 16mm and 35mm film and different film stock and till this day some still do. In my humble opinion 16mm and 35mm film has been dead for 10 years. The industry for cinematographers and camera men/women has changed. When RED introduced the RED ONE, Director of Photography title became an ever achievable goal. Shooting on film is very expensive, from the camera systems to the lenses, to loading and unloading, to telecine. Film stock is one of the most expensive part a DP/Cinematographer had when shooting small budgets. Think of Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels an amazing film shot on 16mm and the budget was 1.6 million pounds. Adjusted for inflation in US dollars we are looking at about 7 million dollars and even their budget did not allow for 35mm film stock. 

As an admirer of the old school cinematography and when I mean old I mean Jack Cardiff (African Queen, Red Shoes, etc). I love film; however, as Jack Cardiff was a large supporter of Color Film when everyone was shooting Black and White. Director of Photography Jack Cardiff was quick to change because he saw the potential of Color Film. Thus, it is again today almost 100 years later and one of the greatest supporters of Digital Film Cinema is Peter Jackson. 

I recently had the opportunity to what the extraordinary 3D Cinematography that was shot by Director of Photography Andrew Lesnie. Jackson believed that shooting the film in 48FPS (frames per second) and at 96th of a second shutter speed would give 3D viewers a much better experience. In my opinion that 100% correct. It is the only 3D film that I have seen where my eyes did not hurt after 10 minutes. 

So has cinematography changed in the last 10 years? Yes, Director of Photography has taken on a whole new era of young people that would never have had a chance to work with film because of budgets. 

All of this brings me back to the movie "5 Hour Friends" when I first met with the producer Ron Jackson I was very adamant to shoot the film on the Red Epic. Luckily, I did not have to do too much convincing (a little) but the Producer was on board to shoot with the RED Epic camera. I think Ron is very pleased with the results and so will everyone else that whats the film. 

Tomorrow we going to the California Film Festival Awards where the movie that photographed "5 Hour Friends" will be receiving the Diamond Award! This is great news for 905 Productions, Ron Jackson (the producer) and Theo Davies (the director). This is going to be an awesome experience since this is going to be the first award for the entire team. Looking forward to more feature film work in the near future working with Theo and Ron as we create another film. 

Today we are starting our editing of the first 6 days of the time-lapse for StonePeak. Editing Time-Lapse photography is probably some of the most time consuming edits one can do. Since we shoot all of the photo's in full RAW we have to go in and first process and adjust the color and temperature to make match it as close to the actual color as possible. Then once all the first pass light color correction has been completed we have to process all of the RAW images to JPEG's. The processing of RAW to JPEG takes up a lot of time depending on how many images you have we have over 6 thousand so far. So it will take a long time to get everything processed. Once all of the JPEG's have been created we import them into Adobe Premier as a single movie file for each day. The time-lapse was calculated on a 24fps sequence; however, Premier allows you do create different time sequences for each day or movie file created. So some of the time-lapse will be in 12fps which will allow for time to pass slower and some in 24 and 30 frames per second. 

All together this is a very time consuming process just to start the editing process. Once all the footage have been processed the actual editing begins.

Creating unique and industry specific videos with an artistic look and feel is hard to do. Especially when you are working with a tight budget; however, at Giorgio Daveed we believe that with the proper creative mind and technical knowledge we can do just that with any budget. Last year we where approached by Tailored Hair for Men a small start-up, business,  a company that is taking a new and unique approach to the age old men's hair cut. Creating a corporate video that is artistic and also brand specific can be a challenge when your budget does not consist of millions of dollars. During our initial consultation with Tailored Hair for Men we discussed the possibility of creating different corporate videos; however, none in my opinion gave them an edge. While talking I asked the owner Lizzy if she ever watched the show Dexter, she replied "I love that show." With that in mind i began to see if she would be open to creating a video with a lot of close up shots. Since this is an industry specific video, tailored (no pun intended) for men's hair cuts, I believed many men could relate to the video.

Our budget which was small so I asked Lizzy to have a location with lots of lighting. Lighting is probably the most expensive part of any film or video project so having amazing natural lighting would be key for this video to be good. The location we scouted turned out to be amazing! With a huge 15'x10' overhead skylight and 2 amazing large windows. I could not ask for a better lighting situation! 

So on the day of the shoot it was myself and an assistant. We had some pre-production time to create a few shots; however, since this was going to be a live haircut we could not ask for take 2, 3 or any other takes. So making sure we captured the correct stuff the first time around was essential. After a long day of shoot we started the editing process. Which took another 12-15 hours after which we started the color grading and ultimately the final output. Now in the short time span since the video has been out it has generated a lot of buzz for Tailored Hair for Men and from what Lizzy says is that when men watch the video they all want a hair cut at her place. Which tell me we did our job correctly and with success. 

THE TAILORED MAN 

As a full service production company we work on many different companies to create amazing results for each and everyone of them. For the past 2 weeks we have been working with the largest industrial company that manufactures ceramic tile. This time-lapse show cases the amazing flexibility, durability and use of ceramic tile. As an Industrial time-lapse we are trying to achieve a unique look to this cinematic experience. Once the principal photography is finished we will begin the gruesome editing processing processing tens of thousands of RAW images to create an amazing industrial time-lapse. Most time-lapses are of nature; however, this particular time-lapse is specialized to the corporate world. We hope that after the creation of this time-lapse we can start creating more of these amazing visual experience know as time-lapse photography. 

So far we are 2 weeks into a 4 week project. It has been a tremendous opportunity for us to work with StonePeak Ceramics. Their wonderful staff and the Director of Marketing and the CEO of the company. We hope that this time-lapse brings them much applause from the industry that they service. Since this video is the first of it's kind to be created solely for StonePeak. We are honored to share this moment with them. 

Over the years we have created many different film, video and photographs for many different companies. We look forward to 2013 being another great year of expansion and progress. With the newly added 1 Ton Grip truck we are constantly improving our technology, equipment and most importantly the amazing relationships that we are creating along the way.

Well we are back at it full swing at StonePeak / EURO WEST creating what I would have to say the most elaborate time-lapse a tile company has ever done. This is our 5th day of the remodel timelapse project. The timelapse will be a little longer then expected; however, it will still be an awesome time-lapse for StonePeak / EURO WEST. 

Today we are on our first official break from the Time Lapse that we are creating for Stone Peak Ceramics at the Mile of Tile in Anaheim, California. We will restart the production next Tuesday for some more installation time lapse. So far our time lapse is spanning 5 days and we have about 500GB of footage that has been trans-coded from the insanely large 24MP, 6K resolution, 16bit images. The time lapse sequence is first trans-coded from RAW to high resolution JPEG's then put on a timeline in adobe premier pro for editing. When editing such large files things take a long time to render. Time lapse photography gives a beating to the camera gear. So far over 10 thousand images that need to be trans-coded and some might not be used for the time lapse video. Once the entire remodel is completed we will be back to shoot a lot of crane and dolly shots of the new building to shot off the amazing tile that Stone Peak produces right here in the USA!