Vince Penman is a commercial and advertising photographer, director/producer and interactive art director who lives in Austin Texas, with his wife Rachael Penman and children.
This blog is a mixture of professional, personal and everything in between. Life is more than just about work.
I have been so flipping behind on the bog it is sad. But it is actually good as I have been very very busy. Here is the latest from your’s truly. Another low budget spot that I refuse to make look low budget. It is kind of interesting how this one came about. The client didn’t have any phones in that I could photograph, so I had to do the whole thing with one flat image. Nothing you see here was done with 3D software, this is all Indesign psuedo-3D.
I’ve been waiting to post this a while. I was going to do a behind the scenes and have some details of the making of the actual props, but it will have to wait, as I am really, really busy at the moment. The actors have been waiting to see the finished product. Here it is in it’s glory with more info to come, Rocketman:
p.s. Today marks the anniversary of the day Doc Brown hit his head and came up with the Flux Capacitor, which makes time travel possible. Since I have a nice hat tip to the Capacitor in this commercial, I thought it fitting I post this today.
Directed and produced by Vince Penman and Matt Twohy.
Just finished doing the post work for this image for an ad and thought you’d like to see it. I had way too much fun making the jet pack for the shoot. We shot this on Saturday, just two days ago. We were also supposed to shoot video for the TV commercial part of the campaign, alas, Texas was receiving MUCH needed rain all weekend (worst drought since 1950) and we couldn’t shoot outside. We are scheduled for Tuesday to shoot the commercial, so keep your eyes peeled for something early next week. As promised I will have a blog post dedicated to some behind the scenes action as well.
Here is some close-up on a little detail:
Also what the ad will most likely look like for the print campaigns:
I am really, really excited. No, this is not equipment to build a bomb, so no need to inform any authorities. I am working on props for an upcoming photo shoot and television commercial production. I spent a couple of hours at Home Depot, possibly one of my most favorite things to do, and carefully selected items for a, hopefully, impressive prop. I also spent a little time at the Salvation Army too. I forgot about the cool little finds you can get there. Anyways I don’t want to give away too much, as I am hoping to make a cool production video out of the whole process.
Here is the game. Try to guess what this pile of second hand junk and Home Depot items will be.
Clue: Napoleon Dynamite meets Empire Strikes Back.
Here is another commercial that I did in a couple of days. The client needed a quick spot for the Samsung Finesse. The phone is alright. It’s no iPhone. But I wanted to make a cool commercial none the less. That’s the only thing I really care about anyways. Shot with the MarkII. Can you guess who the hand model is?
For the past month, I have been doing nothing but making commercials, at least it feels like it, and for the most part it is true. I am actually working on yet another one as I write this. Total protonic reversal. That’s not the name of it, that’s just how I feel. I told you the line between photographer and video producer is thinning.
The latest commercial I did, which was approved today from the client, was an absolute blast to produce. And I am going to fill you in on how I did it. But first the spot:
I wanted to have a feeling of constant movement in each of the shots. In order to achieve this I needed to use a Steadicam. Well, the Merlin Steadicam costs $800 and no one rents them nearby. Since we have a set, and rather low I might add, budget for these spots, any money we spend is less we make. So I decided to DIY it. I will spare you photos of my shoddy machine workmanship, but I will just say it worked fantastically… once I got the hang of it. I basically followed the plans from this guy. After a couple of trips to Home Depot, I was set. (I might do another post and show how I made the thing with pictures and all I just don’t have time right now)
For the coloring of the spot, I wanted something really different. We have Magic Bullet Looks, and I LOVE that plugin, don’t get me wrong, I just wanted a little more punch. So I thought about doing it in Photoshop. Yes you can edit some video in Photoshop, but I wanted even more control than that. So, once I got the spot edited to where I wanted it, I exported the footage as a psd sequence. What that means, is I exported every frame to a Photoshop file. Then I could control each frame how I wanted, just like any photo in Photoshop.
A lot of people know I am not a big fan of actions. In fact I get fed up with all of the paid actions that people sell online. Don’t get me started, really. There are some actions, however, that I think are totally worth the money. The actions from Totally Rad Actions. Seriously. This isn’t a plug, but I truly think these are possibly the most worthwhile actions that anyone can buy out there. The rest, don’t even bother. Create your own.
So what I did was to create a “recipe” of several of the actions. Then I ran a Photoshop batch on all of the 900 images, and voila. I re-imported the frames into After Effects and bam, that was it.
I know it sounds like a lot of work, but I think it was well worth the effort. I even tried to recreate the effect with Magic Bullet and couldn’t pull it off.
If there are any TRA users out there, here is the recipe for kicks:
Finally, I am able to post this. I finished this spot a couple of weeks ago and we were in a holding pattern for final approval. But I think it’s worth the wait.
This commercial was shot exclusively with the Canon 5d Mark II. Like most Alaskan ads we have to do things on shoestring budgets, but make it look good. That is why I love that camera. It also gave me a chance to try out my custom built shoulder mount and dolly system for the push in shots.
One frustration I had with this commercial is all the logos and branding from other companies had to be removed. But, I did have a little fun whit it as well, like the custom candy bars, fake movie poster and the name of the bank. Enough talk. Here are the two spots. The first is a thirty second that plays on TV. The second one is a sixty second version that was supposed to play on the clients website, but ended up not happening. So I posted it to Vimeo.
I’m still busy with the commercial. I made a few rookie mistakes and am paying for it now in After Effects. Too bad the talent went on vacation right after the shoot. A couple of new takes would have been helpful. Here’s a screen shot to wet your appetites.
Sorry for the lag in blog posts. I’ve been working on a new TV spot for a client. This spot will be filmed entirely with the Canon 5D Mark II. I love this camera. I cannot say that enough. Just like I said before, the line is disappearing between photography and video production. We just wrapped up the first day of shooting yesterday. Here are some stills from the shoot yesterday.
Sometimes life throws lemons. Sometimes life sticks a flaming bag of crap at your doorstep and rings your doorbell. Life has been challenging lately. The economy sucks. There’s a possible pandemic right in my backyard. Yeah I’m talking to you swiney. I would lie if I said life is peachy right now. The fact that both Rachael and I moved down to Texas with zero clients during a tough economy hasn’t really helped my attitude either.
But, you know what. There is lemonade. There is soap and water to clean off the smoking pile. There is hope for the economy. Who am I kidding the economy will still suck for a while, but that’s OK.
Just when things were busy, Rachael and I have been made busier with some church responsibilities. Life seems hectic. But you know what? Lemonade. It has helped us realize what is really important. Our family. “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.” So true.
So if life, when you are painting your office and moving your furniture back, makes a five pound award that you won for a commercial, fall from the top shelf onto your head then bounces onto your computer monitor that you had under your desk covered up to prevent paint from dripping on it, smashing it in the process, don’t get yourself down. Just get another monitor.
