One year ago, we did a post on our collaboration with choreographer David Fernandez on his performance “White Shirt, Black Pants, Black Tie”, shot using our Sony EX-1-R HD cameras. This year we shot the same concept, but using David’s XXS dancers, aged 9-12 years old, titled “White Shirt, Black Pants, Black Tie XXS”. To sum up my extreme enthusiasm: I was so impressed by these girls, it honestly made me want to sign up for classical dance classes.

Not only was the performance an excellent demonstration of David’s ability to work with professional dancers and aspiring young adults, but the preparation for the shoot was an opportunity for us learn a great amount about the growth of the HD camera market within the last year or so. By using two Canon 5D Mark 2 cameras alongside one of our EX-1-R’s, our opinions on DSLR video recording has done a complete 360. With the simple function and large array of Canon lenses to pick from, I can easily say that I’m in love.

Video clips of the performance coming soon!

the new barbieblog.com

who says that we don’t access our inner child here at the visual mercenary group? well we do, and this past month we got to have fun while helping our pals at attention pr launch the new barbie blog for their client mattel. since we shot the ‘catch me if you ken‘ promo during fashion week  last year for attention and mattel, we think it was cool that we got to spin it around to the barbie side this time.

so if you grew up playing with barbie and ken or just want to keep up to date with what is going on in the world of barbie - they’re back together as a couple btw - the blog is a great site to visit. there are also some cool woman-centric articles to help empower our daughters. and just for the record: no, we did not experience pink overload while working on this project

dara in leather

fashion week started here in new york this past Thursday and we were invited behind the scenes to photograph at Fashion Takes Manhattan - the first annual fashion show at Penn station. so here’s a few shots from stella zotis’ collection. you may remember her in season 5 of project runway. she describes her look as post-apocalyptic and you can see why - it’s all leather and denim and studs ans spikes. mad max has nothing on these girls… and check out stella’s blog for more insights on her fashion sense and style.

the sacred universe. the essays of thomas berry

the title is ‘the sacred universe‘ and it’s a book of collected essays by thomas berry, the esteemed scholar of world religions. it is deep and complex with tremendous global historical references. oh, and it has big words. there are some sentences i have to read twice and i still don’t completely get them. tonight i read the essay titled ‘alienation’ written in 1974 - but the message it contained is timeless and timely for the 21st century. this passage literally jumped out at me:

We are at present on one of these convulsive moments in the unfolding of the human developmental process. Like the ‘flower people’ of the 1960’s, we might wish for the quiet of an interior transcendental experience by which we could rid ourselves of the feverish strife of external processes. Yet we must accept the fact that the temporal process has become the dominant human process and must be dealt with. In a world that we experience as both a coming together and moving forward, we need a new planetary symbolism: a time-space, active-contemplative, prophetic-mystical, future-present, human-divine symbolism that will provide a context for discovering the journey toward self-authentication that humans desire.

‘nuf said. so… when will we stop and listen?

MADD Designated Driver coupon viral app

it’s that time of year again: merriment, parties, food, sweets, and drinking… lots and lots of drinking. and although these things are fun, safety should also be at the top of all our holiday lists. just in time for the season, the visual mercenary group helped our friends and partners at cult 360 execute their latest idea for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.

wrap up a safe ride home this holiday

photographed by shannon kester - thank you jason for being a great model and allowing yourself to be wrapped - and coded with assistance from the ultimate mercenary, vincent higgins (follow him on twitter), this flash application allows users to upload their photos and then print or email out to their friends. so c’mon and give yourself away as the gift of a designated driver. your friends will love you for it and they may even get you back with one. happy partying everyone!!!

Baumgartner was to be connected to multiple HD cameras as well as the balloon to document the event. The decent will take  about 6 minutes. Below is a touching & emotional trailer that Red Bull put together to promote the project.

You can also view more detailed info about the project at www.redbullstratos.com/Science.aspx#Science

Lets hope this lawsuit gets resolved soon so we can all view this stunning event.

ipod shuffle vs panasonic tape player

i was going through some boxes and came across my wife’s old panasonic portable tape player (aka walkman). this sports model was hot stuff way back in 1996 - with shockwave protection for all you joggers out there. 15 years later we have 1000 songs for not much bigger than a quarter (thank you apple). just the belt clip alone for the panasonic is 3x the size of the ipod shuffle. what a waste of plastic.

gotta love technology.

clear - facebook tab

if you’re not familiar with CLEAR, it may be time to do so. as the clear slogan states: CLEAR is the smart way to speed through airport security. we’ve all heard and seen what’s been happening with the TSA’s use of full body scanners and pat downs and while the clear card may not necessarily give you a free pass from that hassle, it certainly will get you through the security line faster.

to promote the card which is being re-issued after a technology upgrade, our friends and associates at attention pr (whom we did the estee lauder BCA fb app & mattel ken shoot with) came up with the longest line contest running exclusively on twitter and facebook. from now till the end of the year submit a photo of the longest line you find - with the #longestlineever hashtag -  for a chance to win an ipad or free CLEAR membership.

you know you’ll be thinking about it when you’re waiting on those damn lines next time you fly home for the holidays. now if they would only make one for the mall…

]]> http://chronicles.visualmerc.com/work/clear-the-longest-line-contest/feed/ http://chronicles.visualmerc.com/us/chris-is-moving-on/ http://chronicles.visualmerc.com/us/chris-is-moving-on/#comments Mon, 01 Nov 2010 19:40:52 +0000 niko http://chronicles.visualmerc.com/?p=1753

Kassandra Cruz

chris is moving to minneapolis, MN. we’re sorry to see him go as he’s a great friend, awesome artist and incredible css designer. probably the best hand coded css i’ve ever seen. in the past couple of years chris has also become a pretty darn good photographer. you can check out his work on his site, chrissofe.com. although we’ll miss him - but not too much as no one is ever too far in our new digital world - we wish him the best of luck.

and if you’re in the minneapolis area and are looking for a kick-ass photographer for portraits or weddings, give him a call. oh yeah, and chris…buy a heavy coat my brutha.

i started working with fractals in 1990 while running xelibrium. i’d render single images that i then would cross dissolve into one another at raves. back then, a single 640×480 image of a deep iteration would take 72 hour to render through the app fractint with the weak pc i used. today of course, whole complex animations can probably be rendered in week. here are a few that i found on youtube that i like. the comments from the math geeks are so cool.

not too deep but incredibly beautiful:

gorgeous very long render, with technical overlay:

beautiful long render with audio, lower rez: