Mark Mroz » video stills

7 Cities Ballroom – Dance Showcase // Event Demo (pre-production)

Mark Mroz — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:13:40 +0000

The latest project I’m working on is for a group called 7 Cities Ballroom. It was their annual dance showcase. They like to take a video of the event for the students, for which they usually just stick a camera on a tripod. This time around they decided to go professional on the video. I, too, stuck a camera on a tripod, but I also went handheld/low tripod to get some great cut shots. It really made the video interesting.

I had an HV30 with a wide-angle lens on a tripod (thanks Jacobi!), on a table to try to shoot over the table that was right up to the dance floor. This was no good because you could see people’s heads in a lot of the shots. Also, the distance to the floor was short so the closest corners of the dance floor were cut off. When the dancers went to those corners I tried to cut to the other camera when I could. I tell you though, they were fast on their feet and I couldn’t always keep up.

The second camera was my HV40 with 35mm adaptor & Canon 50mm f1.8. I varied the shots between steadicam and low tripod. I tried to keep it a bit artistic so I could really make it interesting in post.

What you see below are stills from the HV40 (click them to see the full size). These are final production stills (Final Cut is crunching a hour of HD footage as I type… for the past 8 hours). I may post a few of the dances later on, or maybe make a montage of the night for your viewing pleasure.

Most of the dancers were instructor or students. However, there was a couple from Kansas City, Lila & Michael Shultz (the first image), that blew the night away! They are pro-level dancers and it was really cool to watch them perform, though difficult to keep up with the camera.

Enjoy.

Here’s a glimpse of the FCP timeline… lots of syncing of tracks and audio.

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“A Girl and Her Garden” // Video Portrait (pre-production)

Mark Mroz — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:22:33 +0000

Here’s another little pre-production post for you…

I wanted to make a fun little montage video showcasing the great footage that my camera rig captures. I thought, “what better subject than the sweetest girl I know?”.

Her name is Laura and she loves her garden. She lives in a little apartment with a roof porch. I built her a standing garden a few years ago and now that has grown into many plant pots and other containers.

The images are clickable. Video soon to follow…

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Art Louis // Video Portrait (pre-production)

Mark Mroz — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:02:07 +0000

Currently I’m shooting a video portrait for Louis Fronkier who is a local photographer. I’ve got some great studio shots as well as some great B-roll from one of his photo session, which was down at Yorktown Beach.

Here’s a couple of stills from the video footage. You can click on them to see a higher resolution image. It’s been a bit of a mental adjustment for me to get into an HD workflow – it’s less forgiving when you make mistakes – but it’s so well worth it. Final video coming soon!

You can check out Louis’ site here: Art Louis Photography

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