Jeffrey Buras

I’ve been doing production stills for an independent feature film called The Happy Poet.  These are a few of my favorite shots so far.

I’ve finally created another installment of my video blog.  This one has footage that spans August, September, and October.  I haven’t been able to keep up with the project since I broke my little Nikon point-and-shoot camera in late March.  I haven’t had a suitable replacement.  Of course I have other video cameras, but they are not small enough to carry around in your pocket at all times.  People also get really intimidated by a video camera, but they are less self-conscious when you pull out a small digital still camera.

Most of the footage comes from Austin, some of it in Louisiana and Washington DC.  I actually gathered most of the Austin shots for stock footage that I never really used.  There seems to be a disproportionate amount of shots that contain a body of water, and quite a few skies at sunset.  This video also has shots with a much longer focal length than usual, because the zoom on these cameras actually works.  Consequently, some of the shots are pretty shaky since I didn’t use a tripod.

This video was actually the most difficult to edit because the footage comes from three different cameras in three different formats.  My workflow for previous videos started off with a rough cut in iMovie, then finishing in Final Cut.  iMovie was designed for this kind of quick collage editing.   Because of the mixed formats, getting things to work later in Final Cut was quite a pain.

I’m looking forward to continuing with this project if I have enough time and remember to carry a video camera with me.

As usual, The Austin Filmmakers have been meeting every week.  At our last meeting we watched a rough cut of Mr. One-Note, which looks very nice.  I plan to do the color correction once it’s edited.  We need to shoot a few more pick-up shots, but nothing difficult.

We’ve been experimenting new places and times to meet.  We’ve been looking for a location in north Austin to counterbalance the Summermoon Coffee House that’s more in the south.  We tried meeting at the 34th Street Cafe, which is a very nice resaurant, but not a good place to hold a meeting.  Last night we tried Sherlocks Pub, which worked out nicely.  We’ve also been alternating meeting Mondays and Tuesdays to accomdate those who have commitments on either of those days.  The next meetup is on Monday at 6pm at the south location, Summermoon Coffee House.

A week ago I attended the Network Austin Mixer, which was a great place to meet people who are working in Austin.  I called one of the core members before, and have been playing phone tag ever since.  Ray Rosales and my friends from Humblebee joined me at the mixer.  While I was there, Brandy from Set It Off! told me I should attend the next networking event for Reel Women on Monday at Opal Divine’s, which was also a blast.

I’ve signed up for many online services that connect employers and job-seekers, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to keep track of them all.  The latest one I registered for is Nextcat, which I signed up offering DP, grip, electrical, and PA skills.  The problem with these services is that they will become outdated quickly, and I will probably forget to update or delete all of them.  It’s pretty scary knowing all that my personal information is all over the place.  It’s a consequence of the digital age, I guess.

One of my photos was featured in Austinist.  This wasn’t the first time I’ve been featured on a Gothamist blog, and it’s always an honor.  Thanks Austinist!

I sat with the director and editor of Mr. One-Note as the footage was being captured. I was happy with the way the film looks and am confident that we had good coverage. It’s dim, but I intentionally shot that way to protect the highlights. I’m more surprised at how creatively conservative I shot, but it’s reasonable considering the small space where we were shooting.

Here’s a few stills:

And H. Cherdon from Humblebee took some behind-the-scenes stills which you can see in her SmugMug gallery.

Brandon and Cherdon from Humblebee, who also worked on the shoot for “Mr. One-Note,” called me last night to come play with their filmmaking gear.  After going through their inventory that spills across their condo, we grabbed a few toys and hit the town.  Armed with our still cameras, a Panasonic HVX-200 and a shoulder mount, we set out for sixth street.  Of course it was too dark to get great footage, but it was a lot of fun to go out and shoot without a purpose.  I should do it a lot more often.

We shot “Mr. One-Note” on Friday.  This was the second film to be produced by the Austin Filmmakers Meetup group.  (I was not involved in the first). It was written and directed by Reagan Peterson and produced by Mike Rembis.  It’s a short, one-location comedy about two females fighting over an uninteresting guy.

Since all of the action takes place in one apartment, it was easy to create several different setups without too much effort.  I shot the film with daylight-balanced lighting since we had a mix of tungsten and powerful daylight florescent lighting.

I shot the film with my Canon HV30.  I did not use a DOF adapter, which probably would have complicated things anyway.  I used a shoulder mount about two-thirds of the time, which made movement a lot easier.  I admit that I used the auto-focus a few times.  The HV30 focus control is so difficult to dial-in and it’s hard to see on that tiny flip out LCD monitor.  I was careful to only use it on wide-angle shots with tricky movement.  For those kind of shots, I trusted the auto-focus more than myself.

The shoot went pretty smoothly.  We could have benefited from a stricter schedule and better planning, but the simplicity of the shoot covered most problems.  It might have been nice to have a grip or two more to work lights since some people (including myself) were working double-duty.  But it was a cramped location, so a few more people may have actually created more problems.  Either way, I was pretty happy with the way it went.

For lack of any real work to do, I decided to take some free headshots.  They are essential for actors and models for getting jobs.  Headshots are a commodity that everybody wants to have but nobody wants to pay for.  I don’t usually like to do headshots for free, but I got really bored and offered the ideal opportunity for any model or actor.  I posted on Craigslist to find some talent.  Some of the work came out really nicely, and hopefully they will pass my name onto someone who will actually help me make rent.

After working through all the legal and financial paperwork, I’ve launched Expressionism Visual Media. Expressionism focuses on marketing materials for small businesses. This includes videos and photography.

Now all I need is customers…

For the last few months I’ve progressively become more attached with a certain look that is warm and desaturated.

It all started with this shot of my buddy Travis taken in Brooklyn:

It was taken very late in the day at the golden hour, where the sunlight was very orange.  The light was far too warm for my white balance setting.  When editing the photo later, I fixed the white balance, but I found that I liked the shot better if I just desaturated the image enough to balance the skin tones.  Everything else just popped.

I started using this technique with other shots and really started to like the look.  It has a very surreal quality, but in a subtle way.  Most people will notice that something is different, but they can’t say exactly what.

The colors are still present at consistent levels, but the blues and greens get washed out.  The reds and yellows stick out.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m pushing this look too far.  After all, it does look unnatural.

I like it so much that I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.