FStoppers Behind The Scenes Contest: Broken Reality

Photography by Kevyn Bryant of K. Bryant Photography

It's been an unbelievably eventful day. A plethora of pure awesomeness has made me once again realize how much I love being a filmmaker. 

This is a behind the scenes video for the 2011 FStoppers video contest. I directed and shot the video while Doug D. did the edit. 

Photographer, Kevyn Bryant, decided to make a set of photos dedicated to the memory of the devastation that hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama on April 27, 2011. 

Kevyn and I both were in Tuscaloosa when the tornado hit. The tornado bypassed us, but hurt many other people. It also destroyed hundred of homes in the Tuscaloosa area. 

Our FStoppers challenge then became the best way to convey the devastation Tuscaloosa endured in a creative and powerful manner. 

We put our heads together to figure out what theme would best suite this assignment. We decided on Broken Reality. In Tuscaloosa, there is a new normal. People have gone back to their regular routines, but all around us we can still see the ramifications of the tornado. Many individuals live in an encampment of disillusion and disbelief. You never think the tornado will hit you, until it hits you. 

Once we figured out the theme and how we would go about making it, we needed three things. 

-A first location to use for HDR images

-A second location to shoot our model

-A model (duh)

I knew a house near the main intersection of Tuscaloosa. It was on a field where hundreds of houses use to sit before the tornado hit. By this time, the majority of the houses had been plowed down, but this specific house still stood. 

I used it on a short film I shot recently, and I suggested we use it again for the HDR images. After we finished up at the house we needed to find another location to shoot the model we would use. Kevyn contacted Rae Marshall, a photographer and artistic model we knew at school, and I talked my friend, Sarah, into letting use use her apartment to shoot Rae. 

We put this all together over the span of two weeks. We finished all of the main grunt work in Tuscaloosa, and shot our behind the scenes interview in Montgomery, Alabama (Kevyn and my girlfriend live down there and her birthday was coming up, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Yes, I'm terrible). 

Once we gathered all the footage I stored everything on my Laci Harddrive and took it to my editor, Doug D., along with an outline of what we wanted. 

Four days later, we had a finished product. Best of all, we were featured on FStoppers main page after submitting our video. 

To see the feature click HERE. 

Along with this awesome news I found out Que The Lights was The Black Weblog Award's Judges Choice for Best Video Blog and Best Photography in a Blog. 

This has been an amazing day. I hope yours was just as memorable. 

Travis Cooper

Que The Lights is moving forward. I'm happy to say I finally finished up a two month project between me, Boomtown Management, and Couper Models.

The project was a photo shoot done by me with the help of colleague, Kevyn Bryant, and a collaborative effort between models Travis Cooper, Margaret Holloway, and Synetta Hawkins.

If you don't remember I first spoke about the project in the post, Behind The Scenes-Travis Cooper. Joe Field, another colleague, recorded the first section of the photoshoot (in the video section  of QTL second from the top or the video with a camera as the title image).

Now, I'm finally done with the entire set and I'd like to present what I feel are a few of the strongest photos in the mix.

For more of the Travis Cooper's set check out my FLICKR.

Behind The Scenes-Travis Cooper

Campus Movie Fest is quickly approaching. We've been in intense pre-production recently. As head of the Que The Lights Team I've been making sure everything comes together in a smooth fashion. This is honestly the first time I've been the head of a project this large so I'm sweating a few bullets, but I believe the end product will be on point.

For the upcoming week (Feb.1-Feb.7) I've notified clients that I'm not taking any jobs so I can focus on the short film. This weekend, I finished up a photoshoot I was comissioned for a few weeks back.

The main model was Travis Cooper, a student at The University of Alabama whose been building up a commendable reputation. The shoot also included Margaret Hollaway and Synetta Hawkins. All of this was headed under BoomTown Management, an on-campus marketing and agency group.

I also received tremendous help from Kevyn Bryant as well as one of my residents, Joe Field.

Overall, the photoshoot was a success. I haven't finished up editing, but Joe compiled a lot of candid film which we then edited into a short behind the scenes video.




Be on the lookout for the pictures soon,

Christina Danielle- Behind the Scenes

The photoshoot was a big success. The end products could be considered some of my best work.

Everything (in general) went smoothly but with anything done well there is always maintenance being done behind the scenes to ensure a job well done.

I thought I'd share some of this with the audience.