Lenovo Seize The Night: DO

It's been quite a hiatus for since my last post. The transition from Alabama to California was pretty grueling. Thirty-six hours and two thousand miles later I made it into Lancaster, CA. I'm staying with family until I can find a suitable apartment in the Los Angeles area. I'll also be driving into LA for my Funny or Die internship interview in a few days. This does not even factor in USC. I may have an opportunity to begin this fall instead of spring semester, but it is still uncertain.

This has been an amazingly, nerve-wracking transition in my life. I'm ready for a new beginning, but the uncertainty of my future always leaves me anxious to create achieve my goals. Good news is on the horizon nonetheless!

The Que The Light's Lenovo Seize The Night Alternative Ending Video is now up!

Screnshot from our Lenovo Seize The Night Alternate Ending Video

Campus Moviefest chose 15 filmmakers from their Distinguished Filmmaker's Network to produce Alternate Endings to Lenovo's Seize The Night Short Film. Lenovo is the 2nd largest PC vendor, and a powerful company rising in the ranks of technological relevance. 

They gave me under two weeks to gather my crew, actors, shoot, and edit the entire film. Thanks to the help of a great cast, crew, and The Telecommunications and Film Department at UA we were able to finish everything with time to spare. Check it out. 

Lenovo Seize The Night Alternative Ending - DO

The concept was inspired by the ongoing debate of Occupy Wall Street and the concept of The 99% and 1%. I wanted to convey the idea of dissemination of information enlightening those who are able to solve our current economic disparity. The original concept was too ambitious to fit into two minutes, so I decided to represent it through the virtual outspread of the word "DO." Do would embody the necessity of change in our society through whatever means possible. The main protagonists would virally spread this message of hope across the world while presenting to the kind of people who could fix it.

The entire video encapsulates the symbolism by highlighting the battery life beginning at 99% at the start of the video and ending at 1%. This would serve two purposes, highlighting the Lenovo Ultrabook laptop and further representing my original inspiration.

Let me know what you think. You can also watch behind the scenes production of the video too!



Be sure to share the video as much as possible! If I get the most views I can win $15,000. Wish us luck!

The Business

When it comes to my work, as well as my proclivity towards featuring videos on the site, I tend to lean more towards my creative side. This doesn't mean my work ends with projects I direct and shoot for my own purposes. On the contrary, the majority of my work is business oriented. Between my own projects (which usually span a good amount of time), I shoot a good amount of videos for The University of Alabama and clients who contract me.

One of the first videos I shot for The College of Arts and Sciences at The University of Alabama was Tanglewood. The video featured a bevy of heavyweights from The University at a dedication of new land bought by the university for scientific purposes.

The next video I produced and directed was The Paul Jones Art Gallery Dedication. The video featured faculty from The University of Alabama and close friends of the late Paul Jones, a well known artist in the Alabama area.

Outside of working for the University, I also shoot freelance jobs for clients interested in working with me. The most recent being the cover of Quang Do's spoken word piece, Knight in Shining Armor. 

I've even had cases where, instead of being the main shooter for a piece, I was instead given the artistic license to envision the concept. For this Fade2Black promo (which unfortunately did not pan out) Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity allowed me to come up with the concept for the video. I then worked with my editor (Douglas Dillingham of ZombieSquid Pictures) to bring the idea together. 

This is really 80% of my work. Shooting or creating ideas for Alabama or clients. In between I shoot pieces exclusively for my own purposes. I was once told if you're good at something, get people to pay you to do it. I'm proud to say I make money doing work that I enjoy. 

Few people can say such. 

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. 

All I Do is Work

It's been a long time, but I finally finished up my work with Alabama rapper, Drama.



In my post, I Gotta Hustle, I talked about two rappers I met because of my affiliation with North Greene Records.

After sitting down to talk, both Drama and Trent showed interest in working with me. Trent actually came to me with the idea of working on a music video first, but Drama ended up being getting the process rolling.

Pre-production to post-production took around three months. I decided to downsize my role to Director and DP. I soon realized I was far too swamped with other projects to earnestly sit down and edit. Also, some of the stylistic choices Drama wanted were out of my editing capabilities.

That's when I decided to bring in one of my colleagues, Douglas Dillingham of Zombiesquid Pictures. Douglas' work speak for itself. When I first checked it out I was thoroughly impressed. The editing skill he displays at this level are far ahead of most individuals I know. Plus, I needed someone who could get the work done in an efficient and quick manner.

Doug definitely proved he was the best choice.



To contact rapper, Drama, you can DM him through his twitter page @MrNBADRAMA .You can also contact Doug for editing jobs through his website or by his twitter page @ZSquid.

Working on this project definitely taught me I'm more comfortable shooting over editing. I still love editing and I appreciate the necessity, but I'd rather be out in the world with my camera instead of sitting at a computer. I now honestly realize how important a good editor is for a production team.

When all you do is work, having a strong team behind you can make all the difference. Also, be sure to follow @QueTheLights and check out my updated portfolio page QTL Images.

11/22/11 Update: Music Video work featured on website This is Ham. Click HERE to see.