Jonathan Fowler
Multimedia Producer
Multimedia Producer
By the People: The Election of Barack Obama. Add it to the list of amazing content picked up by HBO Documentary Films. It premiered a few weeks ago, but is still airing - so catch it if you can. The filmmakers, Amy Rice and Alicia Sams, seem to have mojo reminiscent of D.A. Pennebaker (Primary and The War Room – also highly recommended).
As is often the case, the story behind the production is equally compelling. Rice and Sams started filming well before anyone would have guessed Obama would be the next president. Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman interviewed Rice and Sams on the day of the HBO premiere. Watch that interview here. Videography.com also ran a great article on the production, here.
July 7, 2010 - 12:00 am
Tags: 4K, Baraka, Broadcast, Christopher Frey, Cinematography, Discovery, Documentary, Experimental, Lightscapes, Non-Verbal, Peter H. Chang, Time Lapse
Posted in Video | 1 comment
I never thought I would see a broadcast television series that sites Baraka as its main inspiration. Slated to air on Discovery HD Theater, Lightscapes is billed as a “half-hour experiential television series that captures famous buildings and landscapes around the world as they are transformed by stunning, large-scale lighting displays.” Read more [...]
May 14, 2010 - 1:12 pm
Tags: 3D, After Effects, Arev Manoukian, Car Crash, Compositing, Editing, High Speed, Maya, Nuit Blanche, Photron APX, Post-Production, Shattered Glass, Short-Form, slo-mo, slow motion, Video
Posted in Editing, Video | No comments
Filmmaker Arev Manoukian combined all of the right elements to make his amazing short, Nuit Blanche. From Wired:
For Arev Manoukian, capturing the live action for his elegant short film Nuit Blanche came easy: He filmed two principal actors in four days on a green-screen soundstage in Toronto.
The hard part happened over the next [...]
April 8, 2010 - 5:08 pm
Tags: 2 1/2 D, 2.5D, 3D, After Effects, Animation, Apple Motion, Digital Effects, Documentary, Editing, Graphics, Jonathan's Work, Ken Burns, Photoshop, Post-Production, The Kid Stays in the Picture, Tutorial, Video
Posted in Editing, Tutorial, Video | 1 comment
In this tutorial I show you how to create the so-called “The Kid Stays in the Picture” effect (sometimes referred to as the 2.5D effect). The idea is to separate a still image into distinct layers, move those layers in respect to the Z-axis, then animate movement on those layers to give the impression of [...]
March 6, 2010 - 9:06 pm
Tags: 2010 Academy Awards, Apple, Burma VJ, China's Unnatural Disaster, Documentary, Editing, Final Cut Pro, Food Inc., Macworld, Music by Prudence, NLE, Oscars, Post-Production, Rabbit à la Berlin, The Cove, The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner, The Last Truck, The Most Dangerous Man in the World, Video, Which Way Home
Posted in Editing, Video | 1 comment
A recent Macworld article points out that 9 out of the 10 documentaries nominated for the 2010 Academy Awards were edited using Final Cut Pro… pretty impressive, considering that the first version of FCP was released only twelve years ago. (The exception, Burma VJ, was cut on an Avid). From the article:
Apple’s PR rep put [...]
February 15, 2010 - 3:45 pm
Tags: 3D, 3d Documentary Explorer, BBC, Collaborative, Documentary, Interactivity, New Media, Open Source, The Virtual Revolution, Video
Posted in Video | No comments
From the BBC, regarding The Virtual Revolution, their collaborative documentary about the web:
It was a radical change for BBC documentary making – an open and collaborative production, which asked the web audience to debate programme themes, suggest and send questions for interviewees, watch and comment on interview and graphics clips, and download clips for personal [...]
January 31, 2010 - 4:38 pm
Tags: Cascading Effects, Climate Change, Documentary, Earth Sciences, Global Warming, Jim Tharp, Jonathan's Work, Mount Rainier National Park, National Parks, North Cascades National Park, Olympic National Park, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, Science Filmmaking, Scott Wiessinger, Video, Washington
Posted in Video | No comments
Following up on my previous post… here is Part 2 (of 2) of Cascading Effects.
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January 18, 2010 - 3:37 pm
Tags: Cascading Effects, Climate Change, Documentary, Earth Sciences, Global Warming, Jim Tharp, Jonathan's Work, Mount Rainier National Park, National Parks, North Cascades National Park, Olympic National Park, Pacific Northwest, Science Filmmaking, Scott Wiessinger, Video
Posted in Video | 1 comment
I co-shot this piece – a project produced by fellow friend, filmmaker, shooter, and producer, Jim Tharp. A synopsis from Jim:
[Cascading Effects examines] the sublime landscapes of North Cascades, Mount Rainier, and Olympic National Parks, researchers shed light on emerging indications that climate change is real and predict how warming temperatures will affect the natural [...]
November 18, 2009 - 9:38 pm
Tags: 70mm, Baraka, Documentary, Equipment, Gear, Non-Verbal, Richard Sidey, Ron Fricke, Samsara, Time Lapse, VDSLR, Video
Posted in Video | No comments
I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of Samsara, the sequel to Ron Fricke’s Baraka (an amazing, highly recommended, non-verbal documentary – shot on 70mm). The latest update that I could find, regarding the release date, is here. So, it’s hard to tell how long we’ll have to wait, but it seems to still be [...]
November 8, 2009 - 10:07 pm
Tags: Documentary, Errol Morris, Film, Les Blank, National Film Board of Canada, New Media, Pepita Ferrari, Robert Lepage, Video, Werner Herzog
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Werner Herzog discusses climbing an active volcano in order to get the shot. Although, as he puts it, he was merely playing “the blind lottery” and didn’t do it to “show bravado.” Filmmakers and cinemaphiles tend to have strong opinions about Herzog; from positive to negative to genuinely amused to gravely concerned… and just about [...]
October 26, 2009 - 3:16 pm
Tags: Documentary, Jonathan's Work, Migration, National Geographic, Pronghorn, Short-Form, Video, Wyoming
Posted in Video | No comments
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I co-shot this piece last fall for National Geographic (with fellow filmmaker, Stephani Gordon, and NGTV producer and friend, Laura Boyd). The featured Explorer, Joe Riis, does amazing work and his stills (used throughout the cut) are incredible.
Pronghorn are extremely timid and they have extraordinary vision – they can detect the [...]
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