Sound Clash Dallas, TX

This Friday we jumped on a plane and headed to the Lone Star State to shoot the Red Bull Sound Clash in Dallas. It was our first time to Texas and we weren’t sure exactly what to expect as our interactions with texans are usually on the mountain and not always pretty. Texans seemed much more in their element away from snow and during the state’s biggest college football event of the year.

Sound Clash was one of the coolest Red Bull events we’ve been able to shoot. The event was held in Victory Park with a stage on each side. On one side was the Shiny Toy Guns and on the other was Erykah Badu and the Cannabanoids. Each band opened with a 3 song set and then went into a battle of the bands back and forth format. They both covered the other’s songs and had to play songs within different genres.

While the two bands seem like an unlikely combination there was an obvious musical connection and it was amazing to watch them volley back and forth. When the official “competition” ended Erykah and the Cannabanoids were on top judged by audience applause. They voyaged across the crowd and joined the Shiny Toy Guns on their stage for a final jam session. Watching the eclectic combination of sounds and personalities come together in a bizarre but badass musical fusion firsthand was an amazing experience.

We usually shoot events like Flugtag , Soapbox, or athlete shoots and have just recently started shooting Red Bull’s “culture” events. It is a different kind of challenge because you’re working with so many lighting elements that are out of your control while trying to capture the powerful decisive moments that express the feeling and emotion in the music. Fortunately your window to capture these moments is decidedly larger than when an athlete is going by at mach speed and that moment will only happen once. There was also the added challenge of working around the film crews which is fairly common no matter what you’re shooting. The key to working well with the filmers is to find the right mix of good communication and standing your ground. Everyone is just trying to get their jobs done and you need to find the right way to make it happen for everyone.

After pushing our way through the crowds we jumped in the car and spent a solid half hour trying to make it 4 blocks to the Digital Hause where we did our editing and post production only to find ourselves with double the parking fees and equidistance from where we started to the studio. Thanks to Mark and crew for providing us with plenty of adult beverages and a beautiful space to work in till the early hours.

The next day we hoped to take in the spectacles that are sure to come with the biggest state fair in the country but we failed to realized the cluster that would surround the fair and football game. Due to a completely clogged bus system we weren’t even able to make it to the fair grounds. Despite missing out on fried butter and guaranteed epic people watching we were happy to get a chance to tour around the city before Mike headed out to Norway for Helly Hansen meetings and I headed back to the mountains of Colorado.

Thanks to everyone involved for an amazing event!

Check out more shots at Photofiles site.

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Crested Butte & Aspen Meetings

Nothing makes work better than tying a lot of fun into it. We headed down to Crested Butte last Friday and hit the Rainbow Trail from Salida on the way. 100-mile single track that is a must-do for mt bike or moto.
From there it was on to Crested Butte where we met with the marketing folks at the resort.
We also spent some solid time with the whole crew at Match Stick Productions. They have just completed the edit of “In Deep” which will have it’s World Premier in Colorado instead of Canada for a change. Much easier to cross the border into Boulder rather than Vancouver.
We should have know when to call it complete day but dinner with the MSP folks transitioned into a serious Trailball game, many PBR’s and a late night.
This would have been OK if we didn’t need to be up at 6:30AM to do a extremely difficult 40+ mile moto ride to get to our meetings with Aspen Ski Company. Seemed as though the crew at Aspen were amused by our condition and smells coming off of us. Mike’s backpack opened at some point on the trip and literally lost his shorts so the day of meetings was spent in some tight red moto pants. Not that cool.
While in Aspen we also had a great meeting with Hamilton Sports where we will be doing some branding projects for Kastle Skis. Chris Davenport was nice enough to join us and offer up some opinions as he is the king of Kastle in the Aspen valley. 58 mile home and thinking that every day of business should be like that.
The last day of the trip we got Ian out for his first moto ride. Figured if he has worked with us this long he needed a bike so we could stop feeling guilty about leaving him behind. What was suppose to be a mellow ride had some hairball moments and ended up finishing at almost 50 miles. Ian killed it and I am sure we’ll be riding in his dust soon enough.

Red Bull Photofiles Photographer Workshop

We were recently invited to attend a photography workshop for Red Bull photographers in the Red Bull Santa Monica offices.

The photofiles crew put together a quality gathering of photographers to talk and branding, photographic technique, technical post production, and workflow.

There is always a fine line between branding a photograph and communicating an authentic message so the viewer doesn’t feel they’re watching a commercial or having a brand shoved down their throats. This line becomes even more difficult to tread when the photograph is offered as PR. Obviously if the company is giving a photo of an athlete or event in which they’re heavily invested to a magazine, website, or newspaper, they would like a logo to be visible. Just how prominent a logo should be (where in relation to the subject of the photograph, how big, how many logos, etc.) was a huge topic of discussion throughout the day.

Red Bull is extremely good at managing their brand image in all communication tools and this workshop was a forward thinking way to keep their messaging consistent and of the highest possible quality.

We were honored to be invited and be in the company of amazing photographers: Christian Pondella Garth Milan, Chris Tedesco, Francois Portmann, Brian Nevins, Jeremiah Klein, and Jimmy Wilson.

Thanks everyone!

Check out the mac party…

New Portfolio Book!

80 pages, steel front and back cover and the printing looks beautiful.

HUGE thanks to Asuka book for the above and beyond customer service, quick turn times, and quality product!

Quote on cover under DVD:

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

-François-René de Chateaubriand

Red Bull Big Tune Denver

We recently shot the Red Bull Big Tune event at Beta Nightclub in Denver. Super fun event to watch as hip hop producers battled head to head with their custom tracks. Based off an event originally created in Jamaica it really packed in the crowd and opened our eyes to something new. From a shooting perspective it was a fun challenge to work around the crowd and shoot in the almost pitch dark conditions while trying to maintain the feeling of the atmosphere. The portraits of the producers we shot the night before were playing on the jumbo-tron so some of these shots have photos of our photos.

Check out more at http://www.redbullbigtune.com/

Boon Doc wins the event

We shot these portraits at dinner. Much easier to bring the studio to where people are eating, drinking and being happy.

Sneak Peak: Portfolio Book

Our portfolio book has been a huge asset to us over the last few years but it was beginning to feel a bit outdated and in need of an upgrade.

We’ve been working hard on the massive project of overhauling the book for quite awhile now and figured we’d release a sneak peak of some of the progress.

The original book is 40 glossy pages of our design, engineering, prototyping, photography, and marketing capabilities bound with a laser cut metal front and back cover. We are close to finishing the upgrade to 80 pages including a ton of new projects and a full photography portfolio section.

Here are the intro pages from the photo section. Please let us know what you think.

1976 Games!

Another year of snowlerblades, skinny skis, and stretchpants.

Mix Master Mike and DJ Z-Trip murdered the ones and twos keyboards, some people did some spread eagles and hoola hoop tricks, and many Red Bulls were consumed.

Thanks to OC and the rest of the crew!

Photofiles link

Portchester

After spending a few days with the Aspen Patrol I headed out on a mission with Adam Moszynski, Danny Brown, Tony Prikryl, and Darcy Conover to Portchester. We took our time and enjoyed the sunshine on the skin out. Ended up taking 4.5 hours from the base of Highlands to dropping in on our line.

Aspen Patrol Shoot

This past week we went to Aspen to shoot the ski patrol boys at work for Aspen Ski Co. and Helly Hansen.

It was great to hang out, make some turns, and see the day in a life of an Aspen Patroller. We did some avalanche rescue drills, some dog drills, a chair evacuation, and got to blow some sh$% up.

Thanks to Halzy, Erin, and everyone at Highlands as well as Craig and the Snowmass Crew! Great time hanging with you guys and I appreciate your tolerance while I shoved a camera in your face.

Levi LaVallee

Now that the secret is out and ESPN hyped the hell out of the double back, photo-files has posted the Levi shots.

Check them out!