HANA KA HOE   (THE PADDLE MAKER) from PF BENTLEY on Vimeo. Take a good look at the video above. It is stunning. The kind of thing you might see on National Geographic, on a good day. The kind of thing that might have been shot over months by a professional crew. The kind of thing that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the world of PBS budgeting. Instead it is the work of PF Bentley. Bently was a Time Magazine photographer for many years.  During the Clinton Administration, he was the White House photographer for Time Magazine.  Ever see those iconic black and white photos of Clinton in the oval office or on Air Force One?  The kind of photos they printed on two pages, called a 'double truck'? That was the work of PF Bentley. In 1992, PF Bentley was in our very first VJ training course in Philadelphia, learning to shoot video. He learned well.  He got the very same lessons in that course that we are offering here on NYVS.com.  He also 'cut the carrots'. Now, like Yaroslav Kofman, whose we we saw yesterday, Bentley is taking his work into the commercial world. This is not surprising. For years, great photographers did commercial work, whether for magazine ads or corporate end-of-year reports.  Now, as those companies move to the web, they are going to need video. But not Youtube.  Great video. Take a look at Bentley's work. It's great video. Shot with a Canon MarkII DSLR camera, just like Kofman, and cut on FCP on a Mac laptop. Powerful stuff.  

Yaroslav Kofman is a VJ instructor for us in many of the bootcamps that we run. The 23-year old Russian immigrant passed up a career in software to pick up a video camera and start shooting on his own. Now he's discovered a niche in high end video production for corporate clients. Like this one. Take a look at the remarkable quality of this work. It was all shot with a Canon Mark2 DSLR camera and cut on FCP on a laptop. Kofman has also built a DIY portable track for the tracking shots. His own invention. He's got a long and growing list of corporate clients who love his work.And with good reason.

Ouch! Every once in a while an honest-to-God TV show comes up and just bites you in the ass… That was how I felt when Dr. Adam Kushner dropped by the house for cup of coffee. He had a day to kill between a speech in Mongolia for the World Health Organization (yesterday), and his surgical work in Malawi (tomorrow). Kushner is a board certified surgeon, but also the founder of Surgeons Over Seas. Kushner started as an investment banker in Hong Kong, and he is smart enough that if he had s

Get going! Today, Scripps, the folks who bring you The Food Network, HGTV and of late, The Travel Channel announced the launch of The Cooking Channel. Heads up, video makers! The launch of a new channel means a whole new block of programming to fill.  And while the folks at The Cooking Channel, headed by Michael Smith, released their rundown of shows to prospective advertisers in NY yesterday, nothing is cast in stone and there will be opportunities galore for edgy new producers who have a coo

some good and some not so good NPR is getting into the video business. Like everyone else. Above, one of their stories. The shooting is excellent (with the possible exception of that rather weird top of the head shot at 1:40, but let's allow for artistic license). What is lacking in this piece is narration. It is ostensibly about health insurance in America, and this guy doesn't have any. You get that at the end, but it takes an awful long time to get to the point, and by the time you do get th