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Behind the Scenes: Amazon Fashion Cinemagraphs

February 26, 2016March 22, 2016Posted in CinemagraphsTagged amazon, amazon fashion, amazonfashion, behind the scenes, behindthescenes, bts, cfda, cfda vogue fashion fund, cfdavoguefashionfund, cinemagraph, cinemagraphs, designers, fashion fun, fashionfund, hudson studios, studio, vogue fashion fund9 Comments

A behind the scenes look at the Cinemagraph campaign we created for Amazon Fashion’s partnership with the CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund designers to make their designs available to consumers like never before.

The Fashion Fund was created as an initiative to support emerging American fashion talent where one winner is awarded a cash prize to continue to grow as the future of fashion. Created in the fall of 2004, this annual competition supports the most promising talent which has been proven with previous winners including Alexander Wang and Proenza Schouler and launched the careers of designers like Prabal Gurung, Marchesa, Rag & Bone and Rodarte.

The competition between the final 10 fashion fund finalists is all documented in a series on Amazon called “The Fashion Fund” and now Amazon is extending their support to these designers by making their pieces immediately shoppable through social media and on Amazon.com.

The 10 designers:

Baja East || Baldwin || Brother Vellies || Cadet || Chromat || David Hart || CG || Gypsy Sport || Jonathan Simkhai || Thaddeus O’Neil

They asked us to create 10 Cinemagraphs, the most we have ever set out to achieve in a series, one per each finalist. The inspiration for the set was a designer atelier but tweaked with specific details to become tailored to each of the designer’s personalities which we gathered in interviews before the shoot. Below is a behind the scenes look at a few of the designer’s sets and cinemagraphs from the series as part of a 2 day shoot at Hudson Studios shot by our friend, photographer Scott Brasher.

Follow along on Amazon Fashion’s Instagram to see all 10 unfold and be the first to instantly shop the looks of these great new designers!

Above Cinemagraph with Patricia in an open-back evening dress and Stina in a polo top and flounce skirt by womenswear designer Chris Gelinas. Continue reading “Behind the Scenes: Amazon Fashion Cinemagraphs” →

Behind the Scenes

September 22, 2014September 24, 2014Posted in Fashion ReportageTagged ann street studio, behind the scenes, bts, chopard, cinemagraphs, crew, old westbury garden, westbury gardens12 Comments

This past spring we finished a project two years in the making, a Cinemagraph series with the luxury jeweler Chopard. We shot at Old Westbury Gardens on Long Island about 45mins outside Manhattan on a late spring day with an amazing team of people: Kelly Framel styling, Ashlee Glazer for makeup, Justin Woods for hair, and Anthony D’Argenzio with props. Here is a glimpse behind the scenes with some snapshots of the day our assistant captured as we put together my favorite series of Cinemagraphs yet, a concept of six characters’ lives all playing out in that calm moment before the storm…

From the in-depth interview about the making of House of Secrets Cinemagraphs:

Cinemagraphs: what do they mean to you personally?

Jamie: Cinemagraphs to me are living photographs, a moment in time that can actually breathe, allowing your senses to experience and delight in the small instances that make up our lives.

Kevin: A Cinemagraph is a challenge to create something that is visually striking with the added depth of time. It’s seeing life in a way you can’t see through other mediums.

From our Chopard Collaboration interview:

The House of Secrets is such a singular endeavor that one can hardly keep from wondering how it was born, what came in its inceptors’ heads and sparked this delightful fantasy.

Jamie remembers: “Kevin had this moment of inspiration where he thought: what if we made a mini-movie based on these six characters, all coming together at an estate for an event, but it’s the moment before the party, the seconds before all their worlds become entangled into a ‘House of Secrets.’ House of Secrets to me is a vignette of this singular moment in time, shared between these six characters whose lives are complex, intertwined and destined for each other. It is about the complexities of our lives and relationships. It is also about how defined we are visually by what we choose to wear: this alone tells the story of where we are at this particular time in the character’s lives, what their emotions are.”

“I was immediately influenced by Chopard’s involvement with and love of the film industry,” Kevin relates. “I remember sitting in their suite in Cannes, looking around at stills from movies framed on the wall, and thinking how perfect it would be to tell a very cinematic story. To get to that point I developed a story, characters and even an opening scene for the unfinished movie that is Chopard Secrets. Each character carries their own secrets, and some of these are shared secrets. The love between two characters might be completely hidden from another, and that secret will have a tremendous impact on their lives. The scenes in House of Secrets show only that moment when individuals are carrying their own secrets, before their storylines intersect and drama unfolds.”

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Behind the Scenes

November 22, 2013November 25, 2013Posted in LifestyleTagged ann street studio, behind the scenes, behindthescenes, bts, filming, lincoln, lincoln motor company, lincolnMKC, lincolnmotorcompany, photographer, videographer10 Comments

Telling the story of telling a story…

When we started brainstorming a new Lincoln Motor Co. project, we wanted to challenge ourselves in a new way and explore storytelling through video. It’s important as a creative to always be moving forward, pushing yourself and your abilities. Unlike past videos which have been more free form organic vignettes or allowing the subject to narrate the story themselves, this one was totally new for us (PS – This is what Kevin was talking about in Question #20!). We wanted to create a micro film, a little story and a fun way to unveil a new car as it was being unveiled for the whole world.

We started with just that thought – unveiling. So how can you uncover or discover a car creatively? …why though fun trickery, of course! How cute would it be to create a fantasy where the designer of this new car was a young, handsome creative living in New York and his date stole the plans to his work with the coordinates of the car’s secret location so that she could steal it as her own?! A calculated date, a thief, a chase through Manhattan, she’s got it!… but wait! a twist! He had her all along…

We had never gone to this place before but we had to try… we had to know if we could make our dreams a reality. Here is how it played out and all the funny tidbits you did not see in “The Lincoln Job“…

Fittings ~ The day before the shoot the stylist tried on the clothing options with our two stars. In our pre-production meetings Kelly thought based on the storyboards it would be cool to style them inspired by “The Thomas Crown Affair“, which we all loved.

Above: Kelly plays around with the idea of suspenders for the “at home scenes” before he throws on his suit jacket on the way out the door in the chase.

Below: The creative director Maury Postal and I watch on as we go through all the styling options.

Finishing touches… above Kelly thinks about that last something to complete the look and asks our creative director to borrow his Warby Parkers which got instant cheers once Amadeo put them on and it was done!

All in agreement on the final looks.

He wears:

Club Monaco suit, Nordstrom white shirt, Warby Parker glasses, Florsheim shoes, Kevin’s suspenders from our wedding

She wears:

Robert Rodriguez dress, Orla Kiely coat, Christian Louboutin heels, Karen Walker sunglasses, Plukka Earrings, Plukka + Phillips House Rings

Setting the game plan ~ Kevin began to explain to our two models Amadeo & Michelle the storyboards for what we would be filming the next two days. We are all laughing in this photograph because Kevin, being distracted by our starlet’s dress, said “So it starts in the bedroom”, when he meant to say it starts in the living room!

~ The apartment scenes ~

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Storyboarding Lincoln

November 13, 2013November 14, 2013Posted in LifestyleTagged behind the scenes, bts, concept car, kevin burg, lifestyle, lincoln, lincoln moto company, lincoln motor co, LMC, pre-production, sketch, storyboard6 Comments

Here at the studio, there’s a lot more that goes on than just the magic of capturing life through camera lenses. The meetings, creative brainstorming, contracts, preproduction, shooting, social media, and post production are stages we are constantly rotating through. This past weekend, we have been preparing for part one of a two day shoot with the latest model from The Lincoln Motor Company, being shown to the press for the first time today. I can’t say exactly what we are up to just yet, and since we usually tell the story of behind the scenes, I thought it would be cool to give you a little glimpse into the details that goes into the PRE-production, before the cameras begin to roll.

Typically on projects where we need to communicate visuals with a client, to tell them how we see the images and story flowing in our heads, Kevin sketches out our ideas scene by scene, in this case, for storyboarding Lincoln. This allows for every moment to be accounted for, every scene to be looked at and studied for prop needs, lighting diagrams, and lens choice in order to achieve the desired effect. These storyboards also provide an organized shot list for the day because when you get going with a million moving pieces and crew it’s easy to forget some of the details you had previously envisioned.

Last year we told the story of Lincoln throughout time and this year we fast forward to modern day… and a whole new world.

Continue reading “Storyboarding Lincoln” →

The Making of

August 19, 2013November 6, 2015Posted in LifestyleTagged behind the scenes, behindthescenes, bts, saks18 Comments

We first started the conversation with Saks Fifth Avenue’s team that curates and runs their social channels including 10022-shoe, their NY-centric shoe-focused Tumblr. You never know with new clients how much control they are going to want or how far they are willing to go. Kevin and I are always looking to do new things, always trying to expand our work and continue to evolve Cinemagraphs, the new medium of photography we pioneered over two years ago.

So let’s talk about the creative process. Their team was completely open to our ideas, whatever we could dream up. When everything is a possibility, it can be hard to find a jumping off point, so our first action was to spend sometime at the SAKS shoe department. We walked in circles, letting various shoes spark our imagination. Oh! Look at this Louis Vuitton heel, can’t you see a girl at a train station surrounded by LV luggage and steam from the engine rising in these?! LOVE. We did this for a couple of hours. We never limited ourselves to what was physically and financially possible, we kept our minds free to form the visions and worry about the rest later. I always take iPhone pics of everything throughout this process so we can reference them later when we come back to the studio.

Next step: finalizing ideas. We ended up with about 11 strong concepts once we had brainstormed back at the studio, looking at iPhone photos and sketching out ideas, talking them through and pushing them further. Our studio assistant then began researching, pulling reference imagery and text relating to our themes. These ultimately go into the client presentation so that they may have a clear visual of what we are dreaming up, and get an idea of the color, mood, emotion, and story of the final image.

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We See Beauty

May 1, 2013May 4, 2013Posted in BeautyTagged behind the scenes, bts, jack studios, make, make cosmetics, makecosmetics, makeup, photo studio8 Comments

For the past year, we have had the honor of working with an amazing new cosmetics company that just launched called MAKE. MAKE has saturation in its product like NARS, the range of color like MAC and the professional tools like MakeupProfessional, but is different from a humanitarian perspective. Every time you buy a MAKE product, you help fund the W e See Beauty Foundation, which is dedicated to supporting and strengthening communities and local economy, especially for women-led small businesses.

MAKE finds beauty in encouraging self-expression through color by fostering contemporary collaborations between makeup artists and creatives worldwide. MAKE is the first for-benefit beauty brand on We See Beauty and is made in New York. When you go to their website, it feels more like an art gallery experience than a commerce site. Having worked closely with their founder to help fulfill her vision, I can tell you MAKE is about the celebration of women and however they choose to define themselves.

Here are some behind the scenes snapshots on set at Jack Studios with MAKE and our team, showing palettes of colors, stylist’s wardrobe, props, makeup artist’s sketches and major gear!

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Behind the Scenes

April 30, 2013July 15, 2013Posted in LifestyleTagged american exotic, americanexotic, behind the scenes, behindthescenes, bts, Rachel Roy, RachelRoy, rrexotic, work33 Comments

There are so many aspects of a photo shoot that take place to get those effortless images that tell a story or inspire a dream. Before the months of post-production begin, a crew of talented people, each bringing their own specialty to the table, all comes together to bring an idea to life.

The idea began last December…starting with an introductory meeting with Rachel Roy, a peek at the spring collection for inspiration and a clear understanding of the scope of the project. Kevin, Kelly and I went to work concepting what the Rachel Roy woman was to us, and what story we wanted to tell. With inspiration from Georgia O’Keeffe, the colors of the spring collection, and the words from the designer “Effortless, Elegant, Exotic” bouncing in our head, we came up with the idea of American Exotic: our desert wanderer finding herself in the arid landscape out west. We wanted to put the clothes in an environment that would make them sing.

Once approved by Rachel we got to work with our producer. Where can we shoot in January that matches our vision but isn’t covered in snow? Locations had to be scoured with everything we needed for our shot list and then approved. Budget estimates had to be tweaked. Local crew had to be booked. Our model and muse had to be chosen. This is how we spent our Christmas holiday: taking work phone calls at family gatherings, working out equipment lists, renting equipment, buying film, writing video direction, confirming the crew and finalizing everyone’s scheduling with the producer.

One of the most important parts of being a photographer is directing everyone. Communication is everything. Only I can see what is in my head; I have to set the path, make the decisions and comunicate with everyone what we are going to do when and how, what time is call time because of the logistics of the locations and the light, when we are going to scrap one idea and head to another because I have a gut feeling.

And then, finally, we shoot.

Here is a small glimpse of what it looked like and how it worked ~

The “stand-in”

Deciding where to shoot, what angle is best, how the light is and where the model should go is all tested out before our model gets on set with stand-in shots. The art director, an assistant, the stylist will all stand-in and help me visualize what I want by letting me test shots until we have worked it out and can then get our equipment ready.

Making moments with can-do assistants

Having high energy, can-do-anything assistants is such a critical part to any photoshoot and making magic happen! Here is Jeff getting filthy so our muse can be kissed by the desert smoke in the final shot emerging from the cave.

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On Making Work

December 3, 2012April 30, 2013Posted in Fashion ReportageTagged behind the scenes, bts, carly piersol21 Comments

I’m always happiest when I’m on set. Collaborating with creative people, spending weeks prepping, sharing the vision with the models and watching the hairstylist and makeup artist transform them all while the stylist creates magical looks for that quiet moment on set is where the dream becomes realized in front of the camera. For me, capturing that moment is the greatest high in life.

By now you know Kevin, Kelly & I collaborate on many creative projects with the Lincoln heritage Cinemagraphs being the most recent. Weeks before a shoot we start the brainstorming sessions where we flesh out the vision and we all get on the same page. What is the story we want to tell? How do we want people to feel when looking at it? What do we want it to look like in the end? We build our team and get to work model casting, renting props, equipment, location scouting, testing, and fittings.

I’ve always shied away from having behind the scenes photos taken of our process but now I want these candid moments to remember this time in our career. They’re a visual diary of our life’s work. Our studio assistant snapped some stills throughout the day of the cars, the props, prepping for shots and watching for that one moment to live forever.

Continue reading “On Making Work” →