Congregation Shaar Hashomayim was looking to create a web site solely devoted to its musical activities. With that came the birth of shaarmusic.org
Have a look at the most robust website Imagination Creations has developed to date!
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Today's Dance for Kindness!, an initiative of Life Vest Inside was a huge success happening in tons of cities around the world, but no other city was BIGGER than the BIG APPLE, the hometown of the founding organization. Kindness took to Times Square in a HUGE way. The amazing people at American Eagle donated their 15,000 sq. ft. of prime LED screen real-estate rising 193 ft. to the cause for 11-minutes, and I was given the DREAM opportunity to fill this magnificent beast with content!
12 individual screens ranging from 400 sq. ft. to 3000 sq. ft, and only 30 hours to put it all together! CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
Sacrificing a night of sleep of most of my sanity, I got to work, and the results were phenomenal. Just have a look at the image below and read these testimonials.
I kid you not, the people walking through Times Square saw the screen and stopped in their tracks. It was mesmerizing! Even the dancers forgot to take their FREEZE positions for the FREEZEMOB because they were so captivated by the screens.
Orly Wahba - Founder, Life Vest Inside
Ari, it was AMAZING!!!!!! Thank you SO MUCH. The screens made this epic, THANK YOU!!!
Tory Dube - lovelythankyou.com
What a privilege it was to be able to work on a project like this and to work with the inspiring people from Life Vest Inside. And of course, check out the Imagination Creations branding, spanning a total of 80 ft. on Broadway and 46th street!
More pics and video to come!
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Check out the brand new promotional trailer for Imagination Creations!This concept had been brewing in my imagination even since releasing my After Effects Handwriting Tutorial back in January. This concept had been brewing in my imagination even since releasing my After Effects Handwriting Tutorial back in January.
After a great brainstorming session with my wife over Chinese food, our plan was set!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfC2jXKrFtc[/youtube] We booked our actors for the very next day, and then the work begun! Cutting stencils, colouring, arranging and filming. Post-production was the real challenge for this project. Getting a 4-year old to blow 20 paper letters off a table and out the window is no easy task. Enter After-Effects, Mocha and a lot of patience.
By motion tracking the camera movement from an empty table to the window, I was able to digitally insert all the letters onto the table and have them be blown away out of the window and into the forest!
I hope you all enjoy the video! It was a blast to create! Special thanks to Noa and Maya Reinblatt for being great actors and models! [nggallery id=15]
Wow! I just returned from Acharai // After Me, a 3 week adventure, traveling through South Africa and Israel on a social action mission with 25 motivated students and 1 inspirational Rabbi. My job was to document the journey through photo and video in order to promote what we were doing to the community back home as to the greater community of the world. I was posting photo albums and video edits to Facebook regularly and our subscriptions increases healthily throughout the course of our travels. Filming and shoot all day in the hot sun, and editing all night, made for many very long hours, but the results were well worth it.
Everything was shot on location with my Canon 60D and Tamrom 24-70 VC lens, using a Rode Videomic Pro. In addition to all the filming, photography and editing, I managed our Facebook portal so our friends, family and supporters back home could track our every step!
Have a look at all that we accomplished in the 8 videos below! These were all edited on location! Or click here to check out all of the photos, HD videos and blog posts on our Acharai page!
Acharai kicks off in Africa [vcfb id=501030256577011 w=625 h=376] "There are people out there working on making a difference" [vcfb id=501772593169444 w=625 h=376] The Lucky Ones [vcfb id=502180939795276 w=625 h=376] He felt that it was his duty to give back [vcfb id=811874016284 w=625 h=376] "I Think It's a Great Future for Me" [vcfb id=504532782893425 w=625 h=376] "We're Building the Stage for the Community" [vcfb id=505692719444098 w=625 h=376] Education on Acharai [vcfb id=506117996068237 w=625 h=376] "Thinking about all the people we can make safe is what makes it worth it" [vcfb id=506715962675107 w=625 h=376]
I've been getting into HDSLR video recently. 5 months ago I decided it was time to upgrade my Canon EOS Rebel T2i to a 60d, and the stock 18-55 lens to something better. I read through countless product reviews and user forums and watched dozens of Youtube videos, and I settled on the Tamron 17-50 F/2.8 VC. I took that lens with me to Poland and Israel in April as my primary lens as I was filming a student trip called The March of the Living. While the lens gave me great results, the main problem I had was that it simply didn't zoom in as much as I needed. 50mm was rarely close enough, and I didn't have the time and flexibility to change lenses, and carrying two cameras was not an option when having audio gear, a monopod, etc. at least for a cameraman with my level of experience. I gained great experience from that trip and I decided to upgrade to a slightly more telephoto lens before my next trip that will take me to South Africa and Israel in August. So, it was back to the product review, message boards and Youtube clips. It didn't take long before I narrowed down my choice to one of two models. The rookie on the Canon lens battle field, the Tamron 24-70 F/2.8 VC, or the proven veteran, the Canon L Series 24-105 F/4.0.
Do I choose something that is brand new and unproven with great potential, or something that is has been amazing for the last 10 years. Do I choose give up a full stop of light and choose the Canon for its longer focal range? Do I give up the longer focal range for a wider aperture? These questions plagued me for the better part of a month, with both lenses being similar in price and the Tamron receiving many promising initial reviews. As the title of this post suggests, my choice was the Tamron 24-70 F/2.8 VC. I decided the F/2.8 aperture of the Tamron was more important to me than the extra range on the telephoto side of the Canon.
You'll find many reviews that will compare the Tamron for the other 24-70 lenses on the market; Canon, Nikkor, Sigma. I'm going to avoid those comparisons because they are already available a plenty. I'm going to focus on the questions that I was wondering when making my choice, as someone who is far from a lens guru and someone who is learning so much just by reading, and more importantly, on the job.
The comparison I'll often make is to my previous Tamron 17-50 F/2.8 VC, simply because that is what I'm used and what I am knowledgeable about. I also think there are many people out there who are looking to upgrade from the 17-50 to the 24-70 as I did.
The 24-70 feels much more like a pro lens vs. the 17-50. It is sturdier and more rugged. One thing I was very impressed with upon first playing with the lens was how smooth the zoom ring turned. So much so that I would feel comfortable filming zoom ins, something that was never a smooth operation on my Tamron 17-50. The same applies for the focus ring.
My 17-50 had a problem that I've read was common in third party lenses. When switching from video mode to manual photo mode at f/2.8, the camera would lock up. This was a very annoying problem and the only solution was to restart the camera, and sometimes it would even require to remove the lens and put it back on. I have yet to experience that problem with my 24-70. (And I'm keeping my fingers crossed!)
Image quality appears top notch to me! I'm very happy with the way my images turn out. Yes, as many reviews say, there is some vignetting when shooting at f/2.8, but it doesn't bother me. Depending on what you are shooting, you often don't even see the vignetting, and when you do, especially for video, I am not bothered. Depending on your standards and the type of shooting you do, you may agree or disagree. I think this factor will be different for everyone, but since I am writing this article mainly for people who are in a similar position to me, I wouldn't let the vignetting scare you away.
Autofocus is very quick and accurate. Even in Live-view, where auto-focus is considerably slower, it is still faster than live-view auto focus on the 17-50, which was painfully slow. Still, when shooting video, I recommend manually focusing, which brings up another helpful feature of the Tamron 24-70 F/2.8 VC. Full-time Manual Focus. This allows you to be in auto focus, and still tweak manually with the focus ring without having to flick the focus from auto to manual and back.
Have a look at some test shots below and see what you think. This first batch was taken on a tripod with the timer. Apertures ranged from f/2.8 - f/5.6 ISO:100. No Photoshopping whatsoever. Click the images to see camera settings.
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This next batch was all shot handheld, mainly for demo purposes for this post. Click the images to see camera settings.
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All in all, the upgrade is well worth it in my opinion. The Tamron 24-70 F/2.8 VC is a great lens and I can't wait to put it through more thorough testing in Africa next next!