Madonna - Girl Gone Wild, directed by Mert and Marcus

Directed by Mert and Marcus
Produced by Madonna, B. Benassi, A. Benassi

View more from Mert & Marcus, great photographers here

Anna-Mi Fredriksson performs at SHUNT, London.

These two dance videos are from 2010, they were previously hosted on my own web site, I finally transferred them to YouTube this week.

Anna-Mi Fredriksson  an ex dancer for the English National Ballet.

Anna opened the evening at SHUNT with the top performance.

We had time before the night got underway to do a lighting run through. This was to get the setup both lighting and camera locked down. A few adjustments to the original back light setup and all was good to go. Happy days.

The material falling from the ceiling is salt.

Now despite good plans and arriving early I only got chance to see this location  just before the venue opened, this setup was untested, it simply had to work, under pressure, only one run to go at, nothing new there.

Different light situations bring different challenges, low light can spell disaster for older or lower spec video equipment.

Canon 5D easily coping with this situation.

Anna's closing performance (short edit) is below.

So You think you can dance Season 2 Lee B.

So You think you can dance Season 2 Lee B I photographed in London.

We worked together on new images for his portfolio on a sunny day, we had a few of them earlier this year before Britain became the rain capital of the world it seems.

The material we made is being used by his agency and for an update on his own website.

Lee was a semi-finalist in "So You think you can dance Season 2" that ran in 2011.

"Famously known for his Leggings and Eyeliner each week, Lee whipped his curly mane & brought his creative edge to the world of dance."

I must say he was a joy to work with, we had a blast.

Lee is away working in Singapore right now, he has booked in for another shoot in August when he gets home. This time he wants me to make a video and some more photographs.

Below is a video of Lee in action from "So You think you can dance" Season 2.

"Rock on".

Marcquelle Ward dancer and actor photoshoot.

Marcquelle Ward dancer and actor came to my studio for a photoshoot last week

Again as you would expect with someone with an established profile it was both easy and enjoyable.

He was a blast to work with and has already accomplished so much in his young career.

In sport he has worked with the brand NIKE and his dance took him to appear as a judge in TV's  DanceX a reality television dance show produced in the UK for BBC One

We produced a dance video, which he liked at the first attempt so here it is.

 

So that's Marcquelle, I am sure there we will be seeing a lot more of him in the future.  

A great dance video to share.

I have LIKED this for a while, thought it was time to share with you.

Dance Video Bodyshop for Laura Ann.

Dance video Bodyshop for Laura Ann was a great project involving 14 dancers and a whole load of rehersals, location scouting and more.

Laura-Anne wanted the video, she is a professional choreographer and dancer based in Manchester, she travels with her work internationally.

Since the age of 16 she has been working alongside the likes of, Alexandra Burke, JLS, Gwen Stefani, Kanye West, George Micheal, Pink, Katy Perry, Geri Haliwell, Jagged Edge, Mario & Omarion. enough to say she is a good dancer, experienced and open to new ideas.

I wanted this video to be light well with a slight tone, so it was captured with low contrast and a custom picture profile, knowing it would then only need minimal processing to achive the overall clean look.

We are not shooting any kind of RAW format here so tolerances for adjustments are low.

While I am on with all the pre production Laura is busy with rehearsals, we keep each other updated to make sure were on track.

Test shooting the workshop left gave me a sample from which to slice a section and work a jpeg image to perfect the adjustments required to the footage before the day of the shoot. I prefer to work this way to leave out any nasty surprises at post production and not get the look, think I could go into melt down otherwise.

Lighting the space used was easy, its a high end bodyshop right, so these guys don't work in the dark, pushing extra fill light from the front was going to be the order of the day.

Camera used Canon EOS 5d mkII

We had a small window to shoot the video, on the day of shooting from beginning to end we were in, set up, footage taken from two main locations, promotion shots made, and take down in two and a half hours.

To get the footage we worked the main sequences three times to make sure we had it right, that's the deal.

So arn't we cool doing the shoot in a short time, the EDIT oh my, three solid days for the main dance sequence plus another day or so making the beginning and credits.

Post shooting before edit, review to footage, identify the good footage to be used, then the order to run.

Editing sequence start at the beginning and sequence the movement to the audio, a tricky task.

Thanks to the fourteen dancers, the makeup artists, PROSPRAY for letting us shoot there.

To Laura and myself high five... making this video was an undertaking but a blast.

Video for Khasan Brailsford dancer/choreographer

Last week I worked with Khasan Brailsford, he is a professional dancer from LA, he is in Manchester on tour with Kylie Minogue and other associated artists

The first time together I shot a dance workshop at Manchester's Sunshine Studios, our second meet was for his personal portfolio work together with his friend and fellow dancer Tre Holloway, we used my loft studio as a base but also shot in and around the city.

Khasan's Brailsford workshop video produced by Jason Harry

The photoshoot was a mixed theme of dance and fashion for his own portfolio

Khasan has now moved on with KYLIE MINOGUE: APHRODITE – LES FOLIES TOUR 2011 to other cities, while in Manchester we made some great images..