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You will be also able to ask questions about photography, video and cinematography and learn insightful answers from STC’s Jarmo Pohjaniemi, as well as from designer and photographer Raffael Dickreuter, whose animation, virtual camera, previsualization design and motion capture credits include:

•  Goosebumps (In production) (2016)
•  Fast & Furious 7 (filming) (2015)
•  The Hunger Games (post-production) (2014)
• Seventh Son (2015)
•  Echoes (2014)
• Captain America (2014)
•  Man of Steel (2013)
•  Who Killed Johnny (2013)
•  Grace (2011)
•  Green Lantern (2011)
•  Iron Man 2 (2010)
•  Percy Jackson & the Olympians (2010)
•  The Box (2009)
•  Terminator Salvation (2009)
•  The Incredible Hulk [motion capture technical director] (2008)
•  Iron Man (2008)
•  Aliens vs. Predator (2007)
•  Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
•  Superman Returns (2006)
•  Stay Alive (2006)
•  Flightplan (2005)

(source resume)

Some of our attendees question the inclusion and our insistence on promoting video production. There’s a clear and simple reason why it’s important for a photographers’ services to include video production.

It sells.. No other reason.

Photography isn’t the only medium that’s changing exponentially. Video, while production conceptualization remains the same, is seeing increasingly diverse means of creation, distribution and expansion. There was a time when commercial video production meant having to sit through a few boring commercials during your favorite TV show. No more. That way of thinking is now sitting in a museum next to rotary phones and record players.

Now, you come home from work, switch on the DVR. What happens when you get to a commercial during your show? That’s right, you grab the remote, zap the box and >> right through two or three minutes of airtime that cost some struggling and outdated business owner a good chunk of their ad budget to make.

With the advent of inexpensive video production, almost anyone with an understanding and moderate semblance of competency can achieve a viable video production that can be used to market their business. Currently, almost forty percent of all Internet usage is online streaming. It’s vital to perceive marketing from a consumer’s perspective and understanding. Here are a few facts that might help you wrap your mind around it:

• What’s the quickest way for a consumer to comprehend, evaluate and potentially purchase a product or service? Photography or video? That’s right. Video can accomplish what still photography can never hope to achieve: Instant service recognition and product demand. With video, a client or consumer will know what they’re getting. They will see the product in its entirety and in doing so, decide if it’s what they want, all within the few minutes it takes to see the presentation, especially when it’s placed on a social media platform. If they like it, it’s almost a certainty that your video will be shared. And even if they can’t use it, they might know someone who can.

• What happens to unsolicited emails? Correct. They’re usually trashed without even being opened. Nobody likes spam. Chances are your outmoded email message will go straight to the junk folder and deleted. When you send a “video brochure” there’s a good chance that people are going to see it, if only out of curiosity. They might even pass it to a friend they know might be interested in what you’re selling.

• Video is CHEAP. It doesn’t take much to put together a short script, plan a few scenes and put together a simple video promoting a product. If you screw it up, you can always reshoot it until you get what you want. It can then easily be put on a video-hosting site (i.e., YouTube) and a link posted on the company’s website or social media page. A good video camera is a relatively small expense when compared to its potential income.

• What? You say you only shoot models? If you can’t see the benefits of using video as opposed to still photography to promote a model, sorry, you’re in the wrong business. In the same light, no one needs to tell you a pretty face sells products. Now is the best time to start gathering a list of available models to include them in your video productions. There’s a reason Hooters Restaurants are so popular, and it’s not necessarily what’s on the menu.

• A good video will help a small company look like it can play with the big boys. Once created, a video can be used on all levels of promotion, all the way from a one-on-one to international mass marketing, including venues like trade shows, seminars and corporate meetings.

• Motion creates emotion. With video, you can use music and sound to convey emotion much more quickly and accurately than through still photography. With normal photography, emotional interpretation is ambiguous. Not so when music and imagery are combined – a specific, targeted emotion or reaction may be reached within a matter of seconds.