Dylan Patrick’s The Cinematic Headshot is a tutorial from Fstoppers. In six hours Dylan shows how he shoots and Photoshops his headshots. His signature style is a bit of Hollywood style lighting and a blurred background. He’s one of those photographers that likes to shoot outdoors with studio lighting. During one of his sample shoots I was reminded of a scene from Lust for Life where van Gogh tied his canvas to his easel in a strong wind. I would have been tempted to find someplace else to shoot or wait for another day. Dylan talks about gear and how his…
Author: Jon Herrera
Writer, Photographer, Blogger.
Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs was not one of my heroes. I’ve always been a Bill Gates man. Until he died, I knew next to nothing about Jobs. After watching Steve Jobs, I feel like I now know nothing. The bulk of Steve Jobs sees Steve as he prepares three product launches. We watch him wander around backstage and yell at his underlings. He interacts with a slightly mad woman he may or may not have had a daughter with. The child hangs around as well and Steve appears to be fond of her. He doesn’t not appear to be very fond of…
Horace and Pete
Horace and Pete is an American web series created by, written by and directed by Louis C.K. Less a TV Show and more a filmed stage play. Or something like a stage play. The sets are large open areas and the stages make loud noises as the actors walk across them. There are also a lot of long, lingering, painful shots. The kind of takes you would expect in a play where everyone is on stage the whole time. Horace and Pete has an amazing cast. Steve Buscemi, Edie Falco, Steven Wright, Alan Alda, Jessica Lange, and several other greats who have…
Hulu’s 11.22.63
Spoilers. It’s always a bittersweet experience when a beloved book is translated into a film, or in this case, a miniseries. Stephen King’s 11.22.63 was a very long book with a lot of small details. So it is not really surprising that whole swaths of the book are left out. Right off the bat there is the odd casting choice of James Franco as Jake Epping, a man from Maine who travels back in time to 1958. This is odd, because while everyone remember black racism in the good old days, they don’t always remember the racism against Hispanics. The…
Dead Ice
Laurell K. Hamilton wrote the first Anita Blake book in 1993, so it is a bit odd when Anita mentions how old she feels, now that she’s 31, instead of the 46 she should be. Of course, being the Human Servant of a Master Vampire, she’s not aging much anyway. Dead Ice starts off like an old fashioned Anita Blake Vampire Hunter book. There’s a bit of zombie raising that doesn’t go exactly as planned followed by a call from the Authorities that they need her help on a case. Be still my heart, monster and slayer action! Then we…
The Good Dinosaur
Why The Hell Is Pixar Still Making Cartoons?? Ok, The Good Dinosaur was a good movie. It was basically a remake of Bambi or Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer or any other cute small animal who has to fin for himself in a cold, cruel world before heading home a stronger and wiser fellow. Pure formula and there’s nothing really wrong with that. This a frame from the film of a branch and some leaves. Most of the film looks like this. Hyper realistic images. Amazing mountains, clouds, trees, rocks, water, and every background image is picture perfect. Pixar is pretty…
Spotlight
Catholic Priests have been raping children for as long as there have been Catholic Priests. The problem is that bit of bullshit where young men are supposed to give up sex for life. It seems that a lot of Priests hold the view that only sex with an adult woman is bad, homosexual sex and sex with children is peachy keen. Enter the reporters working for the Boston Globe in the late 1990. They find this odd little story about a Priest who has been moved around from Parish to Parish-after he has been accused of molesting children. They do…
Room
Room was a good movie. Lots of moving moments. Great acting and a gripping story. It drifted slightly from the book, but it has been a few years since I read it. Much like the book, the first half of Room the movie is amazing. The tale of a little boy whose whole life has been lived in a storage unit. We have a modern take on Plato’s The Cave, if you only know the world of Room, is there really any more to the world? Jack is the hero of the story and his Ma is a bit mad.…
Deadpool
Damn-That Was Good. A lot of hard hitting movies from the past have been remade for pussies. RoboCop, Total Recall, the last few Terminator movies all had the heart and soul ripped out of them to make them kinder and gentler films. Deadpool pulls no punches and soaks the screen in blood and gore and f-bombs. And it was fucking brilliant. I have to believe that the Heroes who wrote Deadpool are huge fans of Honest Trailers and Everything Wrong With. The opening credits were absolutely amazing, giving credit to Hot Chicks and Asshats as it gave us a tour of…
In the Heart of the Sea
The story of the whaler Essex that inspired the novel Moby Dick. Moby Dick was a great book-one that is a great read and has never been successfully made into a film. So here we have the tale of a bunch of greedy bastards who murder whales for a living. One whale fights back for some unknowable reason. If all the whales sank all the whalers, now that might have been a movie worth watching. In the Heart of The Sea is not a bad film. The acting is good, the effects are OK, if a bit clunky in spots when…