Recent Purchase

So recently I decided to buy a Canon 50mm usm lens. It was a long standing debate for myself to whether or not to buy the USM or the L series lens. After sort of not being 100% with the purchase, it came in the mail yesterday and I have to say all my worries went away after using it for a little while. I am not saying that this lens beats the L series in any way, it is pretty darn close...and for me pretty darn close does not validate the extra 1,000 dollar price tag of the L series glass. If Canon would bring the L lens down to about 500-700 dollars maybe it would be a different story but the L 50mm is just too expensive for the little bit of improvement you get.

Why did you buy a 50mm? Don't you have a 24-105 L lens? Good questions (invisible person) yes I do have a 24-105 but I purchased the 50 because for one it is a prime making it much faster than a zoom lens, and the other reason is the low light capability. At 1.4 the 50mm is perfect and since I just got off a gig where it was truly almost pitch black I need a lens that can respond quick and stand up to the lack of light coming into the lens. Pair this 50 with my 85mm that I already have and I now own two prime lenses that will pair nicely when I am at a gig with harsh lighting.

What is your set up at most photo gigs? Well in an ideal situation I like to have two cameras, one being my 5D Mark III and the other either a T3I/T2I or a 60D. I like this combo the best because I get full frame photos and the APS-C photos. Also in an ideal situation I pair my 24-105 L lens with a Tokina 11-16 wide lens that a friend of mine lets me borrow for gigs. This way I can get a wide range with my 24-105 (pretty much covers all my bases for different looks from a zoom) and then I will go super wide with the 11-16 and just get awesome big wide shots. Now for low light my new set up is going to be the 50mm on my 5D and the 85mm on the T3I. Finally if I can't get the 11-16 then I will pair my 85mm or 50mm with the 24-105.

Just giving some insight today, hope this helps.

Random Movie Fact: In the 1984 film Starman, the only John Carpenter film to have an Academy Award nomination (Jeff Bridges, Best Actor).

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Feels Like Photo Week

So I was going back over some of my old photos today and I came across some old photos me and my girlfriend took the day before we started filming Voicebox which was back in May. For some reason I kept thinking to myself that the pictures were not good enough to be used or something...I hadn't forgotten that I took them, just overlooked them. Anyway I found three of my favorite photos and did some touch ups and here they are. Enjoy!

Random Movie Fact: In the 2004 film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, the Mexican restaurant Veronica visits with the girls from the station is named "Escupimos en su Alimento". In Spanish, that means, "We spit in your food".

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Ahh October

So October is here and the fall is starting to come out full swing. It is a nice time to go outside and enjoy the weather and also a nice time for video production. It has been busy busy busy over here, I feel like this week was non stop. Today is no different, I will be out at the Virgin Mobile FreeFest concert all day being a DIT/Assistant for a company flying in from LA to the event. It should be a lot of fun and I haven't been to Merriweather Post Pavillon since Warped Tour 08. Moving forward from that I have a lot of potential client meetings coming up, one of which should have been yesterday but I was getting pulled in so many different directions I couldn't make it out. Plus tomorrow night I may or may not have a promotional video shoot for a local musician, still have to get confirmation.

Before I forget I wanted to announce here that To Tony Productions has been selected as the official event photography for the 3rd Annual Dundalk Zombie Walk! The event takes place on October 20th from 2-6pm at Dundalk Heritage Park, and we will be taking pictures all day around the event. Also we will have a booth set up where you can see samples of our past work and also get some free goodies. Plus there will be tons of fun activities for the whole family. Mark the calendars and we will see you there.

Random Movie Fact: In the 2012 film Dredd 3D, Duncan Jones was offered the film, but turned it down, not because he didn't like the Alex Garland script (Jones said it was great), but because he had such a strong idea of what he wanted to do with a Dredd movie, that he felt he could not bring himself to take it on and not do it his way.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Prosumer Camera Help

So yesterday night I got a call from a guy looking for me to film some lacrosse games over the next few days. I immediately called him back and everything was going great until I mentioned my only camcorder was a Canon Vixia HG20 which is a typical consumer camera. After I told him this he told me he would keep me on the short list of candidates, which I can not blame him, he wanted someone with a prosumer grade camera.

However this is why I take to the blog, as of right now I have no prosumer camera to my name (I sold my Sony HXR NX5U to trade up to a Canon 5D Mark III.) So I am looking for anyone out there to let me rent their camera. If anyone has a prosumer camera whether it takes HDV tapes or P2 cards or the Sony Cards let me know. You can email me at totonyproductions@gmail.com and please include rates for hourly rental as well as daily rental. I am just trying to find a good new connection to get access to a prosumer camera. Thanks so much in advance!

Random Movie Fact: In the 2010 film Monsters, the film was shot entirely on location: any settings featured in the film were real locations often used without permission, asked in advance, and all the films extras were just people who happened to be there at the time.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

New Headshots!

Here are some photos from a recent headshots I did for an actress I worked with on Voicebox. Her name is Ashley Golden and she is a really great talent. If are in the Baltimore or DC area and would like to work with her feel free to look her up on Facebook. I can't recommend her enough!

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

So Happy

So happy to finally have the cast all picked out and on board for this film. I now officially have everyone down and set to go. Now all I have left to do is to finalize all the locations and make a schedule for shooting. After that I have to get on my director grind and then storyboard all the shots out. Making that leap is going to be hard...from producer to director. If I screw up then that is going to make the film disastrous, which I don't think is going to happen but I have to stay confident and calm in my abilities. Otherwise it looks like another long weekend for me at work 12 hour shift tomorrow then 8 to 3 Sunday, I might try to stay a little bit later to get some more money but who knows. I hate working so much but I have to do it in order to be ready for the heavy financial burden of this film. It is crazy how all these hours at work will be washed away in a manner of two weekends of filming. But it is going to worth it when I am all done...you will see. Sorry if I have not been putting up the greatest of content on here, I will have an experimental film and a ton of pictures once my Canon 5D Mark III comes in, just a matter of days.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

February is Over

So the month of February has finally come to a close and I think this past month held many ups and downs for To Tony Productions. It was a busy month from the beginning since I was focusing very heavily on the photography side of things and got to do two actors headshots and even semi booked a third one which I have to follow up on tomorrow to make sure it is still happening. In addition I made more headway in my zombie film Love is Undead which has been slow and steady for the most part (that is something that I would for sure like to have done by the end of March). Also I finished up my first script since the summer for my upcoming short film Voicebox which I am still in the pre production phases of it. My first ever music video was released this month to a lot of positive feedback and I must say I couldn't be happier about that. With that being said the music video lead to my first write up in The Towerlight since 2009 which was huge for me. Just yesterday I booked two more music videos in May which is very exciting.

All in all February was a good month to me and I hope in March to release my zombie short film and to be 100% ready for the production of Voicebox. Other than that I also hope to get more photography gigs and to work better on the technical side of the camera.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Farewell Sony HXR NX5U

Well it is an end to an era...or maybe the first era of my film career. Today I officially sold my Sony HXR NX5U camera for $3,000. It was hard but it was time to let go of the camera, mainly because it is just outdated. It was a glorious day when the camera arrived, I was so happy to have a great camera that was going to do so much for me and it did. The camera served me amazingly for about a year and a half. I used it for Gas Guzzlers and many of my student projects, for 2010 and 11 it was perfect. However the DSLR camera has really taken over the market and it beats my camera in several categories. For one it can run higher mbp/s which makes the HD much higher quality. If you compare the two the Canon T3I or 7D beats it every time. Also DSLR cameras give you an amazing depth of field that is much more cinematic than the HXR could ever be. It does suck though because I put out a lot of money for the Redrock Micro M3 adapter which I just got last summer and I should have never bought it. At that point I was just hanging onto the silly dream of making the HXR a cinematic camera, which it could be but the low data rate just makes the picture much muddier and then the grain from the adapter just doesn't look good at all. That is the next thing to sell, I hope I can at least get a 1,000 out of the adapter.


It has been fun HXR it really has but with the RED camera and Canon C300 on the market there really isn't room for you anymore. It is a new frontier and I hope to get out and make even better looking work in the future.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

No Country for Old Men and Red State

Well over the past few nights I have watched both No Country for Old Men and Red State two very different films that are both very well done. First I would like to over my thoughts on Red State the newer of the two films.

In the film Red State a change of pace for Kevin Smith three young high school kids all decide to take up an add for a woman looking to have sex with three guys at once. They decide to go out and take this woman up on her offer and when they arrive she offers them alcohol which is inevitably poisoned with what is implied as a date rape drug. When we see one boy awaken we are now inside of a church of very creepy people. We go through the motions of seeing how crazy these people are and in the meantime the police go down to investigate the boys car who sideswiped the sheriff's car on the way up to the woman's trailer. Police officer gets shot things escalate and it goes from there. What I love about this movie is the fact that it has a good sense of humor too it which is of course a staple of most Kevin Smith films. The dark subject matter is great for Smith who I usually have stronger reservations for because I feel like his films can be a tad too talk heavy. In this film he sticks to action, humor, and violence to create a very well done film. In addition this is his first film using a digital format which he used the Red Camera which again is a nice touch that allows him to do some very unique shots. I would highly recommend this film if you and your buddies are looking for a good movie to pass the time.

In No Country for Old Men Joel and Ethan Coen deliver another great film that is very dark and stays very dark throughout. It is a film about a hired killer who is trying to find a briefcase of money from a drug deal gone wrong. A man while hunting stumbles across it and tries to flee from the pursuit of this killer as well as fellow drug dealers who are all trying to get the money. In this film we see the mindset of the man on the run, the sheriff, and the killer all who which at one point or another you sympathize with in a strange way. I don't want to give away the ending but it is a different ending then you might expect for a film like this. I know I kinda felt like it was but it still was a little bit of a shock for me. The thing I love about the Coen brothers with this film though is the way they film it, it makes it seem as though anyone could do this film as long as they have a solid ground in filmmaking. This is not a bad thing at all, I love the simplicity of the shot selection and the very classical way of telling this story. Just everything about this movie they nail dead on, there is really not a lot of flaws I could point out. Another great one to watch maybe not with a bunch of buddies but certainly a great film none the less.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

What a Waste

Well today was pretty much a wasted day to say the least. I pretty much spent all day trying to figure out good times for outdoor photography and what makes a good image vs. a bad image. I was also studying the different types of filters for good outdoor photography. I figured out polarizing filters are great for outdoor work but also the magic hours are when you need to shoot outside. At least 2 hours after sunrise or 2 hours before sunset are the best times, noon is the worst. I understand that a lot better now and I am going to invest in a Hoya Polarizing filter which is all well in good but being in Baltimore there are no stores to be able to get said things. Also on B and H Photo today online ordering wasn't starting until 6pm so I won't be able to get my filter until Tuesday at the earliest. I have a shoot that I have to do Monday in DC and I am pretty screwed right now. I am trying to borrow one so we will see. I wish that school would have been more informative about filters and shooting times and all that good stuff. I am glad I know now but I have to go to work until 8pm so I wasn't really able to get anything done. Tomorrow working 8am to 3pm so no luck there either. Trying to make time and get good rest is an impossible task to say the least.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess