(upbeat music)
- You don't really see that every day.
Today we're doing something a little bit different.
I'm gonna be following my friend
who's a fitness photographer based in Los Angeles
on one of his client jobs
and we're gonna see how he works
and get a little bit behind the scenes
on what it's like being a full-time creative.
(relaxed music)
- [Jeven] Yo, what's up?
- What's up?
- [Jeven] We doing this?
- Welcome to the scout!
- This is Jesse DeYoung.
He's a good friend of mine,
fitness photographer in Los Angeles.
And also you've probably seen him on my channel in the past.
He's helped me shoot some of my videos
and he's been along for the ride on some of my adventures.
So we're meeting up one day before the actual shoot begins
because he's trying to find three different locations
to be able to photograph in this one spot.
Now, one side note,
I'm filming this entire video using the Sony FX3.
I wanted to test it in a documentary,
run and gun style shoot.
And at the end of this video,
I'm gonna include a short review
and my thoughts about working with it
in this kind of setting.
Also, this is the first video in a series that I'm doing
where I follow behind the scenes with other creators.
All right. So let's get into it.
- I was hired to shoot for a company called Melin
and Melin is a athletic hat company.
- Oh yeah, this hat company?
- We happen to be wearing Melin hats today.
Melin makes hats for working out, they're waterproof,
they're athletic, their tagline is "made to move."
So I thought what a better place than a hike
or some sort of like physical activity place.
- [Jeven] So you're thinking these stairs down here?
- I could get some cool angles of just those stairs
and isolate my subject within the cement.
If I wanted to, or if I shoot low,
I could probably get some cool depth shots
using this location.
- So when you're doing a scout like this,
what are you looking for?
- Usually it has something to do with
telling some sort of story, to kind of engage
the people that are gonna be looking at
the photos that I make.
- [Laura] Jesse? - [Jesse] Yeah.
- Nice to meet you, Laura.
Awesome, yeah.
- This is Jeven.
- So before the camera comes out
and he starts taking photos,
he has a little conversation with the models
and he just makes sure that everyone's on the same page.
It's a moment to break the ice and get to know each other.
This is where he dove into what the company is all about
and the mission behind this specific photo shoot
and the story that he's trying to tell.
(relaxed music)
(shutter clicks)
- [Laura] Oh, sorry!
- [Jeven] Whoa, we got a balloon.
Where is this balloon coming from?
- When you shoot people in hard light,
you just have to be careful,
especially at the end of the day
that you don't have your shadow on him.
- Let me get out of this.
(shutter clicks)
- One thing I really like about Jesse's photography is
he really likes to use lighting and angles
and he's able to really create these dramatic looks
where he'll let things fall to complete black
and have those hard shadows and have that deep contrast.
And I think it just has such a striking look.
This is such a cool location, like walking around here.
We actually discovered this
'cause we were working on a shoot together,
down in Glendale, which is like 10 minutes away.
And every time we're out here, we're like,
"man, it'd be really cool to do a shoot."
- This location is questionable.
I know right now I see some things that I like
that I would love to use,
but I know at the time of the shoot,
the light will be different.
So it might not work, but there's a cool shadow here.
Like a highlight.
It would be great to isolate the subject
and then moving, using these archways could be cool.
It might not be the right vibe for the shoot,
but sometimes you try stuff and see if it will work.
- [Laura] This is really cool
- [Male Model] As I say, you could like tag, like Morocco.
Like you shot this in Morocco.
- No, I know. - [Laura] Yeah.
- The architecture, you could be like
"Yeah, we went to Morocco."
- We just got, you know, a little stipend.
- [Male Model] NBD, you know, no big deal.
- So what do you think with the lighting?
- I'm gonna try to make it work.
It's a little different than it was earlier,
but there's still lots to work with.
Now we just have to find the right angle.
- I like the layers.
- Yeah. That's one of my favorite parts about this,
is the layers.
- Yeah. It's cool.
It's got like lots of depth
and lots of texture with the archways.
(shutter clicks)
- Yeah. So this will be your lighting right here.
This will be your bounce.
And you're just gonna be standing here.
(shutter clicks)
- So this location didn't work out as planned,
but Jesse was able to pull off
a few photos that looked really good.
As a creative you just need to know that
sometimes not everything's going to work out
and you just need to know when to call it and move on.
You lose a key?
- Nope.
- That's a bad day for someone.
- It's gonna be an issue.
- So we're gonna go up now?
- Yep. We're going up.
- So this hike, this isn't an easy hike.
The reason we always would come up here
and hike after our shoot
is that it's a straight up mountain.
And you know, after a long day of shooting,
we wanted to get like a workout in.
Doing it for a photo shoot
and coming up here later with a model,
it's gonna be a little bit more of a challenge.
- So all I'm looking for is a couple of different levels.
One where I am, and then I'll have my subject or my model
be down on a lower level.
But the third thing that I need is a depth of background.
So looking at this, I'm like, oh, that would be perfect.
But you're looking down at the parking lot.
And that isn't the story that I'm trying to tell.
Every time we've come up here and we've climbed up,
it's usually been right at sunset
where we see the city lights in the distance.
It's like super inspiring.
Like, it just feels like you're up above this massive city,
which I mean, we are, you can see downtown in the distance,
downtown LA,
and then you can see all the way up the valley
and the sun sets out there over another mountain range.
You get high enough up here and you can see like
layers upon layers of mountains.
And it's insane. It's such a cool spot.
And I lived here for 14 years before I moved.
I never explored this area until like last month.
How about you?
- No, the same. (both laugh)
I kind of had it at the same time as you.
- Yeah.
(calm music)
The worst part about getting these hiking shots is
you have to leave the camera,
which means you have to come back and get it.
- It's a great view already,
and we're only like 15 minutes up.
This is it. This is the spot.
(calm music)
(shutter clicks)
- [Jeven] Great shot!
- Great stuff. Look at that shot!
- I'll maybe take a couple steps back,
but keep that spacing.
(shutter clicks)
Well, this is a shot that we planned yesterday.
It is using the leading line, the curve in the trail.
And what I'm using is a 70 to 200 focal length
and probably shooting at 200,
but I'm going up on the hill
so I can get that depth of the city.
(models laughing)
That's perfect and then-
- [Jeven] Then there's a puppy!
- Oh my God, what's your name? Hi!
(shutter clicks)
(calm music)
- Oh yeah. We're selling hats for sure.
- [Laura] (indistinct) Oh, that's really cool.
- That's a wrap.
We got three different locations
and I think we exceeded our expectations.
- Can we get like everyone, like high-fiving up?
- If you want.
(all laughing)
- [Jeven] I could have done like a...
- Yeah, let's say a team break.
- [Jeven] And... go!
- So a couple big takeaways from hanging out with Jesse
and going behind the scenes with him is:
One is that you really need to have a focus
and a niche for anything that you're doing,
whether you're a photographer or a filmmaker,
or pretty much anything else.
If you can really focus in on one thing,
rather than trying to be the Jack of all trades,
you'll find success.
Jessie has become known as a fitness photographer
and brands seek him out
because the photos that he's able to capture
will help tell their story and help their brand.
Another big takeaway from this whole experience
is just planning everything out.
He could have showed up the day of the shoot
and just found some good spots and shot some photos.
But having that pre-planning day, having that scout day
gave him the ability to really think through his story.
And he was able to find some cool and unique locations
and really be able to think through
lighting and everything else that goes into the photos,
but also knowing what's going on around the photos,
thinking through all of these elements is super important.
And basically with anything that you do,
the more that you can plan it out,
the more that you can alleviate a lot of the issues.
And it also just gave him a lot of flexibility
when it came to the shoot because he had his plan.
But if anything came up, he was able to just jump off script
and be able to do some different creative things
that ended up turning out really cool in the photos.
So I just wanna do a quick review of the Sony FX3,
I'll include another video at the end of this,
that goes through the 10 reasons why
I decided to not keep this camera
and I decided to just stay with my a7S III.
So when I was shooting this little mini documentary,
the hardest thing has been
seeing the screen in bright daylight.
I was out shooting in the middle of the day.
I was shooting towards sunset.
And a lot of times it was hard to see what was going on
on the screen.
And I just kind of had to make judgment calls
and you'll see a lot of the footage
ended up being pretty overexposed in different situations.
In a run and gun setting it was hard to use.
Now the beauty of this camera
is that there is a lot of latitude
where you can pull back some of those highlights
and you can actually recover a lot of the image.
So the sensor is amazing. The camera is great.
But I actually prefer having that EVF
and also in a run and gun setting
I like putting the EVF up to my eye
and it helps stabilize the camera a little bit more.
But for me in this kind of scenario,
I definitely think the a7S III
works much better than the FX3.
Now my setup was the FX3, the 24 to 105 and a shotgun mic.
And that's pretty much all I used for this entire shoot.
And I think it was a great run and gun setup
just to have a small mirrorless body, one lens.
And I don't have to worry about switching anything.
And I was more focused on trying to
capture what was going on and tell the story,
because at the end of the day,
the story is the most important,
not always visuals and everything else,
because if you can tell a good story
and you can capture the moment,
that's what you're gonna end up using in the edit.
As I said earlier in this video,
this is part of a series I'm doing
where I go behind the scenes with other creators.
And I want to hear from you.
Who is a creator that you want to see behind the scenes,
and you want to see a little bit more
about their creative process?
Now, next, I highly suggest you check out this series here.
It's all of my story-driven adventure style films
and below that is 10 reasons why I decided not to keep
the Sony FX3.
All right, I'll see you over there.