The first week of November brings us to shooting another Artists In Action series for our favorite makeup company. Once again, we are going to the Tribeca Skyline Studios and setting up a four-camera shoot. The angle I took on this was to create an environment where the makeup artist gets to do what they do best and capture it with four cameras operated by some of the best indie film shooters in town. We have enlisted the talents of up-and-coming dps/filmmakers - Kai Leung, Julian King, Chris Teague and Bob Boothe. With the right environment and the right talent, all should run as smooth and with the best result as the last time we did this. I’m looking forward to it.
Another season has arrived. Last year’s Halloween Fantasticals video for M.A.C was such a success with their audience that we set out to make another one this year. Once again, I enlisted the musical talents of Omar Ajluni and went for a tribal score to match the sequential stills and frequent frames. M.A.C’s audience has fully embraced the piece and, hopefully, we inspired several to get their makeup kits out and have some fun this year.
M.A.C says: Spooky-kooky to ga-ga gorgeous, the top looks of Halloween are here as five M∙A∙C Senior Artists demonstrate how monstrously fun and devilishly doable our looks can be!
This project was like a jam session, a riff on graphics and stills. My motion graphics artist and I were playing the juxtaposed computers like instruments or turntables.
M.A.C had just finished shooting the stills in the UK with Miles Aldridge. Toni Lakis at M.A.C set this in motion with a cool direction she wanted to go in and gave me the freedom to take it there. A great starting point was the track by Mika from Klein Records in Vienna. It had the right tempo and spoke the right language.
Girls from outer space landed in Berry Behrendt’sBeaver street studio just in time for us to shoot this magazine promo. More candy for the eyes, devoid of narrative, but with large doses of energy, light and textures.
If I meet someone for the first time, say in my local French bistro, and they ask me – Austin what do you do? Instead of the default answer - video director, film maker etc… These days I just tell people “I sling eye candy for a living”.The next question is usually – what does that mean?
Photographer Clive Booth asked me to get involved in a project he was doing with fashion designer Roksanda Ilincic. Clive had documented four consecutive fashion shows for Roksanda at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK.
I like Clive’s open-aperture, shallow-depth-of-field style. The footage was something I really needed to absorb; there was a lot of it. This needed an imaginative concept to pull it together. Again, I found myself with a lot of freedom to create what I wanted. Roksanda’s strong features and glaring eyes made me dream of magical, emotional, breathless moments. It ended up being a little less about the event and more about textures, color, emotion and dreams.
M.A.C - Fall ‘09 as seen by New York artists Marilyn Minter, Richard Phillips, and Maira Kalman.
I embarked on this project at the end of last year and it’s great to finally have it go public. It gave me an intimate insight into some really wonderful New York artists. Their passion, techniques and points of view inspired me. Marilyn’s quest for the magic moment, Richard’s creative zone and Maira’s feel for color, texture and humor will resonate with me for a long time.
So many projects have come and gone this year but this is one I will remember. For me it was about creativity, process, color and New York City. I felt ‘right at home’ documenting creative minds that live for their work.
M∙A∙C takes you behind the scenes to visit the three top contemporary artists as they create the dynamic images for the Fall ‘09 Make-up Art Cosmetics colour collection. See what happens when M∙A∙C makeup and these art world luminaries get together. Art is in M∙A∙C’s DNA, so this season we celebrated artists in every shade and stripe by inviting three of the art worlds leading luminaries to create images for our Fall ‘09 Make-Up Art Cosmetics collection. See these artists as they work with M∙A∙C colour. Richard Phillips with his trademark approach to hyper-glamour, digitally retouches an image with supersaturated M∙A∙C colour and finishes. Illustrator, Maira Kalman, makes bold with shades, giving us a playfully eccentric, brighter-than-bright take on life, while Marilyn Minter’s attitude towards seduction and sexiness meets its match in M∙A∙C pigments and glitter.
A couple of years ago, a good friend (producer/director) was putting together this web series and looking for a DP.I was cutting a documentary for him at the time and I offered to step in if he was unable to find anybody. He didn’t and I was on board. I hadn’t shot drama for quite a while but it was a great time and now it’s on the Sundance Channel. Thanks Stuart.
The queen of pop MADONNA is using the video Marilyn Minter and I made for her Sticky and Sweet European tour! The video is featured on several massive screens during her show opening / Candy Shop performance. The tour kicked off in London yesterday, July 4th, and will run into September. If you are in Europe and have a chance to check it out, remember that I shot those lips. It’s not every day that things like this happen and it is cool to know that when that hot diva arrives on stage each night for the next couple months, she will be surrounded by our video. Totally cool.
I had just finished a studio scout up near 44th street for a shoot happening soon and realized that the pace of my life is high and the movement around me matched. It’s so easy in this amazing city to get caught up in it all. The pulse seems to drive everything and a lot of the time I feel I’m in the stream of it. No matter how fast moving it is there can always be moments of pure beauty, incredible emotion and fascinating imagery.
It doesn’t take much to be inspired if you allow it. There are stories in every moment, all around us. You just need to stop once in a while and pay attention. New York City is an incredible place to have a visual journey. It is built from the energy of millions of us and the millions that came before us. All these stories surround and influence. They make me feel like anything is possible here.
It started to rain so I walked back my studio in the East Village with the palms of my hands open to catch every drop. It was warm and I didn’t mind being soaked. When I arrived, I thanked my boots for serving me well the last 6 years. They are probably the best pair I have ever had and I know we have a lot more ahead of us. So I looked up to the sky and thought it was ok to reach for it. There are only clouds in the way.
A series of photos I took are being published in the Fall 2009 M.A.C Zine. The photos support a preview article about M.A.C’s Fall 2009 collection and the artists involved. On the title spread are also some frames from the video I directed. Big thanks to designer Loann Lam for including my work.
