Family Link photoshoot

So.... For anyone who really knows me.... I have spent countless... Or more hours working for free, for everyone... EVERYONE, and trying to learn all that I can from everyone that I come into contact with, regarding photography, and cinematography, I have had awesome influences such as people like Scott Jarvie, Cole Webley, Derek Pueblo, and countless other people and teachers. All of these people I have learned a ton about lighting, lenses, etc. I have taken every class that they offer wherever I go, and read every book I can on the subject. After all this... after shooting so many peoples pictures/films, I have finally been able to establish myself so that I can make money, and now even a living doing what I LOVE!!!!!!!! I am living my dreams, and its only getting better.
This summer I have had sooo many awesome opportunities, all paid, and they come so often, that I even have the choice of who I get to work with, and it only continues to get better.














This week I had the opportunity to work for ancestry.com/familylink. They hired me out to shoot product shots of these portraits that they are starting to sell.
Also, during the same week I had the chance to DP/Edit two commercials for Orabrush.com. They were simple web commercials, but still a fun/unique learning experience. I love so much what I am doing, I love the people I get to work with. And I am blown away by what I get to experience and learn with each new project that I get to work with, and the opportunities
those open for me.

Adventures in Moab land!

Do you ever have those days where you wake up, and have nothing on your mind but to get away from it all?.. And go on an adventure? Well... that's how I am everyday :) A week ago I called my friend Jamison, at the last minute, less then a day before, and asked if he would go out to Moab with me. He was down! So we packed up my Subaru with a cooler full of 24 bottles of water, all of which we drank, hotdogs, and sandwiches, and we headed out on an adventure!

It was amazing!! I have never been to Moab! And for me this was photography heaven! I have a Subaru wagon/outback that I just got, so we put it to full use. We slept in the back, we would... or I should say I would stay up until 2am taking pictures of the stars, only to wake up around 5-6 am, and drive to the next best place to take pictures for golden hour. Jamison slept in the back, and would wake up around 9-10 by the time I was done taking pictures of the sunrise. So it was the perfect combination. Then we would go hiking out in Arches/Canyonlands. I fell in love with this place, so photogenic! And the history of it all I'm in love with!

We would park/camp in the middle of what appeared to be the Grand Canyon, we would get there so late from the day ahead, only to awake to being engulfed in a massive canyon.

We also ran into a little trouble on our adventure. My car got stuck when we took it on a gnarly road. And it stopped working almost completely, we were 20 miles out in the middle of nowhere,... then I started to panicking in my heart. There was no way anyone could help us get it out. We somehow managed to get it running good enough that we drove it into town and got it fixed. It's always an adventure!

BYU Indepedent Study Commercials

We just got done wrapping up a week of filming the three commercials that we pitched to BYU Independent Study! We came up with the entire concept, and pitched them to BYU. They loved the ideas, so they were willing to give us full support in making them a campaign. All three commercials dealt with cute, dirty little country kids, taking on the impossible, in this case it was flight.

We had an awesome crew, and in many cases it was the funnest time I have ever had on set, working with amazingly talented people, with a budget where we got the chance to turn our ideas into reality.

Jamison Dayton produced all three of them. With Jacob Schwarz directing the kite(plane) and rocket boy commercial. I directed the balloon commercial, and was the DP on all three commercials. They will be playing in between General Conference, and will be on several TV stations, including BYU Independent Study website, when they are all finished.

My mom and dad also drove down from Portland Oregon for the final commercial, the balloon one. They did all the food for the entire crew. It was awesome having them there to see the world that I'm getting into.

Cancun Adventure!

I just got back from perhaps my biggest and best adventure yet! I have always wanted to visit the Mayan ruins, and this week I had the opportunity to do just that. I got hired to film/DP a chocolate commercial working with Kineto Pictures in Salt Lake. Travis Babcock was the director, and Jamison Dayton came as well, as a 1st Assistant Camera man, and PA, etc. It was a three man crew. They both spoke fluent Spanish, and I knew nothing of the language, which was quite funny because I had no idea what was going on half the time, and they had to constantly translate everything for me.

We also worked like crazy! We wanted to take advantage of our opportunity for being out there, so we would often wake up around 5 am, and go to bed at what seemed like 2 am, to catch the best lighting to film in, and do location scouting, and the crazy thing is, I honestly loved every minute of it!

We stayed at an amazing hotel right on the beach, all inclusive, with as many pina colodas as we could drink, we took advantage of that :) The entire commercial took place on the Mayan ruins and jungles, so I was in photography heaven for the whole week. We got access to many places most people don't have access to. And the places we didn't have access to, we found a way to get access to them :)

We had Mayan actors as well, recreate all these scenes of chocolate being made from a plant. They travel by canoe to deliver it to the Mayan King. The last day we had some free time, so we went to Tulum, and went swimming right below the Mayan pyramid. No one was hardly there at all because of the swine flu! I was loving every minute of it! And this is only the beginning :) I plan for film to take me all around the world, starting with Cancun :)

Underwater excursion

This last week we filmed a commercial for the BYU swim/dive team. It was an awesome experience for all of us because the entire commercial consisted of filming and lighting underwater. Something none of us had done before, and we had the opportunity to work with phenomenal athletes in the process. On top of all of that we had an awesome crew, which always helps a great deal. And my dad flew down to support me as well, it doesn't get any better then that :)











We filmed Monday through Wednesday night, we had to film after hours because we had to shut down the entire pool. Jake and I were in the water for like 6 hours a night, and the chlorine ate us alive. Not fun. We were also shooting on the redone and we kept on having a problem with the humidity giving the camera a problem, but we were able to work around that as well.Jake was the director on this commercial, with Jamison Dayton as producer, and me as DP. We had full support from the Swim team, and were excited to see what doors open up because of this experience, for all of us. You can check out some of our sample footage with the video below.



Once again, it always amazes me on the adventures that film making takes us on. We have a wonderful team, and I can see us all working together to the end!

This is Devin signing out.

Summer Adventure Begins.

Currently were working on several commercials for BYU. One for the dive team, swim team, and BYU Independent Study, with several other side projects lined up as well. Most of which we will be shooting on 35MM Film and on the Redone camera. All of which are being produced by Jameson Dayton. Its also one of our first times working with a budget where the teams are funding the projects to make them happen. They will also be airing on KBYU and some will be on PBS. So it will be great exposure for all of us. And were all working together to make sure they are the best we have to offer at this time. So were all very excited for this opprotunity.

Jake and I will be leaving this week to LA to get trained on some underwater film equipment for the dive team commercial, and will be meeting up with several other contacts that we have up there. Stay tuned as the adventure continues.

-Devin

In the thick of the battle...

The summer adventure begins.... Yesterday I had my own solo escapade. I went off headed out in the middle of nowhere, and I really do mean that, no exaggeration there. I was looking for a location to film, for a commercial were shooting in a month. After driving out in the middle of nowhere, somewhere past Provo canyon. I veered off the road, and started to go off the path about a mile or two. Not the smartest thing, especially if you have seen my car and the weather conditions. Anyways, long story short, I thought I could get past this ditch area...... And I failed.. In fact I didn't even come close. And it was so muddy everywhere, I was all by myself, and my phone was about to die.... So... I kinda laughed to myself because all odds were against me... I spent 5 hours in the mud, hail, and lighting trying to get my car out of the mud. I tried everything... Halfway through,... I decided I would have to try another method... So I walked towards the river, by the river there was these old creepy abondoned houses that looked like something from a horror movie. I found a shed full of old rotten wood, and I grabbed a couple pieces to see if I could use them to move my car.. The whole time I was waiting for someone to pop out and kill me... Haha, and I'm partly being serious to.

Eventually I got the boards I found back to my car, and had to build a teeter totter to lift my front end of my car up. After a couple more hours I was eventually able to pull my car out. I was completely soaked, covered in mud, and freezing. But I cant remember the last time I have felt so relieved as I pulled out of the mud, I felt like busting out in my own musical! Life was wonderful.

This is where I was stuck, and the view from my window.

The sense of adventure....

Last summer I read one of the most amazing books..... In fact I can honestly say its one of those books that changes your mindset, and the way you perceive the world. This book did that to me, "Into The Wild". Since then Sean Penn has made a movie about it. But its all based off of letters from a guy by the name of Alex, who leaves everything has has for the sense of adventure. He starts a brand new identiy, and goes off to make the most out of life. Below, I typed up a letter he sent to one of his friends he made along the way of his adventure. I have since then read this letter several times, I think there are so many great lessons to be learned in it. And once again, this is the chalenge I am taking on this summer. This whole year I have been ingulfed so much into film, where I haven't had the chance to live for myself, and without that knowledge I loose my poser as a film maker to, because the strongest power that comes from film making is the abilitiy to tell stories of life that connect with others. That is my goal this summer, to begin that process once again of discovering my own self.









Here's the letter that Alex sent to his friend. It's a little long, but I promise its worth the read.

I’d like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give ne peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination o=in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience.
You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.
My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.
Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. You will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don’t hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did.
Take care Ron,
Alex

The story continues...

This summer is going to be an adventure, the best is yet to come! Never have I been so excited for what lies ahead of me.

Last week thursday, I went 80's dancing with a couple of my friends, and halfway through, they played one of my favorite songs of all time, "Take On Me", by A-Ha, it was one those amazing moments that gets your blood pumping so fast, and I looked around and got so excited to be living at this time. So with this in mind, I thought it would only be necessary to keep a blog of my summer adventures, and everything that will evolve from hence forward. I have had a blog in the past, didnt write anything on it except for super painful dramatic experieces that were going on in my life.

This blog will be quite different, it will be revolved around everything great in life