Adrea Laroche hires me for her new Kickstarter campaign.

I was sitting across from Adrea and Chad Laroche at my office on a Fall evening just before the pumpkin spice latte was released. We broke out our iGadgets and began to discuss Adrea’s future. Notable Nashville producer Paul Buono and Adrea have been crafting her latest EP and you could sense the excitement in Adrea’s voice – this was going to be a breakthrough project.
Such endeavors aren’t cheap, so Chad and Adrea thought Kickstarter would be a great avenue to help raise the necessary funds to complete her new album.
The barista churns out the comforting sounds of steam and milk colliding in a stainless steel pitcher when Adrea hits me with:

“I need a new video that really captures who I am.”

This project was exactly the kind of art I enjoy creating. I was not only charged with capturing Adrea’s personality on film, I had to sell her too. The viewer needed to know from watching the video that this girl has the goods. She can sing, she can carry herself with poise and confidence, and clearly, her music is coming from deep inside her. In short, she is worth the investment.
Chad and Adrea are awesome people. My Wife and I have grown closer to them through this little project and I gained much more through this experience than just another client.

Shot on the 7d in three locations: Main Street Lexington, Kentucky, and two different spots at Keeneland Racecourse. I wasn’t happy with the mise en scene in our original script which put Adrea in downtown Lexington (too busy and distracting), so we moved to a quieter, country setting. This made the entire video feel more warm and organic. I shot with an 18-135 lens, f3.5, 1/250, at 24 fps. I added the film look (contrast and grain) in post. Not bad for the cheap lens I was using.

I like this artist! How can I support her?

Head on over to Kickstarter and see what you can do to get Adrea to the next level. This album is going to be awesome, so you should become part of the story.

T he menu is up! I was sitting in Wendy’s for a little fast food fix and found myself admiring their menu. Clean, colorful, appealing, and straight forward. I thought about the fact that somewhere, there was a graphic design artist who paid his mortgage designing menus like this.
I was inspired to offer a menu here at Martin Ray Vaughan.com.
First, because in my line of work you rarely see this kind of simplicity. Typically in web design or videography websites you do not see prices. Instead, you contact the artist and eventually discover the price tag. So to me, it was a refreshing approach to allow a visitor to paruse my site, look at my style, and then know up front what kind of investment is involved. Secondly, I’m always looking for a reason to sit down and do some design work. This menu is a far cry from a fastfood menu, but I wanted it to be clean and inviting, and simnple. I imagined a six year old pointing at it, saying, “That one!”.

I give my Canon 7d a test while a Pelican gets his (or her) dinner.

H aving spent the majority of our Fripp Island vacation shooting stills, I found myself at the omonious sounding Skull Inlet, at the Southern tip of the barrier island, ready to fire up the HD movie mode. After all, this was why I had purchased the 7d. However I had become enthralled with the DSLR technology and was becoming dangerously close to chasing the passion of photography.
As I rolled camera, I got lucky to find the wildlife active and ready for dinner. This is a pelican hunt.
The music is me on the hammered dulcimer, recorded in my office with the Samsung CO1U.

F ripp Island is the furthest of South Carolina’s Sea Islands, and was rumored to be the hiding place for Blackbeard. This barrier island is known for it’s conservation efforts and after my Wife and I visited, I can see why. Only developed in the last fifty years, Fripp is still a snapshot of what coastal spots in the United States used to be like.

There’s a saying on the Island – “you won’t see a Neon sign here!”. We stayed a week and I got to get acquainted with my new Canon 7d. Here are a few photos.

T asha and I were invited down to Lake Cumberland by David Rector and my niece Kat. We were joined by my youngest niece Abby Taylor. The five of us took to the water and lived life for all it was worth. Here is just a glimpse of the weekend. It was refreshing to get away from the city and slow down – even if our idea of “slowing down” is doing 60 mph on the open water!

T asha and I play in the Atlantic with our body board and the Go Pro HD Hero high definition cam. The best moment, not caught in this video unfortunately, is when two girls approached Tasha and asked if she was a professional. She’s pretty awesome at it, I must say!

{Tasha recently visited Alexa in San Francisco and they had a blast running around the city with their cameras. Here Tasha is stealing the beauty of the work of art behind her}

{Golden Gate}

{It just took a little prompting from Alexa to get Tasha to flirt a little with the camera…it’s obvious to me that she could have been stirring up the scene in L.A. or New York if she wanted.  I’m so glad she stayed in Lexington!}

TheDemoFinal by Marty Vaughan

I desperately wanted to take the Canon XH A1 on this trip but there were just too many risks for damage to my equipment. We were flying (the first risk!), and planned on some intense downhill mountain biking, hiking a 14er, and even possibly whitewater rafting. I settled instead on the smaller Panasonic GS300 and my newest toy, the HD Hero by GoPro. Oh, and of course now I have to add the iPhone 4 to my list of video equipment since it shoots in 720p high definition. Clearly the world of video is changing right before our eyes when you can carry such technology in your pocket.
The GoPro ended up being the true asset on this trip. Nearly indestructible and waterproof, this camera begs you to not hold back but to go straight to the edge of your comfort zone and take a few steps further. My only regret is that we didn’t fit the rafting in on this trip, which would have been interesting footage. To check out this mighty little camera for yourself, click on the link in my sidebar.

Tasha and I spent a week in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. This little gem of a town is just about our speed. The town’s tag line is “Arrogantly Shabby”. I love that. We spent a day in Myrtle Beach, shopping and dining, but honestly I couldn’t wait to get back to Pawleys, where the pace of life is a little slower…that is, until you grab your body board or jet ski and tackle the five foot waves. With only a small flesh wound on my back, I count myself lucky to have made it home relatively unscathed.