Welcome to the VELFILM blog!
My name is Vadim Elkind and I am a freelance filmmaker and photographer living in Denver. This blog contains the latest news and information about my media projects, photography, travel stories and other creative pursuits.
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Category Archives: Photography
Nightlife Photography: The Hundred at Beauty Bar (12.17.11) with DJ MyKill, Dylan LeDisko and Matt Ferry
In case you missed it, the second installment of The Hundred dance party took place on December 17th at the Beauty Bar. Below is a slideshow of photos I took at the event (you can see the full set here):
Don’t miss the next The Hundred dance party on 1.28.11, which will feature Kris Barman of InnerPartySystem and other guests!
Also posted in Nightlife
Tagged dance party, DJ, Dylan LeDisko, Matt Ferry, MyKill, nightclub, Nightlife, Option4, Photography, TheHundred
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Nightlife Photography: Lipgloss at La Rumba with Le Castle Vania (11.11.11)
Le Castle Vania played a great set at Lipgloss on 11.11.11. As always, check out the Lipgloss Flickr gallery to see the entire set of photos from that night, or view the slideshow at the end of this post.
Nightlife Photography: The Hundred at Beauty Bar (11.19.11) with Damon Allen, Peter Black, Mike Deez and Option4
Last Saturday kicked off the first monthly dance party at Denver’s Beauty Bar called The Hundred. Created by Brennen Bryarly (aka Option4), The Hundred is a social concept spawned by the love of real music, where a select number of dedicated fans (can you guess how many?) get to vote and decide which talent they want to come out and play at each month’s event. For more information, check out this Westword article (which features a photo of Brennen by Yours Truly, albeit uncredited) and the Kaffeine Buzz interview with Option4.
I know Brennen from Lipgloss, where he is a resident DJ along with Michael Trundle, so I knew he would bring tons of charisma and good energy to The Hundred. However, I think it’s fair to say that the turn-out on Saturday exceeded everyone’s expectations.
I photographed the event with my Canon 7D, sporting a Tokina 10-16mm F2.8 lens and a Canon 430 EXII flash (pretty much, my standard nightclub photography set-up these days). You can see the entire photo set on The Hundred Flickr site, or just play the slideshow at the end of this post (make sure to full-screen it and crank up some dance music to go with it for a full effect)!
Also posted in Nightlife
Tagged Beauty Bar, Damon Allen, dance, DJ, Mike Deez, nightclub, Nightlife, Option4, party, Peter Black, The Hundred
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Blast from the past – SUICIDE RUN on Vimeo
In the summer of 2000, I got an opportunity to work as a grip on a 35mm low-budget indie horror film that was shot outside Colorado Springs, called Suicide Run. At the time, I was still a student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, studying film production. Shooting on location 3 weeks turned out to be an amazing experience. It was like a filmmaking bootcamp! I learned so much on that set, from technical know-how about various types of motion picture lighting and diffusion (assisting John, who owns GripWorks) to general workflow of an independent feature film production. I had a blast and met many awesome people, some of which I became good friends with and still keep in touch to this day.
Ashley Haglund, the director of Suicide Run recently uploaded the entire film to Vimeo, making it available for free streaming and download. While I admit – it’s just a cheesy slasher flick that looks like a bad 90-minute student film, Suicide Run was an incredibly fun learning experience for almost everyone involved (most of whom were, in fact, students). Having said that, there are some cool gore practical effects and a twist ending. If you have time to kill and have a love for B-horror movies, give it a watch!
I scanned some of the behind-the-scenes photos I took during production of SR (using an APS-C film camera – that’s before the digital days, folks)! I thought it might be fun to share them here.
Of course, I couldn’t resist putting my hands on the 35mm Arri camera:
There is a funny and terribly embarrassing story that involves myself, this cute little bunny rabbit, a mountain road and crashing the director’s car:
Nightlife Photography: Zombie Disco at Lipgloss (10.28.11)
Below are the photos from the Lipgloss Halloween dance party with American Royalty DJ set, which took place on October 28. As always, you can check out the Lipgloss Flickr Gallery to see the full set or view the slideshow at the end of this post.
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Also posted in Nightlife
Tagged American Royalty, halloween, lipgloss at la rumba, nightclub, Nightlife, Photography, Zombie Disco
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Like Crazy Premiere at the 2011 Denver International Film Festival
Last night, the 34th Annual Starz Denver International Film Festival kicked off at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House with the premiere of Drake Doremus’ new film Like Crazy.
I try to go and see at least a couple of films at SDIFF every year, but this was the first time I attended the red carpet opening night event. I liked the film a lot, which critics are calling a love story for the new generation. I’m not sure if I would go as far as to compare it to 500 Days of Summer, as it has a very different and slightly more melancholic vibe. However, it’s on-and-off relationship subject matter is familiar, and I definitely found the film very moving and engaging. Amazing work by the lead actors (Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones), which didn’t feel like acting at all.
Here are a few bad cellphone snapshots from the red carpet – forgive me for not bothering to bring a proper camera :)
Also posted in Behind The Scenes, Movies, Personal
Tagged film, Like Crazy, premiere, red carpet, Starz Denver International Film Festival
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Nightlife Photography: Lipgloss at La Rumba 10.14.11 (Mark Ronson Meet-n-Greet, Run For Cover Tour feat. The Chaotic Good and Skyler Mendoza)
This Friday, Lipgloss is throwing Halloween-themed Zombie Disco party. Don’t miss it! You can check out some photos from last year’s Lipgloss Halloween bash here.
Meanwhile, below are the pics from Run For Cover Tour with The Chaotic Good ad Skyler Mendoza at Lipgloss a couple of weeks ago. For more photos from the party, check out the slideshow at the end of this post, or visit the Lipgloss Flickr Gallery.
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Also posted in Nightlife
Tagged DJ, La Rumba, Lipgloss, nightclub, Nightlife, Photography, Skyler Mendoza, The Chaotic Good
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Nightlife Photography Mega-Update: Lipgloss at La Rumba (September 2011)
The powers that be at Lipgloss finally got around to posting these last week. For many more photos from each event, click on the links or check out the embedded slideshows at the end of this post. Enjoy!
9.2.11: Lipgloss vs. Double // Shadow (DJs boyhollow and option4 with James Holden and James Yardley):
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Also posted in Nightlife
Tagged boyhollow, Danger Granger, DJ, Double Shadow, I Am Music, James Holden, James Yardley, La Rumba, Lipgloss, nightclub, Nightlife, Option4, Photography, Sammy Bananas, Tokina 11-16mm
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Nightlife Photography with Tokina ATX-116 Pro DX: Lipgloss at La Rumba (8.19.11 and 9.2.11)
During the last couple of photo shoots at Lipgloss, I finally got a chance to play with my new Tokina 11-16mm lens in a nightclub environment. I love the ultra-wide angle and fast F2.8 aperture it provides (although, I almost never go down to F2.8 and usually hover around F3.5-F4 to keep things a little bit more in focus).
As most people know, nightclub photography is especially challenging due to a variety of factors that range from technical issues such as extreme low-light and constantly-changing ambiance to logistical annoyances (impenetrable crowds of drunk people, noise, spilled drinks and etc). There is no time to mess with focus or other settings – a nightclub photographer needs to be able to grab shots on the fly. It’s a battlefield out there! One advantage of the Tokina is that it’s built like a tank. And, even though it doesn’t have a silent motor and focusing is therefore not as fast or smooth as with my Canon EF-S 17-55mm lens, because of Tokina’s narrow ultra-wide range, it’s usually not a problem. The glass is pretty sharp, even if that is not always evident from my quarter-second exposures :) I do wish it had IS, but even without stabilization the lens performs quite well.
I really like the extreme wide angles you can get with ATX-116, such as this shot of former Lipgloss resident DJ Chase Dobson, who came back to play a set on August 19th:
And, even though it’s a wide lens, you can still a little bit of bokeh effect when you get really close to your subject, zoomed in to 16mm at F2.8:
Of course, vertical people shots at 11mm can look pretty distorted, in a fun way :)
At 16mm (below-right), distortion isn’t too bad:
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Also posted in Nightlife
Tagged boyhollow, Chase Dobson, dance club, DJ, Double Shadow, James Holden, James Yardley, lipgloss at la rumba, Michael Trundle, nightclub, Nightlife, Option4, party, Photography, Tokina ATX 116
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2011 Summer Camping Trip (Part 2): Collegiate Peaks
On the second leg of my camping trip last week, I stayed at the Collegiate Peaks campground outside Buena Vista, Colorado. Once again, after the evening thunderstorms, the skies cleared enough to provide some spectacular views of the stars. I even got lucky and captured several meteors streaking across the sky in some of the long-exposure shots below. It’s fascinating to me that our planet is under constant bombardment by space rocks (essentially every few seconds), but we often don’t realize or forget about that because something like 99.9% of meteors are tiny (sometimes as small as a grain of sand) and burn up in the atmosphere before they ever have a chance of reaching the ground.
Enlarged crop of the photo above that shows the meteor more clearly:
Some meteors that I captured were so faint that they weren’t visible to the naked eye and were only discovered later when I looked at the photos more closely:
I used my small LED flashlight to illuminate the tree during this 30-second exposure:
A little bit of fun with light painting:
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Also posted in Travel
Tagged camping trip, Collegiate Peaks, Colorado, landscape, long exposure, meteor, meteors, nature, night sky, Photography, starscape, Travel
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