Act Of Valor

May 22

Dark Energy for After Effects

Lance Maurer and his team at Cinnafilm developed the Dark Energy Suite, a revolutionary texture management system. This is how I was able to seamlessly cut film and the Canon 5D MkII together on Act of Valor.

Dec 18

Win a Signed Act of Valor DVD

Are you following me on Twitter? How about Facebook? In the spirit of the holidays, we have two Act of Valor dvds to give away. All you need to do to become eligible to win is to follow Hurlbut Visuals on Twitter or Facebook.

May 18

“Act of Valor” Workflow and Post Production

My name is Mike McCarthy, and as the production engineer for Act of Valor, I worked with Shane and his team in developing solutions to the obstacles presented by early DSLR filmmaking, both on set and in post.

May 11

Diffusion for the Digital Age – Using Smoke

Using the right filtration to impose a mood, create a style, encapsulate a time period or just to cream a woman’s skin can be a very powerful visual tool. The first diffusion I go to time and time again, whether it is film or HD, is smoke.

Mar 15

Crash Cam: Filmmaking Inside the Box

Let’s look at how the crash cam world has changed because of the Canon 5D. It has replaced the eyemo that used to be a clapper of a 35 or 16mm with bad lenses. It could be blown up, bashed into, driven over, or you could even have a car land right on it.

Behind the Scenes - Keith Urban "Act of Valor" Music Video

Mar 9

BTS on the Keith Urban "Act of Valor" Music Video

When director Scott Waugh called me to shoot the video for the “Act Of Valor” credit crawl song “For You” by Keith Urban, I was excited to have the opportunity to get the whole Elite Team back together. It was equally exciting to hear Keith’s amazing song, which supported the story perfectly.

Mar 7

Act of Valor In-Theater Q&A Session

We were in LA on February 25th for a screening of Act of Valor, followed by a panel discussion organized by Barry Anderson. Our friends from planet5D filmed the event, and we are embedding that video below.

Nestor Serrano and Roselyn Sánchez in Act of Valor

Mar 5

Shooting Act of Valor Q & A

We’ve had a ton of questions via Twitter, Facebook and the hurlblog about shooting Act of Valor, so I thought I would share them in a Q&A format. Thanks so much to everyone for your support and kind words about the film!

Feb 22

Act of Valor: Reinventing the Action Genre

When Scotty Waugh and Mike “Mouse” McCoy, the incredible directing team at Bandito Brothers, asked me to shoot Act of Valor, I was excited, especially after listening to their unique vision for the making of this movie. I was ALL IN. The idea of reinventing the action genre was our mantra. To be able to immerse an audience in a 3D experience that was shot 2D; to capture POVs that felt like you were in an intense first person shooter video game; to move a 2.5 lb camera in ways that you have never seen before. These were the ideas that started to swirl in my head after our initial meeting.

Feb 20

Tweet Up for Act of Valor on Saturday, February 25 in LA

I wanted to make all of you aware of a Tweet Up for Act of Valor. It will take place on Saturday, February 25th at the following location:
Regal LA LIVE Stadium 14
1000 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
5:10pm – Act of Valor begins
7:00pm – Act of Valor TweetUp and In-Theater Q&A with Mouse McCoy & Shane Hurlbut

Feb 2

Director/Cameraman Package for Scouting Locations + Scouting Apps

Since the invention of the Canon 5D, it has taken scouting to a whole new level and preparing that package that allows you can take advantage of serendipitous moments, lightning in a bottle so to speak, is essential.

Nov 5

Lighting Basics: Going With What is Available

The exciting thing about the Arri Alexa, F-3 and the new wave of DSLR’s is their high ISO range to minimum [...]

Feb 26

Zeiss: A Cinematic Journey on "Act of Valor"

When I started to prep “Act of Valor” in April of 2009, we were using Canon glass on the first 2 days of shooting. The hot girls on deck and the interrogation scene [...]

Dec 16

A Media Manager Has Your Back

In the world of HDSLR technology, media management is a very important position. Every Elite Team member has held this position at some point during the untitled Navy Seal Movie to gain an understanding of HD image capture in a small footprint work-flow system.

Nov 13

"Where’s The 5D" Winner Josh’s Visit To The Set

Josh came down to San Diego on Wednesday to join the me and the Elite Team for a 5am call. He stayed at the Indigo Hotel with us (my treat) the night before because I didn’t want him to have to drive all night for such an early shoot.

Nov 2

We Have A Winner To Our "Where’s the 5D" Contest

The “Where’s the 5D” contest was so close that the winner Josh beat our runner up Tim by a single shot. Josh will claim his prize this Wednesday when he visits me on the set for the day.

We decided to add a runner up prize…

Oct 30

WOW, ALL OF YOU ROCK!

WOW, ALL OF YOU ROCK !!!!!! Thank you so much. We had so many hits on Hurlbut Visuals with the 1080HD being viewed and downloaded that the server crashed at about 4:00am PST. You slayed the server, burnt the processor. FEEL GREAT ABOUT THAT.

Oct 25

Where’s the 5D?

Remember reading Where’s Waldo when you were a kid? We had so much fun playing a similar game to test your vision and your response was overwhelming! Thank-you for taking the time to play and making it so hard to choose a winner!

Sep 30

The Canon 5D Mark II vs. Extreme Heat

The Untitled Navy SEAL movie has taken me to some of the most extreme working conditions that I have ever experienced in my career as a Director of Photography. We traveled to the following locations: the jungles of Costa Rica, the swamps of Mississippi…