Is this first serious 6secfilms professionally made on vine so far!

Here you read whole story of my first project to make short 6 seconds film with vine, this time aiming to get into Tribeca Film festival Manhattan NYC.

Almost 4 months ago when vine suddenly appeared on apps store got me excited and interested to find how user can utilize it to make another step into visual story telling with smart phones. This time was new tool for upcoming movie makers. Maybe Vinemakers generation!

Vine is powered by twitter and its nicely embedded into twitts. recent update get embedding codes which can be take vine to tumblr, facebook and blogs.

Two week ago Tribeca film festival announced first film competition on Vine as #6secfilms . deadline is 7th April.

Tribeca Film Festival Wants Your Best 6-Second Vines on.mash.to/Ze9aEU

— Pete Cashmore (@mashable) March 20, 2013

I had discussion with couple of friends at the time. I got sweat story from Mohammad Magdy who was planning to make this as longer couple of minutes short film. I took the challenge of compiling it into 6secfilm. Knowing the challenges over vine I prepared myself and team for every step. I wanted to have decent light, set up and addition touches which usually we do it over editing process. Again vine not allowing any editing so all extras should happen live along with actions. Finally 6th Apr was day to make vinemovie! Thanks to Nasa Studio who provide us such wonderful studio space with all facilities. I suggest you check their facilities ans spaces if you like to indoor shoot in Dubai specially summer is just around the corner. I have shared couple tweets just before shooting starts sharing my tips and tricks about vine film. here is some:

We are about to kik our #6secfilms project today for #tribecafilmfest While production team setting up I will be sharing some tips! — hassan kiyany (@hkiyany) April 6, 2013

Vine Film takes lot of preproduction and no post! All post production process virtually need to be done on film set. #6secfilms #vine

— hassan kiyany (@hkiyany) April 6, 2013

I have today team of 13 includes actors & myself. Need all planning to make sure actions match effects #Vine records visuals and audio live! — hassan kiyany (@hkiyany) April 6, 2013

Finally here is final video. The one with English dialogue is been submitted for competition. As you can see vine video is embedded into tweets. But you can do just video from vine link if you interested to re share on your blog or social network.

I see What you see#6SECFILMS#AUTEUR@tribecafilmfest vine.co/v/bTXi59nPugY

— hassan kiyany (@hkiyany) April 6, 2013

We did Arabic version as well. Not for competition is just we all agree to record conversation in native language:

اللي تشوفونه – للعرض فقط out of competition #6secfilms #arabic vine.co/v/bTXDtI3uHWO — hassan kiyany (@hkiyany) April 6, 2013

At The End I Like to thank all team members, every body who helped to make this project happen and without you guys it was impossible I like to share with you video of behind the scene of making this 6secfilms. Leo, Rishi, Ajit and Sebi worked very hard behind the scene. Sebi record this video for us. My other friend filmmaker Abdulla Hassan Ahmed had big influence on making this project happen. Thank you Abdulla. Thank you Magdy for allowing me to work partially on the script to fit this project. Also all actress did wonderful job , Thank you everybody!

Update:

We got interesting post on our favorite PetaPixel.com about this project and Vine Apps titled: Vine is Exploding, and People Are Starting to Take It Very, Very Seriously
Also Intresting Quota by Robert De Niro on Vine shared by The Verge :

Robert De Niro on Vine: ‘you can tell a whole story in six seconds’ vrge.co/10Ofszl

— The Verge (@verge) April 11, 2013

Read De Niro’s Full Interview by The Wall Street Journal over here.

Update:

I was honored to get my vine short film shoutout with some incredible people. I want to embed some of them over my blog. Its way to thank you and all others who did retweet or favorite it which I couldn’t able to bring them all over here. Thank you

The making one of the #6secfilms: vimeo.com/m/63591973 — Jack Dorsey (@jack) April 11, 2013

Awesome full production Vine by @hkiyany, with cast, lighting, catering…the works. vine.co/v/bTXi59nPugY

— Rus Yusupov (@rus) April 9, 2013

A Vine for #6secfilms by @hkiyany: vine.co/v/bTXDtI3uHWO And behind the scenes: vimeo.com/63591973 — Kristian Bauer (@kristianbauer) April 9, 2013

Vine is exploding, and people are starting to take it very, very seriously: j.mp/ZbzOTe

— PetaPixel (@petapixel) April 11, 2013

Final Update:

Finally Tribeca Film Festival announced the finalist. Unfortunately Our vine is not there!!! But hey, we did it .. The whole journey happen same as we planned and hoped for it. We got great people backed us to spread the story on web. I do like to thank everybody for all love and attention to this project. That will make me and my friends come up with something even cooler, very soooooooooon

Two more sources talked about our projects, one is my favorite publication The New Yorker have an article on their online site called ” The Six-Second Films Grows Up ” and they did mention us over there . Check the link.

Cult of Mac have another wonderful article name ” Hollywood is Starting to Take Vine Seriously ”

When it comes to visual story telling i choose the right tool to give me necessary features to make my story richer. Im talking about world of Apps and Mobile platform which is my main focus over this blog too. Recently I came through Backspaces where i like to share my thought on this wonderful promising apps with you.

One and Half year ago I was using blurb mobile since it was allowing me to attach couple of photos along with texts and voice to narrate my story. Unfortunately they never came along with improvement like better UI or even stronger community around their Apps. So I and others worked arounds with other platform to see where we get our visuals to be told in better way on social media.

Before I go start talking about Backspaces I like to mention that there is couple other Apps which each one does help for visual story telling in their own way. Good to get quick look at them.

Zapd as they advertise themselves “SOCIAL WEBSITES IN 60 SECONDS…” is apps to allow you to create microsite of your photos and text published on web, Watch one of My Zapd Here. Tumblr tool named Photoset is another way to give users power of sharing photos into on set. Limited and almost no fun! Honestly both Zapd and Photoset are not full filling to me.

Couple of months ago Ptch came through with version one of their apps. and now version two. I can say it’s most completed app with all features in one. it follow the process of attaching your various media from your social network accounts putting them together along with texts, music and grab them into video format sharing it on your stream as well as other social networks. Its quiet cool way. Check out my profile over here.

Last Apps and for a most exciting apps for storytelling and also promising platform is Backspaces.

The app easy to navigate, beautiful workflow and simple UI is all so far developers came with forst lanuch. Throughout my experience I see great potential to make this platform succesfulm by the time and Im sure developers are working hard to make powerful platform for all users. In my communications with one of developers I see them listening, and getting users thought to make it more of platform made for users.

I did couple of stories so far. Their apps made me into story mode all the time. I usually share selected Photos on IG, over here is place for me to wrap more photos into one set and made them powerful, meaningful stories on my backspaces feed. I also curate Hipstamatic Hashtag on backspaces too. If you are sharing your stories there make sure you hashtag Hisptamatic to make sure you get enough visibility on your interested topic.

Finally I like to share one of my stories which taken over my favorite trip to one of my favorite city for street photography San Francisco. I did find way to keep them into iFrame with suggestion from Backspaces Adrian and my developer tweaked it for me. I think its cool and i’m gonna embed it into my upcoming stories in same way until we get better solution provided by BACKSPACES in future. Download for iOS Here.

I’m excited to share with you my recent experimental with FUjiFilm XE1 and most waited lens for me Fujinon 18mm-55mm. Specially finding how good we can produce video with fuji’s latest products.

As you all know from the body and look of XE and even X Pro they are not video cameras. Most probably the Intention is about photography. However since DSLR video evolution, users expect from their cameras to capture High Quality Videos with all depth and manual control.

My first video recording  with xpro1 and fixed lenses 35mm & 55mm & 85 it was not bad!

I mean quality was and still good but main challenge is lack of image stabilisation, no built in camera and even not on lenses up to that day! Another issues was moire and aliases patterns which most of you already now what I mean.

Here is video I have done previously with X-Pro1 you may see the result.

I did another video with XE1 and fixed lessens while I was doing review on prototype XE1 before official release which wasn’t bad too !!

However I knew that 18mm-55mm is coming with image stabilization motor built in with much more control for videographers in the street. I wanted to do real test as soon as I can.

Here is video to watch and see the result. I will describe what feel after the video break.

As I was expected and you have seen the result is awesome. I should say Fuji cameras with this lens can make impressive video as you can see. The weight and ease use of camera made me really fast moving and recording with minimum trouble. Yes still no much control over aperture change while recording, no visible shutter difference. But for now we are one step close to produce neat video with FujiFilm X cameras while we doing photography.

I believe Fujifilm will improve video capability in year 2013. we just heard about x100s which they announce in CES 2013. First thing Impressed me was 60fps in Full HD! that mean they do care and hopefully more control over the aperture and shutter. never know maybe possibly xpro2 will be the game changer specially with new processor which I have heard is ridiculously faster.

Will wait and see how Fuji will continue impressing street photographers and videographers in year 2013.

Also I like to mention that for edit of this video I used my favorite VSCO film presets on LR to make clips look as bit vintage film color that I love to see then applied to my footages before taking them into FCPx to edit and share with you. I also did take photos with my iPhone as usual ( my third eye ) where I also edit them with my favorite product from same developers VSCOcam .Check them out here or head to my flickr set VSCO to see more of my iPhoneogrpahy processed with VSCOcam.

At the end quick look at Fujinon 18mm-55mm highlighted speciffication:

almost 27-84mm equivalent

F/2.8 to f/4 lens

Highly responsive linear motor

Image Stabilisation almost equivalent to 4 stops

Update:

Just about preparing this post I got to know that I have been featured on FujiFilm X Photogrpahy website dedicated to Photogrpahers using X Series cameras. As first in region and UAE I’m honored with this achievement. Thanks to Fuji Team in UAE to support photographers in region to explore their technology. Selection of my works by both cameras I have used so far X-Pro1 & XE1 along with videos availble to watch on this link.

Two years ago when I start posting on instagram, had no idea where this fun, engaging apps will take us ..  Later, Feb 2011 when I decide to shoot my short film with iPhone did not imagine that particular experience could change my view on creating various type of media on mobile device .. Here I like to share with you my achievements over the year 2o12 in mobile multimedia.

Since then I have improved my mobile production ( Photography, Videography ) to different level. At the beginning if the year I  planned to experiment iPhoneography intensively. I started traveling and going around with iPhone only. Did use various apps and almost purchased every photo/video apps to gets my hands on it and find out how with each one of them I can create multimedia on my mobile phones.

My first Instagram Photo sold in Depixtions Photo Community in Orlando FL

On early January, first ever workshop of iPhoenorgaphy by Jack Hollingsworth and creativeLive watched online and felt like I’m not the only considering this device another medium to create multimedia. He explained very well technics and apps he has been through on his iPhoneorgaphy experience. Same time I was inspired and amazed watching Richard Koci work with iPhone. I was and still impressed with his vision and stories. He is most and forever top inspirational character in multimedia world to me. You must watch video made by blurb and his tutorial video over lynda.com

I also respect and follow ben lowy hipstamatic series on war were was another source of inspiration and overall making photography more appealing for journalism and documentary photographers.

On April, in conjunction with Piper Tribe & The JamJar we arranged first ever Instagram based contents in region, particularly in UAE. The contest names #soleofthecity and grabbed more than 1500 photos. At the same time we ran first iPhoneogrpahy Exhibition out of my trip to New York as well as Dubai along with selection of photos submitted for soleofthecity Instagram contest. Final day we organised iPhoneography workshop in The JamJar discussing and exploring the movement of mobile photography worldwide.

Month later, I produced short film totally made on iPhone ( Shoot, Edit, Share ). In the memory of Charlie Chaplin Birthday, Silent film festival announced competition I did able to produce short film where we explore the capability of device in limited condition. ( Budget, Time, Location )

This short film along with telephoni got screened online on YouTube and vimeo. Later my friends on POP up film festival showcased them in New York, London , Holland with huge positive feedback from audience.

Same time I submitted  to iPhone Photography Awards ( IPPAwards ) which my photo of Sheikh Zayed Mosque received second prize in sunset category.

It was around same time with support of my friend Nicki-Fitzgerald foundre of iPhoneography Central.com I Prepared article about Film Making with iPhone under series of Filmmaker available on their site to read about. I will be continuing completing this project to make it much more interactive and to be available later this year.

My work on photography with iPhone was developing and improving later I published my first book over blurb site available to purchase by individuals as printr o ibook-friendly verison.

In month of September, align with formula one activity on Cornish Abu Dhabi I was invited to provide lessons on Smart Phone Movie Production to audience for 3 days.

Only Image captured by lovely friend of mine Alona Ballard

I organised first ever Instagram walk in Dubai by August time, later in November we have done another walk for EyeEm another competitor for Instagram.

The world of mobile photography improved a lot where there was more solid sources talking and sharing their stories of mobile productions. To make my article short and guide you to more sources, I suggest you to find one of latest article about whole movement of mobile photography in year 2012 done by dpreview team which they came recently by new dedicated page for mobile multimedia reviews and movement.

One my favourite event on my mobile movement is my Hipstamatic shots featured on SNAP magazine published by hipstamatic team over iPad, iPhone and Desktop too.

I continuously shoot and share on my Instagram feed. I do mostly street and people photography and sometime recently test new accessories and apps techniques to extreme usage of iPhone and Instagram community. While by closing 2012 I have around 14k followers to share my stories with on Instagram only. I do share with ocher platform like EyeEm, Starmatic, Recently renovated flickr. Also I love to try out other apps which they help to improve way of visual story telling by making richer multimedia like blurb mobile, ptch, Zapd, Viddy and more!

Finally my prospective on mobile media as I always explain to peoples who I meet is new powerful device all in one which help you to produce and share your stories with others with no boundaries Instantly! Even with considering users on some of this social apps using it in routine and none meaningful ways I still see apps and community they make around their users are powerful and creative to connect you with world and people around the globe.

Would like to wish everybody a wonderful year head, I like to thank my Wife, Parents and Friends who supported me all the time.

Keep produce quality, meaningful and art with any device you own!

I’m proud to make my first interview on my blog with Ammar Al Attar, UAE street & documentary Photographer which I enjoy accompany him as friend and follower of his work. We had quick dissuasion on his current project and upcoming projects as well as doing Q&A about his experience with FujiFilm X-Pro1 in his recent trip. Stay with us after break!

Thanks Ammar for accepting my invitation to be my first guest on my blog to talk about what we love and readers interests as well.

1.Could you introduce your self for readers?

I born in Dubai in 1981 and currently lives and works in the United Arab Emirate of Ajman. I hold a Masters in International Business from the University of Wollongong in Dubai and a Bachelor in Business Information Technology from Dubai’s Higher Colleges of Technology. I have attended a number of photography courses both in the UAE and abroad and is a member of the International Federation of Photographic Art (FIAP), the Photographic Society of America (PSA), and the Abu Dhabi International Photographic Society (ADIPS). My work has been shown in various group exhibitions in the UAE, including Emirati Expressions in 2011. Same year, My work was exhibited in the Thessaloniki Museum in Greece.

This Year I participated in Mawtini group Exhibition in Tashkeel as well as Made in Tashkeel group exhibition and finally Prayer Rooms, at Cuadro Art Gallery DIFC, Dubai.

2.I know it was very buys and same time successful year for you, now tell me about you experience with fujifilm and particularly x-pro1?

well I felt home .. I’m used to range finders camera and this camera didn’t change this feeling! Also since I walk for hours in street seeking stories with my camera having this kind of cameras help me to do so easier. less pain on shoulders! ( All Photos below by Ammar Al Attar in his Bahrain trip )

3.What was your first impression?

I have used the x100, so it was almost to me same. Of course though it is bigger than the X100, more control on lenses and faster focusing. I still like the size of x100 and I think XE1 is perfect merge of both!

4.What most u like about xpro1?

Since am using analogue Leica M camera and lenses, I loved the option of using my M-Lenses with X-Pro1 . I did get nice colours of leica lenses on affordable FujiFilm amazing mirror-less digital camera X-Pro1.

5.What was the challenges possibly you face on site?

I have used most of the time with Leica lenses. The challenge was when I was focusing specially in manual mode. I did not able to get the exact point of focus or indication that I’m focusing or not. I have used this before updating to firmware 2 but I have heard that firmware 2 fixed major issues on x-Pro1 speed and performance.

6.If you want to compare it with other recent cameras in market which you have experienced it personally, what you say?

I used some other cameras from sony and some other DSLRs , however I Should admire the vintage and classic look of recent FujiFilm, the build quality of the camera along with image resolution and sharpness, made me much more comfortable holding this camera on street, specially for me when I do walking for hours ..

5.How you see Micro-Third cameras vs. DSLR?

As a street photographer, I don’t want people to recognise me while I’m taking photos, I want to capture moments, Micro-third cameras do the job perfectly with it’s silence and small size, SLRs trap attentions to you and people start ask you why you doing this and think you are from some officials. With micro third specially what FujiFilm come with is just against usual situations.

6.What was your previous experience with fujifilm product?

I always use fujifilm analogue products until date .. I love fujifilm colours ..

7. Last question, what project currently you doing? Maybe you like to share your plan for next year?

I’m currently workingo continue my Prayers Room project on where I target couple of Saudi Arabia cities. I will share more of upcoming projects earlier next year.

I would like to thank Ammar al Attar for his time and you to read this interview. You may see more of his work over flickr stream. Hope it was interesting read for you. I will try to do more interviews with industry related photographers, artists and filmmakers for your read in next year.

Some time ago before the revolution of mobile applications and mobile photography, flickr was major community for photographers and photo lovers. i believe still same but when it come to mobile photographers Instagram is popular now!

However flickr is not any more behind! Yahoo have just released major update to their flickr iPhone apps where you can have all type of daily interaction on your Mobile platform, at any time! almost same way you were doing with Instagram ..

For people like me who never left their flickr account without activity, now we have more fun by continue participating in groups activity and discussion through my iPhone, not just weekends!

Favorite and comments pushed into your iPhone as well as managing your account, friends and contacts.

Simple interface is advantage with new user interface of uploading images from your iPhone made even simpler to share images from your device.
One of new features which i wasn’t expected at all is filtering, image enhancement which you can apply while you upload your image. similar retro filters of instagram which is made by aviary developers.

I think we as user have more options to share our day to day photography by multiple sources where each image could be shared by right audience. worth to mention that just days before , Twitter released their own photo filtering feature to compete with Instagram and similar application.

For me flickr is where I share higher resolution version of my photos. Also most of images over my site link back from flickr server.

Finally, I always loved interacting with flickr group even though accessing group activity is banned in my country but iOS apps is helpful enough to bypass that censorship!

In year 2011 where iPoneorgaphy was highlighted every where, snapseed become one of top image editing apps in iOS, firstly on iPad. Later apple chose snapseed as apps of year 2011.

Later this year google bought Nik Software the creator of, Most probably to push android photography and google+ integration.. Which recent update release proofed all of that.

The new release got new icon, retroloux , new frame structure.

Most interesting part so far for me is retroloux. It’s just awesome as other tool inside the apps but this feature allow me to reach more lomography look and feel. More than any other apps so far in iOS platform.

Find some of my early hands on snapseed so far: ( you can see them bigger size by clicking on )

There is Mac/Windows version as well.

Also with improvements of google+ apps and adding new features like community I have started to share snapseed photos with others as well. You can add snapseed to your circle over here.

Here is my Google Plus Profile. I love their iOS Apps design, look and feel.

After writing my first hands on FujiFIlm XE1 product sample in early October, I was waiting to get my hands on final product which has been widely released all over the world.  Now I got mine and here is second take of street experimental with XE1.

First, I simply felt speed in most of situation in street with auto zoom mode by all XF lenses 18mm / 35mm / 60mm. My recent try was in street lanes of Muscat, Oman ( Mutrah ) made me more amazed with quick respond of X technology. Quick auto zoom and finally sharp quality of Images captured through the X Sensor, FujiFilm X Cameras getting simply better by each release and each firmware update. As I and others mentioned on their XE1 review, XE1 is very much same as X-Pro1 in term of specification. Only there is no Hybrid viewfinder which has been replaced with High Resolution EVF which helped drastically reduce the weight.

Note: By Clicking on photo will open in new page over my 500px profile.

Mean while you reading my post I will share a few best shots of Oman Walk. More to find out over my 500px profile.

Second point to mention is weight. I simply held XE1 without pain, even in some places I felt like I was holding my iPhone! Shutter sound is minimal. I have realized this time more than ever people in street are even did not noticed that I’m holding a camera with such pro-quality, capturing them walking around. I loved this!

I like also to share my recent video test of XE1 sample product which I have captured last time as I mentioned here. I did able finally to put it together with all bad and good footages for a better understanding of readers about video capabilities as well as Fuji to understand were is the gap in video mode. I repeat this as open letter to FujiFilm. Please fix alias and moire issue with video in your next product. Even thought I do expect slight fix by releasing Lenses with Image stabilization feature while I’m waiting to get my hand on the new XF 18mm-55m lens. I will be doing definitely new video by then.

Here is Al Satwa Street Photography Video by FujiFilm XE1.

Along with my recent announcement of UAE’s first mobile photographers group over Facebook we also announced EyeEm Dubai Meet up to happen in coming Friday!

EyeEm is another social photo sharing application similar to other photo sharing apps Instagram. while probably Instagram  is most well known one among others in middle east, particularly in Dubai.

However EyeEm developers made unique application  where you can enjoy sharing your even none square images within the interest of everybody else! so basically the tag line and subject of image works as album where everybody photos under same subject are available to see. Location is also an album where you can discover other users image which tagged by the same location. Another benefit of EyeEm is web based solution to view, share an explore EyeEm Community. EyeEm is available for all mobile platform so far!

You may go their website and discover the photos by others. Here is link for the iOS version, Android and Windows Phones.

Also here the embedded code which is provided by them for every use gallery to be screened outside of EyeEm site.

In conjunction with EyeEm worldwide meet up, we in Dubai will have our very first time in coming Friday 14th Nov 2012 at JBR. They have invited everybody over this link to confirm your attendance. There is map and location of the photo walk where we all will walk around and capture moments to tell the stories around us. By End of walk we will gather in MAKE business hub to have chat about the walk and soft drinks to refresh ourselves.

This walk is open to all photographers with any cameras or mobile phones. I recommend to share this article and the meet up page with all your friends who might have interest but not heard about it. Look forward to see you all!

I will update this post and bring to you the bets of coming walk at this space.