LATEST NEWS
9/6/2024 - Certified FAA sUAS Pilot
FAA certified Remote Pilot In Command. We are flying the DJI Mavic 3 Pro Cine 3-Axis Gimbal with a Tri-Camera System - The main lens is a 24mm Wide-Angle 4/3 CMOS Hasselblad shooting Apple ProRes 422 HQ at 5.1K resolution video in addition to 70mm and 160mm effective lenses on board. I love flying into places and positions I could only dream of with a traditional camera!
6/21/2022 - Virginia SWaM Certification
tomFILM, LLC (my legal entity) was approved and certified under the Small and Micro Business designations. SWaM #824427
4/29/2022 - RICHMOND SHOW AWARDS
For the 7th year in a row Stolen Moment had a single entry make it into The Richmond Show with a our work for The Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation picking up 2 silvers and a bronze.
10/5/2021 - VIRGINIA BREAST CANCER FOUNDATION ONLINE FILM
Mixing CGI visual effects with live action was a first for Stolen Moment. The project was planned and executed over 3 months in close collaboration with Fable Branding and Alice Blue Studios for use by VBCF during October’s breast cancer awareness month.
We initially thought about casting actors for the roles but realized the authenticity of real breast cancer survivors would give the film the gut punch we wanted for the final reveal. We also knew our real hero’s would be recognized online by their friends increasing the films overall social media engagement.
To bring David Neale’s concept and beautifully written script to life, it was critical that we have a visually strong contrast between Hollywood’s version of a super hero and our four real hero’s. Below are the original Alice Blue super hero concept and design drawings by Lincoln Durham along with corresponding frame grabs from the final film.
6/3/2021 - 2020 RICHMOND SHOW AWARDS
For the 6th year in a row Stolen Moment had a single entry make it into The Richmond Show with a Sliver in the Production Show and Sliver in the Interactive Show. The winning entry was our short film “Who Am I?” featuring talented spoken work artist and poet Khalil Houston. The film was also shortlisted by the One Show and nominated for a Webby.
7/22/2020 - 2019 RICHMOND SHOW AWARDS
For the 5th year in a row Stolen Moment had a single entry make it into The Richmond Show with a Bronze in the Production Show for our Richmond Ballet underwater film work. We were also very proud to see our PSA work for Siddall Communications and MADD Virginia pickup up a Gold, Silver and Bronze.
12/10/2019 - GRAPHIS PHOTOGRAPHY ANNUAL 2020
We picked up 3 Silver Awards in the Graphis Photography Annual 2020 International competition. The winning work featured underwater portraits of 7 company dancers for Richmond Ballet’s 2019-2020 Season Brochure. These are the first international awards for Stolen Moment.
9/20/2019 - RICHMOND BALLET UNDERWATER PROJECT
A project 3 years in the making, I was asked by Karnes Coffey Design to shoot underwater portraits of company dancers for Richmond Ballet’s 2019-2020 season brochure.
The ultimate goal was to create a kind of magical realism. My approach was to light the dancers with dramatic and very directional down lighting much like you would see if they were performing on stage. In my research I had seen a lot of underwater work that was lit with flash/strobe and looked very artificial and flat. I wanted the dancers to look like they could be in a natural river environment so we rigged a continuous 2 point HMI setup above a dark indoor pool to simulate the look of theatrical spotlights. I wasn’t worried about areas that would fall off into shadow because there was plenty of bounce off the bottom of the pool. We also bounced some fill off the ceiling.
When you’re shooting underwater it’s hard to know exactly what you have until you get back to the studio and start pushing the files around. I was pleasantly surprised by how the images looked with just some color and contrast manipulation. The realism part was there but they needed some next level help from the talented digital artists at Alice Blue Studios. They really stepped up and elevated the work to art by creating gorgeous additional bubbles, water, fabric and light streaks to give us the ethereal/magical look we wanted. Here are some good examples of the before and after:
