Dispatch No. 10: A new look...

And what's coming up the week of 3/30

No matter how well things are going at HSS, I almost always have the same thought—how can we make this better?

How can it look better? How can it sound better? How can it be more professional? What are we missing when it comes to delivery? Can we be more efficient with the studio setup?

I truly envy people who can “set and forget” and be content, but I like to tinker. You’ve heard the saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but I’m of the mind that things can always be improved—even if they ain’t broke.

Such was my mindset when I decided that we could update the look of our main camera shot with a shallower depth of field.

WARNING: Semi-nerdy camera discussion coming up.

The lens we’ve used with our C100 Mk IIs has been the Canon 24-105mm. It’s a great lens and we love having the zoom available, which means that when we’re shooting b-roll for outfit videos that we never have to move the camera (which also means increased efficiency as we’re not having to continually move the tripod around.

We typically shoot at f/5.6 even at the desk. So that means that while there’s a little background blur, it’s not that noticeable. And f/4.5 is the lowest we can go.

A couple weeks ago, we had a crew from NBC come to the Army Field Band building to shoot a profile of one of our people for their July 4th broadcast. They were using a Canon 50mm f/1.2 and it looked freaking awesome. As far as glass goes, that’s not a ridiculously expensive lens, but when there was a 50mm f/1.4 version available for a lot less, from a budget standpoint that kind of made more sense. And after speaking with Rob, apparently that 1.4 lens is held in pretty high esteem.

Before.

After.

So, we’ve got a new 50mm lens on our main camera and we’ve been spending a bit of time dialing in our lighting, which also by the way, will look just a bit different. Curious to hear your thoughts and this week will be the first time you see it!

Speaking of this week…

What’s on tap this week?

WEDNESDAY: Rolex GMT Master II vs. Timex Q Reissue

You know that I like nice watches, but that doesn’t make me a watch snob. In fact, I was really excited to see how well one particular message from my Casio A158W video resonated with so many people. And that message was: it’s not the price that matters, it’s how the watch makes you feel. So, in the spirit of that, I thought it would be fun to start pitting similar-looking watches at disparate price points head to head. It’s a series I plan to continue to build, but the first installment comes out this week.

I decided to start with the Rolex GMT Master II vs. Timex Q Reissue for a couple reasons.

First, I love the GMT Master. As a former owner of a 1675, I just love its iconic history, look, and style. And two, I remember going to a holiday party for Robin’s work a couple years ago and one of her colleagues was wearing the Timex and I had to look pretty closely to see that it wasn’t the GMT Master!

(Side note: at that time, the Timex was a little hard to come by for some reason and they were fetching double the retail price. That’s not the case anymore.)

In the video, I’ll be giving a quick overview of each watch, talking about the similarities and differences, and then putting them head to head in a variety of categories, including quality, reliability, functionality, comfort, style, and price.

The results may surprise you!

And finally, if you’ve been jonesing for another creative intro sequence à la the grey suit video from last year, the wait is over! I know that this audience always gets a taste of things before the general subscriber base, but I’m sorry—I’ve got to keep this under raps a bit because, well, just because! I will say that it is definitely on the same level as the grey suit intro and is just as fun. Hopefully it will make you smile…

In other news…

I’ve still been hard at work on The Groom Guide. There are seven main sections to the course and I’ve finished scripting all the videos in one of them—step-by-step tutorials. My goal is to try and write one per day, which will put us in post at the end of April. I will admit that it’s a bit of a lofty goal, but since I’m in a groove, I’m hoping to keep the momentum going.

That’s all for this week! Hope you all have a wonderful week to come. And, as always, thanks for your continued support.

Stylishly Yours,

Brian