About

PhotoCineNews is the first blog dedicated to the convergence of photography and video. As photographer’s retool their skill set to this emerging medium, PhotoCineNews is dedicated to delivering the latest news and innovations in this brilliant new genre. This leap forward for the photography industry brings it closer to the gates of Hollywood with the potential for influential short films. With that in mind we deliver news from the movie industry that affects the photocine filmmaker. Along with the PhotoCine Conference and Film Festival, PhotoCineNews is the definitive destination for the filmmaking photographer.

The PhotoCineNews Team

Managing Editor Ellen Carl is a freelance writer and producer for TV and the web. She hasn’t dwelled in the world of professional photography before, but she does know a good news story when she sees one, having spent many years writing and producing for CNN and ABC News. She’s also worked with many a videographer producing stories in the field for various entertainment news and local news outlets in New York and Los Angeles. Ellen’s work on the web includes managing editor duties at girlawhirl.com and she is a co-founder and contributor at chickflix.net. Ellen lives in upstate New York, commuting into New York City for TV gigs when they beckon and spends her off days snowboarding and hiking in the Catskill Mountains.

Founder & Managing Editor Lou Lesko is a fashion photographer and commercials director who began writing about the photography industry in 2004 for Digital Photo Pro magazine. An irreverent style of writing and a best selling book about the advertising photography world, Advertising Photography: A Straightforward Guide to a Complex Industry, paved the way for Lou to become the Managing Editor for the National Geographic Assignment Blog.

Lou is a graduate of the English writing program at the University of Southern California. He is also the founder of Blinkbid business software for creative professionals, and is a regular contributing writer to several blogs and magazines. Lou lives in California splitting his time between Los Angeles and San Francisco, avoiding Interpol for a small incident that occurred in Brussels a few years back.

Founder & Editor Michael Britt: When Michael came to Los Angeles with his wife, actress Cheryl White, he started as a unit stills photographer on movie sets which he did for ten years. In 1995 he purchased his first Apple computer and discovered a passion and inherent aptitude for digital photography. This quickly earned him a fantastic reputation in the emerging digital photography space and he soon found himself as the consultant to high end photographers converting to digital.

As digital photography became the prevailing technology in the industry Michael embarked upon a forward thinking entrepreneurial venture with PhotoCine News’ Tom Stratton. AlternaStock was an alternate stock photography web site that, as the name suggests, offered access to alternative lifestyle images.

All of his experience; technical, creative and marketing culminated in the creation of Image Mechanics where Michael was a partner until 2009. It was during his development of the brand of his new business that he was tapped as a writer and a speaker – some of his speaking credits include; Thomas Knoll’s Soup-To-Nuts event, PDN On the Road, PIDE, Imaging USA, and the Digital Media Festival in Sydney Australia. He was also asked to be a consultant for the tech industry on projects like Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Light Room.

His latest venture before PhotoCine News was co-producing the critically accliamed Collision Conference, a two day event focusing on the collision of stills and motion.

Founder & Editor Tom Stratton was originally educated as an engineer and mathematician, Tom entered professional photography more than 18 years ago. His analytical and creative sides merged as he evolved into an expert in digital retouching, post production and color management. Through his experiences as a photographer, a digital retoucher, co-founder of Image Mechanics capture company, digital workflow consultant, and Beta Tester for Adobe Photoshop, Tom has become skilled in digital imaging workflows and data management. As a consultant Tom worked with Kodak on their DCS pro-back software and worked closely with a leading inkjet printer manufacturer on their products. Later, he began to share his experience at seminars across the U.S. and at hands-on workshops in Los Angeles.

Most recently, as the Technical Director of Digital Services at The Icon lab in Los Angeles, Tom assists photographers with all their digital imaging needs, from the click of the shutter to delivery of the finished product.

Senior Writer and Hollywood Correspondent, Amanda Sloane Murray: A Los Angeles native, Amanda is a screenplay consultant, former development executive, and freelance writer who has been working in the entertainment industry since 1998, and in screenplay development since 2003. She worked as a story analyst for New Line Cinema for four years while simultaneously consulting for 1492 Pictures, ChickFlicks, Strike Entertainment, and many other production companies. In 2007 Amanda was hired as a junior development executive at New Line, where she consulted on Sex and the City, The Last Mimzy, The Golden Compass, Hoot, and other films. She now serves as a script consultant for Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group and is also a regular contributing writer to the entertainment website IGN.com.

Amanda enjoys sharing industry wisdom as much as she does acquiring it. She has served as a judge for the 20th Century Fox Television Diverse Writer Initiative, and has led a series of workshops entitled “How to Get Your Script Past the Studio Reader” at the Santa Monica College Small Business Development Center. In 2006 Amanda founded ScriptBird, an online consulting service for screenwriters and independent film producers born out of a desire to help others navigate the Hollywood studio system.

Executive Producer of Video Content Mollie Caselli has been fascinated with film since she was a kid. After growing up on 1940s and 50s films, she experimented with 16mm in college. She studied Film Production and Mass Communications at the University of California, Berkeley.

Mollie began her career as a News Writer and Segment Producer for CBS 5 News (KPIX-TV) in San Francisco. During her time there she received two Emmy nominations for coverage of the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay and the Presidential Elections.

Mollie has also served as a Producer and Photographer for SF Station. She coordinated shoots for live music events, movie pressers, fashion shows, and corporate videos for the online media guide. Her passion for going abroad led her to GulliverGo, a travel and study abroad website where she oversees blogging, social networking, community outreach, and viral marketing. Most recently, she founded Gopher Hole Productions, a video production company in the SF Bay Area. With GHP she writes, produces, shoots and edits video for multiple platforms.

PhotoCineNews Contributors

Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in the UK. He has written for many newspapers, magazines and blogs including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, MacUser, The Morning News, Cult of Mac, and BBC Online.

Subjects range from Mac computers and software, parenting, science, gadgets, the internet, and personal essays. He has a web site at gilest.org, and posts photos on Flickr. You can reach him by email at giles at gilest dot org; or follow him on Twitter @gilest.

Amberlie Bankoff is a fashion photographer who started her career photographing musicians in 2003 . After immersing herself in the music industry for many years her interests grew into a love for fashion. She currently lives in Los Angeles and is working on a new fashion photography book to be released next year.

Lydia Shannon is a portrait photographer currently residing in Florida. She earned a Elementary Education Degree at Florida Atlantic University and began her career as a 4th grade teacher. She left after her first year when she realized she wanted to pursue her true passion, photography. She uses videoblogging to connect with her clients and fellow photographers and occasionally make them laugh.

You can follow her on Twitter at @lydiashannon or see her photography blog here.

Correy Stoner is a child of the industry. She started as a dancer in Toledo, Ohio and in 2001 she moved to Los Angeles to further her dancing career, where she became one of the youngest instructors for the Moro Landis Millennium Dance Complex in Los Angeles. Looking beyond the barre, she found a home on the other side of the lens focusing on Entertainment Technology.

Correy worked with HD EXPO/Createasphere, serving as an editorial and content strategist for the thriving community of content creators. She quickly became a respected voice in the digitally-evolving Entertainment Technology world, and helped educate content creators though HD Expo/Createasphere’s live events and online professional membership community.

She continues to organize and motivate professional content creators with her attention-commanding text and live event production. An avid marketing strategist and content marketing innovator, she remains dedicated to editorial content strategy for the web and new media channels.

David Paul Larson is a New York based fashion photographer who originally planned on going to the FBI after his service in the United States Marine Corps. A medical discharge and a new sense of “attention to detail” made him turn to fashion photography.

David studied photography and marketing communications at Columbia College in Chicago and managed to have a full client roster before graduating. Feeling that he had hit a ceiling with is career he packed up and moved to New York City to chase bigger clients and projects. You can view David’s work here.

The People To Whom We Owe A Beer

There are a few people who are not directly involved in PhotoCine News but who are instrumental and keeping us online:

The folks at Wordpress, the platform that powers this site.

The folks at Brave New Code who made the plugin that makes our site look so fabulous when you access us from an iPhone.