Maxim Magazine "Hometown Hottie" Video
 

Thanks to Jason Robinson, I got the opportunity to shoot something very different than what I'm used to shooting. Each year Maxim Magazine has a competition for 'hometown' girls to try and become Maxim's 'hottie' for the year. In the past the videos were all shot by the girls themselves, with results being just as you would expect.

This year they decided to hire out the videos to professionals, and although the video had to be sexy and showcase the girl's personality ... I think we took it a step further and introduced some style and story.

Okay .. okay ... enough talk .... the video:

Maxim Magazine's "2009 Hometown Hottie" - Holly on Vimeo

I'm blown away! 1st rate production Travis! Not overly fond of the slide shot on her crotch where she is tanning on sand, my only crit.

Honestly, that's the one shot I wasn't totally happy with either. I had a different shot planned initially, but with how short the edit was that shot wasn't going to work. I had a few side shots of her legs but they weren't working out as well either. So I went to that shot. It bothers me more because you can see her nose, lol.

Travis...

What a great experience it must have been... were using a glidetrack on the dolly shots?

I liked how you used the sky as a transition point.

Steve

Yo, Travis,

That shot didn't bother me. It goes by so fast it seemed fine to me.

But Travis, you crossed the line with your first two shots! And again later on! Oh, the shame...

Other than that egregious flaw, I loved it. Really nice use of transition shots, too. That must have been a fun shoot.

i just liked it big time.

Stephen - It was a great experience. So fun to shoot and edit something totally different, especially with a great subject. d;-) And yes, that was a Glidetrack. Glad you liked the sky transition, because even though I had scripted it out it almost didn't happen. We had clouds all over and they cleared up just in time for those shots. I was pretty happy with the towel-to-shirt transition too, which was an improvised shot.

Vito - I'm assuming you're talking about the shots with the jeep, lol. I'm glad the other shot didn't bother you. When I finally settled on using it I decided to keep it as short and as fast as possible (I had a much slower glide version of the same thing). Thanks for the comments!

Dror - Thanks for watching!

Yes, and I forgot my smilies. Glad you understood the tongue-in-cheek.

Great job.

Did Maxim hire you directly, or were you hired by the model (or other intermediary?) Was there a set rate, or did they ask you for a quote? Were there a lot of requirements, or was it as easy as "look at our other videos and make it look something like that"?

...and please make sure that you don't forget the wedding videos after this...loved it Travis.Women are beautiful creatures and God bless those who work with them especially if they are models...The best scene was the one when she was fishing... :-) Don't you want an assistant for the next job?

Stelios

Travis, what story telling? I can watch this video without sound and still enjoy it. j/k

Great work Travis... Would be nice to do such a gig more often :-) Also agree about the "nose" shot - less nose would make it better :-)

I was contacted by a 3rd party who handled the details for Maxim. There was a VERY LOW set rate, but I negotiated mine up a bit (still very low pay). There was a 4-5 page shoot guideline packet with all the requirements, but the process was fairly open to creativity. They did provide a few samples, but mine doesn't look much like the samples. d;-)

I won't. d;-) I still love weddings. But I definitely wouldn't mind shooting some more of these as long as I'm allowed to be creative. I actually did want to have an assistant on this shoot, and it would have been really useful for me .. but believe it or not the 'model' was throwing a lot of static at me in the initial discussions of the shoot. I got the feeling she wasn't totally comfortable with doing it and decided less people on the shoot would be better. It's a bummer, because I would have liked to have some behind the scenes stuff and still shots of the setups. Oh well.

Success!! d;-)