Mikey's video:

I loaded up the SUV and headed over to Ft. Lauderdale/Miami to shoot video for the new V-Book I'm working on.  While I was in South Florida I had the chance to shoot with Andrew Litsch, a kick ass photographer based out of Ft. Lauderdale.  What I love about Andew's style is his minimalist gear approach and unique post-production technique to achieve a high end look.  Andrew and I arranged a shoot with Julia, an actress from New York City.  After meeting Julia I knew we were going to have fun when she started pulling out props from the bed of her truck: scuba gear, a surfboard and a ProBass Bag full of beachy outfits and accessories.  While riffling through her ProBass Bag Julia starts telling Andrew and me about her lobster hunting adventures in the Bahamas...I thought to myself, "this ain't no sissy model.  I love a beautiful girl who scuba dives and brings her own props!"

At 8:00am Andrew and I met at The Floridian, a classic 24 hour diner in Ft. Lauderdale that has been around since the 1930's, to discuss our shoot over some diner grub.  After breakfast we had about an hour to kill before Julia showed up so we went location hunting.  Ft. Lauderdale Beach is an absolute goldmine full of locations: art deco hotels/apartments, million dollar yachts litter the canals, giant palm trees, 1920's mediterranean houses, endless beach scenes and just pure classic Florida.  We decided on a retro Florida feel and used several 1950's apartments/hotels for our location;  we would end the day with a shoot in the surf.

Drewshoot's video:

We rolled some behind the scenes video with the help of David Lane out of Miami.  Andrew and I are both Nikon shooters who use the D7000 for video; notice that each of us edited our own video.  Andew's video is sleek and has some great video shot with the 35mm 1.8 lens.  My video shows more behind the scenes moments after an old lady asked us to leave and Julia making fun of all the gear I brought to the shoot (I had a lot of gear because of the video project I am working on and Andrew's junk was in there too).  But,  each of us shot with a different rig and fairly minimal if you ask me:

Gear used:

Andew Litsch

Nikon D40 - Andrew likes this body because he can get some seriously fast sync speeds (1/1000s)

Nikon 35 1.8

2 Nikon SB25's on a flash bracket designed to hold 3 speedlights.  I'll update this post later when I find out what he was using.

Pocket Wizard

28" Apollo Softbox

D7000 for video

Nikon 105 2.0 for headshots on the beach

Mikey

Nikon D700 and D7000 (video)

Alien Bees B1600 powered by a Minivagabond

Paul C. Buff 24" silver beauty dish

Genus ND filter - used to get an aperture of 1.4 in the sun

Nikon 24-70 2.8

Nikon 50 1.4 for beach shots

Power Sync triggers by Impact  

B&H Photo