LATEST UPDATES - 2012 international educational schedule will be constantly updated in the upcoming months (bottom of post). thank you. added boracay, philipines july 2012. http://mayadacademy.com/ // k where do i begin?!! this summer has been incredibly busy, from vancouver, to miami, to sydney, to hawaii, to niagara falls (haha k this is only a 200km drive) shooting weddings, teaching workshops, shooting corporate promos + commercials and of course shooting more weddings. things are taking longer then expected but b4 i launch my website + 2010 highlights; i want to quickly share with you the first ever myw multi day south asian wedding that i attended this past weekend. while i've had the oppurtunity to shoot hindu and sikh indian weddings in the past this was the first time i've shot a 5 day (yes 5 day) Ismaili wedding; and i sure had a TON of learning to do. I was up with farzana + shameer @ their place (luckly they live 2 mins away from me!! hehe) till 5 am, after a 4 hour pre-wedding consultation to learn exactly all of the different rituals, ceremonies, scarves, certain drinks that have cultural/religious/mythological significance to them and their culture. needless to say my head pretty much exploded but i was pumpppppeed to make this happen. and while its hard to not notice, farzana + shameer are obviously a stunning looking couple, but they are also super warm, down to earth, approachable, caring and just all around awesome!!! their bridal party, friends and family were supppper amazing as well. i REALALLLLLLYY love you guys!!! thank you for having me document your wedding. TECHNICAL + PRODUCTION TIDBITS for my industry friends and colleagues. - being a multi-day event requiring many symmetrical ceremonies happening @ the same time, I contracted my internationally acclaimed wedding cinematographer/educator/best friend konrad czystowski to help me shoot the events that i couldnt personally shoot myself due to logistical limitations. one of the most important lessons l learned from internationally acclaimed ray roman while teaching @ his workshop in miami a month ago; was that he stressed how important it is to build solid relationships with great, honest and genuine ppl who can help us in our journey in this industry. in turn, konrad brings me to shoot a wedding with him in hawaii... WOOHOO!!! now to give you an idea of how much work was involved in this weddng, here is a breakdown. -WEDNESDAY henna ceremony - shot by myw + 1 5D mkii. the ceremony was 6 hours. -THURSDAY henna ceremony for the bridesmaids + women from the grooms side of the family. this is the day where the siblings of both the bride and groom goto the mosque and fill up the guri with holy water and bring it back home for the bride and groom to bathe in it. various other ceremonies (egging of the groom, eating of butter chicken (heheh), more to be explained below) also occur on thursday as well. i would say this was another 7 hours or so. both Konrad and myself used one Canon 5D mkII to cover everything. konrad @ groom's house while I was at the brides. -FRIDAY this was the day the bride and groom, as well as both their respective families get to finally meet and see eachother, this was @ a reception gathering. I shot this mostly myself with Konrad helping out for 3 hours. Total amount of time I would say I was shooting on and off was another 10 hours. -SATURDAY this was the break day where no shooting was involved and I basically went through a good 30 hours of footage and edited + transcoded between multiple machines straight an entire day (and night). Konrad's pre sequenced and rough-cut timelines were a huge help in making this possible. -SUNDAY I marched on the big wedding day on SUNDAY without a single second of sleep. Yes I almost cried in agony from editing during the middle of the night. Nevertheless, Konrad was at my house 7:45am, and the worlds busiest/most talented 16 year old boy wonder cinematographer Mark Klassen arrived too, and my trusty protege from scratch and Troy Turgano also helped with the editing duties all day. This wedding day ran from 8 am to about 1am, and had 2 sets of preps, 2 first meetings, 2 photosessions, 1 wedding ceremony and 1 wedding reception. this piece was shot entirely with Canon 5DmkII's in 24p mode. there is no doubt that the 5Dmkii currently provides the highest value/dollar HDSLR in event filmmaking industry today. it is better then the 7D due to it's full frame capabilities, cleaner low light and richer color reproduction. when i compare the 5d to the 1dmk4; I do notice that the 1dmk4 is better in low light, and the 1dmk4's crop factor is better in certain cases (removing mild vignetting in some lenses as well as removing the less sharp image characteristics @ the edges of an image); but for the price of a single 1dmk4, i can purchases 2 5dmkii's. it's a complete no brainer. - as both konrad and I taught in sydney australia 2 weeks ago and did a