About Alik Griffin

A little of my history. I was born in 1981. I'm a film and fine arts major that graduated from UCSD in 2005. I currently work in advertising as an editor at G-Net Media. We create TV Commercials and Trailers for the Gaming Industry.

Several projects I've worked on over the years have won many different awards including two Gold Mi6 awards for best editing. You can see my editorial work at http://alikgriffin.com/work.

Other Fun Facts About Me!

I listen to dubstep and a lot of that electronic crap. But I also like The Black Keys, White Stripes and other great rock bands as well.

I believe the best movie ever made is "Once upon a time in the west."

I'm slightly insecure but not afraid to admit it. I would never want to be an actor. Although I fight my fears and act occasionally when friends make indi films. But I hate it.

I'm a Ginger. But you're not allowed to say Ginger or you're a racist even though a Ginger isn't a race, it's more of a genetic superiority. But you still shouldn't make fun of redheads because they are smart and will one day start social networks that will take over the world and steal all your privacy data.

In 2009 I got married to my most amazing and beautiful Japanese wife, Yumiko.

I have a Rabbit named Mimi. She's a psychopath who lives only to destroy my macbook pro power cables, a Wii, an iphone cable, shoes, carpet, and two of my hats.

I'm a light beer guy. Asahi, Bud Light Lime, Miller Light.

Not So Fun Facts About Me

I have an eye condition called Pellucid Marginal Degeneration. It started about three years ago. It's really bad in my left eye making its ability to focus basically worthless. I have to wear special contact lenses that still don't work very well. But that's just my left eye. My right eye is still ok except I get some slight distortion in it. PMD is a condition where your cornea sags slightly and it sucks!!! So I'm basically right eyed.

If you drive, please make sure both your break light work or people with no depth perception like me can very easily slam into the back of you at night when you break quickly. It almost happened to me the other day on the freeway.

My left eye sees slightly more blue then my right eye. I can see out of my left eye, just not detailed. I wonder how it effects my photography.

I'm pretty sure I'm mildly dyslexic and it drives me nuts.

I'm a Photographer

Not professionally, just for fun. I shoot cool landscapes when I can or when I travel. I'm actually not that into landscape photography. I really like photography like that of David Hill and I really like Jill Greenberg. I just love the way they sculpt light and their post processing techniques are amazing. I hope to get there one day. But I'm busy with work so in the mean time, it's travel and landscape photography. Because when I'm not working, I really need to get out of the house and city. :)

I'm a Filmmaker

I really hate when people say they are filmmakers. It's so unbelievably pretentious and makes me vomit inside of my mouth so much that it even comes out of my nose a little bit. But, I majored in film and I live and breath inside of Final Cut Pro, so I guess I might as well say it too.

Like everyone in L.A. I have a few scripts I've been working on. One is basically done the other I'm actually trying to shoot. Building a pitch and all that fun stuff.

"It's about a 18 year old teenage who lives with his single mom. When his little sister starts to get abducted by aliens and behave strangely he must figured out how to keep the family together and save his sister from her fate." Yep it's an alien movie. And that's very basic log line off the top of my head.

I'm into Sci Fi. I have another one that takes place 10 years after a viral mutation zombie like apocalypse. That one is really awesome but people might be tired of mutated human zombie like movies. So I shelved that script for a bit while I rework some of the concepts. I'm not going to say the premise here because it's so unique.

I have a more artistic film about the American Indian apocalypse. Basically when white man came and destroyed the Indian's culture, race and way of life, a soul survivor hunts down the union soldiers that raped and pillaged his village. It's a Indian revenge story. And it's awesome.

For fun, I was shooting Youtube videos with my good friend Xtian Bretz at http://youtube.com/DdayHollywood

Here is my favorite that we did. He's really fun to work with and has a great sense of humor.

DUCK HUNT

My Profession

As mentioned I'm an Editor at an Ad Agency called G-Net. I truly believe they are the best video game marketing company in the industry which is why I still work there.

I don't want to brag but I'm going to do it anyway.

We've won many many many awards. With them I've won two Gold Mi6 awards for best Editing.

Some other projects I've been on with them have also won a Gold for Best Directing, Silver for Best Directing.

And recently our Borderlands 2 Wimoweh trailer won a Gold for "Best Game Footage Trailer," and a Gold for "Best use of music."

Borderlands 2 Wimoweh Trailer

And here is a fun TV spot for Gears of War we just finished up.

Gears of War Judgment TV Commercial "Cheevos"

I'm really lucky to have such a great job that allows me some creative freedom and pays me to do something I enjoy. It's just our hours can be brutal sometimes and I am always tired.

About This Site And Why I Started It

While in school I’ve taken several photography classes as well as studies in cinematography. When I first moved to L.A. from San Diego I made the majority of my living off shooting and editing. In the last few years I’ve started taking photography more seriously and have set out to really perfect the craft as I am still doing with editing.

I've always wanted to have a blog of some sorts. I've started several sites, not blog related which I later walked away from. But I've learned a great deal about the internet, how Google works, and how to blog. So now, I decided to take my photography a step further and create a photo blog. Nothing serious, just something fun, something where I could use to put my photography in front of people so I could set goals for myself and continue to grow and learn and share and teach. That's why I did it. And to be honest, I wouldn't shoot nearly as much photography if it wasn't for having a blog.

Right now I guess you could say my main style is sort of travel photography. I travel as much as I can take off work and money will allow. I shoot photos not really to be a fine art photographer, but to practice technique and create examples on photography topics I can talk about. And like I mentioned earlier it gets me out of the house.

My technical focuses a lot on HDR Photography. Not because of the gimmicky look of HDR, but because I think it's important to capture as much dynamic range as available.

One more thing, having a blog like this has also helped me tremendously with my writing, spelling and grammar. Some of my old posts are a mess, some of my new posts are even a mess. But growing up I've always struggled in the grammar department in school. I've always been a math and art guy. I even failing 3rd grade English. Now I can spell Silhouette without needed a spell checker. And I just did it again.

I actually really enjoy writing, especially in the science fiction genre. I would write more but it causes a lot of eye strain. Because of my condition.

Goals

My goals are to continue my career in Commercial Editing. Maybe one day I'll pick up a cool film to work on. And of course I'd love to get my films made.

But as a hobby my goals are to build my blog and to share my workflows and processes with people that want to learn photography so they can let creativity be a part of their lives as well.

And having this blog forces me to explore various techniques and really discover my own style. At this point I can actually say that it's working. I've been selling or licensing prints here and there and I'm beginning to see the world differently as I develop my own "eye" for photography.

Photography really isn’t all that hard, just requires a little extra work (with maybe a bit of perfectionism with some OCD sprinkled on top) to push your photos into professional looking prints and you can do it without buying $10k worth of gear like many people believe. Although $10k worth of gear really helps a lot.

If you like my work and want to support my blog the best thing you can do is share it with others.