>{therealnickjones}<

Houston’s First Baptist Logo Unveil from difted on Vimeo.

Here’s the logo reveal created for Houston’s First Baptist. The first mini doc is finished for them as well, I’ll post it soon. Much love to the one and only BC Clark for some Lightwave genius.

So I’m sitting in the airport with my two friends Zach and Adam, minding my own business, eating some nachos, and out of nowhere snoop dogg walks by. Zach immediately ran down the hallway after him and I snapped a couple pics. Here’s the weird thing though. He was flying southwest… Not very gangsta snoop… Not very gangsta at all…

Wildly Popular ‘Iron Man’ Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

Scandalous!

Spider Burning from Nick Jones on Vimeo.

The chilling conclusion of “Death of a Spider, or How We Saved The World With 200 Matches and an Insect Trap”,

We have had a huge spider with babies all over right outside our office for a couple of days. We tried reasoning with it. We tried asking politely for it to leave. Negotiations broke down this morning, and this was the result.

this is a shot taken a few minutes ago by John in our office. They really did this. Awesome.

Houston was awesome. I’m really excited about all the things I saw going on inside Houston’s First Baptist. The church has an awesome energy, great staff, and is making great strides to become one of the most relevant ministries in the Houston area. Rachel and I spent a few days in the area shooting and catching trying to catch the vibe of the area, and now it’s back to the home studio (aka The Man Cave) to develop some killer content.

Guadalajara Hacienda has officially been named to the approved Real Nick Jones dining list. I enjoyed the old standby enchilada combo while Rachel dined on the highly recommended empanadas. Definitely hit this place up next time you are in the Houston area.

I just returned from a couple great days in Chicago. I’ve gotta say Chicago is one of my favorite cities (I might be a bit biased having grown up close… but that’s another conversation…) I really enjoyed seeing my good friend Dave Schwarz and hanging out with all the guys at Willow Creek. We were working on a couple of follow up videos on the book Reveal,that will be viewed at the upcoming Summit.

For the tech junkies out there, we shot with a pro 35 adapter and used a pretty sweet set of Zeiss prime lenses to create a pretty awesome film look. If you see the video in the next few months be sure to check out the awesome depth of field those things gave us, pretty incredible…

The best part by far was picking up a couple chicago dogs at Portillos.

Oh man I’m hungry just looking at it again… I immediately called my wife because she is a hot dog junkie and talked to her for about 30 minutes about the awesome hot dog I just downed. I don’t she was as excited for me as I was… But I mean it really was THAT GOOD…

Just for kicks here are the top 5 songs played on my ipod while in Chicago…

5. Death and All His Friends - Coldplay
4. I Will Posses Your Heart - Death Cab For Cutie
3. She’s Not There - The Zombies
2. Let’s Dance to Joy Division - The Wombats
1. Free Fallin’ - John Mayer

(I was really feeling that Zombies track on the trip… not really sure why…)

More updates to come… Looking forward to heading down to Houston this weekend to work with First Baptist… Great people down there.

ok, so I get asked all the time, “who are your influences, who do you look up to?”

This is a great question. In one of my favorite design books MTIV by Hillman Curtis he says one of the most important things any designer can do is fall in love with a master and fall in love with contemporaries…. or something like that… The point is you need to be influenced by others. Little one man islands out there just do not survive in this industry.

With that said, here is a look at some influences you may or may not know, but all of which are having a huge effect on my creative process right now.

CONTEMPORARY\\Port City Community Church

My One Word | Joe Hawksworth - “Thought” from Port City Community Church on Vimeo.

These guys have it going on. I don’t know why no one in my circle has ever heard of these guys but they are pushing the envelope of church production right now. I love the attention to detail they have in lighting and color grading on their projects. It is obvious these projects are well thought out and executed with a strong team. Love their work.

CONTEMPORARY\\ Jonathan Youngblood

Ok I chose the druggie looking picture…. (sorry Jonathan) I assure you no narcotics were at play in the making of this portrait… Jonathan is a college friend that has pushed me creatively for about 8 years. You can check out some of his work and thoughts here. Jonathan continues to blow me away with making the ordinary look awesome. He has an amazing sense of style in photography, music, and web design, and at the end of the day is an all-around stand up guy.

MASTER// Michel Gondry

What can I say about Gondry? He is an extreme innovator. He creates entirely new systems of production just to make the ideas in his head work. He is not afraid to fail and ultimately stays true to his own creative vision above all else. One of the biggest things I picked up from Michel was his sense of rhythm and timing. His background as a drummer becomes obvious in most of his music videos. Whether it is a White Stripes video with the kits appearing on each beat or a train ride with the background hitting perfectly on beat, the guy is a genius.

MASTER\\ Trey Ratcliff

Trey is a true HDR master. He travels the world and shoots some of the most amazing shots I have ever seen. I check his site out almost daily. Trey has an amazing color palette paired with a great sense of composition that is pretty much unbeatable. I can get lost in his shots for long amounts of time. Trey, you’re a master.

There are so many more that I could mention, but we’ll save that for another post… Who do you follow? Hopefully you can think of a few… if not, it might be time to come off that high horse a little bit and realize there are others out there that can blow you away…. (unless you’re Gondry)

I put up a big album today with a bunch of shots from Kauai, go and check it out Here.