November 2011
6 posts
Racing in NV
I shot a 90-mile road race outside of Ely, NV not long ago. My AC and I had to hike up a mountain at 4am to get our camera in position. We were up there for about 12 hours, shooting cars racing at 180mph past us with a RED.
Whip-pans at 180mph with a fully-loaded RED and an AC pulling focus is a tricky thing. We nailed nearly every one of the 100+ cars that passed us.
Auckland
We shot the movie with a Panasonic AF101 (PAL version of 100) and a couple 7Ds. We had a bunch of lenses and peripheral stuff and we divided it between the crew to get into NZ because they can be strict about productions coming into the country. They did sweat us in customs but eventually let us and all of our gear through.
A stop in Jo’burg on the way…
And another stop in...
Cape Town!
Cape Town is one of my favorite places in the world. There still exist a lot of social problems from past apartheid but it’s a beautiful place with a ton of energy. As one of our local musicians said, “This is where life is.”
One of our producers, Peter…
Self…
The star of the movie…
Collaborating with “The Ladies”…
Cape Town...
Around the world
This is the project I’ve been working on most recently. I won’t say much about it for now except that it’s a feature documentary I am directing (and editing) about a musician traveling around the world, recording an album and collaborating with local artists. We went to Kingston, London, Stockholm, Cape Town, Auckland, and a few other places. I have a ton of photos, here are a...
Short Straw and Big Spoon
I mentioned a couple posts back that some friends and I directed and shot a short film in Healdsburg: It is a story about two writer friends surviving after the apocalypse. My friend Cory Loykasek and his writing partner Robb Boardman and I wrote the general story over a series of lunch meetings in 2009 and then they created the screenplay together. Robb and I directed the short together....
Just got back from TX!
It’s been a while since my last update and I’ve been busy with a lot of stuff. I just got back from Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin and I have a couple down days until I leave for a shoot in Mexico, so I figured this might be a good time to throw some photos up on the ol blog.
This is a pilot I DP’d in June (?). Of course, I can’t really say anything about it but it involved...
May 2011
1 post
Latin drums
A Latin drum troupe is practicing down the street from me as I type this.
There is a lot to update but I don’t have time to post photos right now, so I’ll jot down the quick and dirty.
The show I was DP’ing last fall has premiered and is currently airing on VH1. It’s called Beverly Hills Fabulous and you can get more info and watch a couple episodes online at...
February 2011
1 post
January 2011
1 post
Hitch hiking to Florida!
I just got back from a hitch hiking adventure with my friend Adam Leech who owns the Leechpit in Colorado Springs (www.leechpit.com).
About a year ago, he and I discovered we shared a similar interest in hobo nickels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo_nickel). He carves ‘em and I collect ‘em and we hatched a plan: the idea was to hitch hike from Colorado to a huge coin show in Tampa,...
October 2010
1 post
DP'ing new show in Beverly Hills
I am DP’ing a new network TV show but I can’t say much more than that right now. Here are a few photos…
Flip camera rigging. Hilarious and sad at the same time.
This was one of my favorite days of shooting…at an after-school program in Compton.
A transformer blew up across the street from a location we were shooting at.
I am shooting with 4 Panasonic...
July 2010
4 posts
Arri Alexa
I just took a crash course on the new Alexa camera from Arri. This thing is amazing. Here are some of the highlights:
- It has a base sensitivity of 800EI, giving incredible low light ability
- It can record all standard frame rates between 1-60fps
- It records, natively, all flavors of Apple ProRes, including 4444 to Sony SxS cards
- The menus are incredibly intuitive, with most major items...
Shooting at the ESPYS
Stereoscopic (3D) Filmmaking at UCLA
Recently, I finished a 3D filmmaking course at UCLA taught by Keith Collea. It was tricky trying to weave the course into my professional workload, but I figured it out, having only missed just under half the classes (yikes!). To be fair, our professor missed about the same number as he was shooting in Mexico. Here are some photos…
Joey Romero from Element Technica, showing two Red...
Standard downtown
My buddy Jake Bern in the elevator on our way to the roof of the Standard downtown…
June 2010
2 posts
New hip hop show
I am DP’ing a new hip hop TV show starring Cee-Lo. Here are some photos…
Load in.
Cee-Lo and fellow members of Goodie Mob.
AC Art and PA Voltaire.
Chipping the cameras. I shot with 4 Sony F900Rs and a couple Canon 7Ds.
Q Bert!
Janelle Monet.
Cee-Lo and Flavor Flav.
Cee-Lo, Flavor Flav and Chuck D.
Q Bert and Chuck D.
Ludacris and Cee-Lo.
More...
Always nice to see when I'm driving down...
This is where it all started for Flogging Molly.
May 2010
6 posts
The Bleeding Edge: Shooting live with the 7D and...
Shooting with these DSLR cameras is cutting edge, but sometimes it feels like the bleeding edge.
I’ve been dying to try out the Beachtek DXA-SLR because the 5Da is downright unusable. Beachtek promises that, by sending an inaudible tone of 20kHz to the left channel of the camera, the 7D’s AGC will be disabled. During my tests, I could clearly hear a high-pitched tone on playback,...
Location scouting in Hollywood.
I spent the day with my producer and our show runner, scouting Hollywood locations for a new TV show I am DP’ing (more details about the show soon). We saw some beautiful live performance venues, including the Musicbox (Henry Fonda Theater), the Avalon, and Bardot. Some photos…
The Musicbox (above). That entire back wall is an LED screen.
Musicbox lounge.
Avalon stage.
...
April 2010
4 posts
Shooting live(ish) with the 7D...and a DXA-SLR...
I just returned from another two-day shoot in Orlando. Again, I was shooting with a Canon 7D package and, like all filmmakers using these cameras, I am hungry for an acceptable way to record audio to the camera. I had high hopes for Beachtek’s newly-released DXA-SLR, the follow up to their DXA-5DA adapter that allows you to use mics with XLR outputs with DSLR cameras that only accept stereo...
Solid rocket booster ignition and liftoff!
I just returned from Orlando where I am shooting a one-hour weekly show for Spike.
Apparently this shirt gets you a little extra attention at airport security. I received the full search and pat-down. I guess they didn’t notice the heart in the trigger. You know how flights to Vegas are filled with loud drunk people, ready to burn money? Flights to Orlando are the same except with...
Shooting NBA and NHL in the land of the sun.
I just got back from shooting NBA and NHL in Phoenix. Fox Sports is redoing all of its national broadcast opens for its professional sports teams. I had the privilege and pleasure- along with fellow shooter Jeff Bollman- of shooting the Phoenix Suns and the Phoenix Coyotes. We shot with Canon 7D cameras with a nice collection of lenses and accoutrements.
Friend and fellow shooter Jeff Bollman...
March 2010
10 posts
Good bye SXSW 2010
I’m sitting at the Austin airport with some time to kill before my flight. Here are some more photos from the week…
Here we go!!
Austin Convention Center- base camp for the whole SXSW operation. They also have an exhibition hall in this building that houses the Flatstock concert poster art exhibit, something I look forward to every year but, unfortunately missed this time.
...
The Beautiful People
I have been shooting a presentation for the past few days in Beverly Hills. A presentation is like a pilot for a television network that is considering a show. I can’t say which network or give precise details on the show, but here are some photos from the shoot…
Producer Brad Blondheim, giving direction.
The cast.
Shooting Elgin Charles with a Panasonic HMC150 and...
A&E Special on Hulk Hogan
I am currently the Director of Photography for an A&E special on Hulk Hogan. For the past month, we have been shooting in Tampa and Orlando and, most recently, here in Los Angeles. Our final shoot is coming up on March 8th in Orlando when Hulk Hogan will return to the ring for the first time in 15 years.
Hulk Hogan is an icon and when he walks into a room, you feel his presence. But he...
December 2009
1 post
Nightbird
I just spent two days shooting at the Nightbird Studios in the basement of the Sunset Marquis Hotel.
Our camera setup was a Canon 5DMkii on a Red Rock shoulder mount and a Sony Ex1 with a Letus lens adapter. We shot primarily with Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L and Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lenses. Beautiful images.
We did sit-down interviews in the bar…
I can’t say who the band is or what it is for, but...
November 2009
4 posts
This is good for me, in a zen kind of way.
The technical headaches of reviving my site are one thing, but the biggest bummer is that all of my News Blog postings are gone. It’s my own fault for not backing up the blog (lesson learned, AGAIN) but it’s still kind of sad because it’s like losing a journal or a notebook. I may try to re-post some of the important stuff but I’m generally approaching this in a zen-like, releasing-the-ego kind of...
Posse
I recently Produced and DP’ed a show for CMT called POSSE. It will premier Dec. 12th and play throughout the holiday season.
Brad Blondheim and I teamed up once again to hit the road throughout 2009 to follow a group of professional rodeo bull riders on the PBR circuit, culminating in the world championships in Las Vegas. I had a great time shooting it and working with Brad. Being...
July 2009
1 post
KSM
Reminiscent of my time on the road with Flogging Molly but, at the same time, entirely different, I have spent the last month on tour with Disney’s new all-girl band KSM. They are 5 girls aged 15-17 who play their own instruments and they have been opening up for Demi Lavato and David Archuleta. I have been doing the one-man-band thing, shooting content and shipping it back to LA where it...
April 2009
1 post
February 2009
1 post
SXSW Premiere: Number One with a Bullet
Number One with a Bullet had its SXSW premiere last night at downtown Austin’s Paramount theater. Killer screening. It’s always a good sign when the theater staff has to kick you out because the Q&A runs so long. We took it out onto the street and then down 6th street. It’s great to have my producer Josh Krause in town and my assistant editor Guisepi Spadafora. Guisepi and I...