New Music Video

I directed this bad boy :). Also shot it too. Special thanks to Neil Biagio

Shot on RED 4.5k

Arri Alexa

Was a second on a shoot with the Arri Alexa. An awesome camera with a lot of latitude. Super user friendly and easy to learn. You can't shoot arriraw yet but ProRes 4444 at Log-C is pretty amazing. And unlike waiting for days to transcode 4.5k Red, Alexa records right onto SxS cards that you pop right in and are ready to edit.

Really hope to shoot with this soon. The EI ranges from 200-1600 but the sweet spot is 800. At 800 you have 7 stops over and 7 under making it 14 stops :). May seem like a pain on a bright exterior but I'd rather use a ND 1.2 and have 7 stops for my highlights then lose the 2 stops to shoot at a 200. Also the noise is super low at 800.

So seems like grab the Alexa, some good glass, ND filters + T1 (to block out infared), and a decent lighting package (camera is great but its not magic you still want to get a healthy histogram/waveform and light the blacks if you want to see detail in them).

Pee Wee PIC In Times

Awhile back the NY TIMES put a article up about the Pee Wee broadway show. I guess they had photographers on the day when we shot the promo because I got my picture in the Times :) I have the physical article at home but found this on there website. Thats me in the back with the white shirt and the film tools ac pouch.

Coney Island Travels

I have lived in NYC for 5 years and have never been to Coney Island until last weekend. Shot a music video for this cool artist from Budapest named Modus. He makes instrumental beats, think El-P and DJ Shadow. Anyways our shoot started at Coney Island then to Bushwick followed by Dumbo and lastly Jersey City.

I directed and shot this. When I got the song it really signaled a visual video so I figured it would be right up my ally to direct. It was a great experience and I hope to do it more.

As far as shooting goes, we shot with the RED One and Zeiss ZF (18mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm). I wound up using the 18mm quite a bit as we were shooting 4.5k and I really wanted some wide Sergio Leone type landscape shots. Coney Island was a blast to shoot so many cool/visual things over there I wish I had taken advantage of it sooner.

I really like the RED + ZEISS combo, it really makes a nice image and is so much better to work with than the 5 or 7D. I like the weight, super 35mm sensor and just that its made for capturing moving images. Not a still camera with the option to shoot movies.

Anyways I hope to get a film project soon! So if you have one contact me :)

AC Work

Had a busy week with some AC work. Did a day on a short film with DP Gordon Yu. Was first assistant with a 5D Zeizz ZF package. Fun shoot great crew. Only issues was the focus marking for the Redrock Follow Focus was broken so had to use some grease on the lens. Also 100mm with no focus ring and just pulling by the barrel at night wide open is a pain in the ass.

Finished up today on a spec commercial for NYU graduate student. I was the 2nd/Loader, was working with the Arricam ST and grands. NYU has a sweet deal they give there graduate students 2,000 feet of 35 to shoot a spec commercial with and rent out a whole ST package from CSC. They had a full set of MK II's, two Ultra Primes (180mm and 20mm) and a Cooke 25-250. Along with all the needed AKS.

Also learned that NYU owns a complete 435 package which can only go out to graduate students. I wish SVA did some cool things like that to get students excited about emulsion.

Late October early November

Had a busy month. Finsihed up a 4 day music video shoot in BK towards the end of October. It was great to have 4 days for a music video, got to take our time and get everything the director wanted. Song was pretty cool and Moeibus (director) came up with a great little narrative story to go with the video. Shot with the RED One and Zeiss ZF primes. Now I have shot with S4's, Superspeeds, and ZF's on that camera. Of course the s4's are the nicest. I will say the ZF SLR lens is a real nice piece of glass and def. a bit sharper than the Super Speeds, though Super Speeds are older lens and ZF's are realtively recent glass. Regardless I was extremely impressed with the quality I got.

It was a great shoot, thanks to Dave my first, Tom for keeping us on time, Pinky for crazy awesome production design and Moeibus and Piper for making a great song and video.

Shot a industrial for Sloan Kettering Memorial Cancer Center. This was my first industrial and it was a great experience. Mr. Vince Cross did a great job directing the project and keeping it simple. It was fun to light for this, nice soft portrait style compared to a lot of the contrasty/dark stuff I have been doing.

October

Had a real busy last few days. First had a crazy shoot following around Pee Wee Herman in NYC for his new show on Broadway. I was the second camera operator and my job was to get establishing shots and crowd reactions. It was a crazy day and at times a pain. We shot with

2 5D's, both with canon L series zoom. I was going to be with the 70-300 but with the speed we were moving at at the coverage we needed after the first location I switched back to the 24-110. Also some of the stuff was right in high noon sunlight which created a impossible contrast ratio that film would have a tough time with let alone the 5D sensor. We were not given any external lcd or sun shade so it was tough to nail exposure at times with the sun glaring into your face. Though it was a great shoot and really fun to be part of. People still love Pee Wee I was amazed at the response he got. Times Square + Pee Wee in a bike cab = crazy.

From there I was the second ac on this really cool doc about the Amazing Bongo Band. They created the song apache which is the main bboy song and one the songs that started hip hop. Great crew and very visual doc. The production was shooting on the RED MX and most of the

time the DP used his Cooke 18-100 though at times we did use some super speeds. The last day the MX was on a jimmy jib capturing a bunch of breakdancers dancing around. It looked incredible. Shooting days had some interesting interviews with QuestLove of the Roots, Melle Mel and Grand Master Kaz of the Furious Five, and the awesome Grand Wizard Theodor who invented the DJ scratch.

Lastly Cole Complex got into the Williamsburg International Film Festival :). Really happy about that. We just wanted to get into one festival. Just to say the film had a life after the dustys. Never thought we would be accepted into 3. Another film I had shot "The Slipping Stone" directed by Amira Moodie came out with a poster. Its pretty sick.

September Happenings

I have not really updated this recently. September was a decent month I finished this awesome short "Frankie." The director Mike Pappa did a really awesome job with the set design and I am very happy with the footage. Shot 7D with one day of stop motion work. I never have done stop motion and didn't realize how tedious it can be. I accidently hit the camera at one point and we had to start over.

Other than that I did a lot of crew work as a electric on a few shorts. I also was the second AC on this pretty cool project "PBJ." Another job with awesome shots. That was RED One and it was the first time I've worked with that camera and Nikons. Past experiences have been with S4's, super speeds, and the RED zooms. Image looked really nice, I am hoping to test it out on a music video coming up with my Zeiss ZF kit. I saw a comparison of those vs super speeds and the ZF's held up very well.

I'm making my directing debut this month with my first official music video. It will be interesting to not be the DP but director. Looking forward to it.

Music Video

Back on the music video scene. Just finished up a small project for my good friend Michael Wallach. He had this concept for a small little music video for this young artist. Feels like a long tim ago that I used a 35mm Adaptor let alone one with the HVX. But Mike felt that he wanted the softness and that "adaptor look."

It was nice to take a break from 7/5D and RED but at the same time also reminded me why those cameras are so much nicer than using a 35mm adaptor. Had simple lighting setups in a ice cream shop. Just some 2ks and 1ks coming in to act like highlights plus the beautiful natural light coming from the front shop windows. Then exteriors with some simple bounce. All in all I am pretty happy with how its looking.

Late August

Nice to be busy. Did some electric work on a short film, really cool story and crew. Project had a good cast for a short; Cali Throne the lead is one of the main characters in Rescue me, Constantine from American Idol, and John Slattery from Mad Men.

Also been shooting on a short film called "Frankie." Its been going really well. Has awesome production design and a fun retro feel. Will be finishing that up at the end of August. Music video coming up this weekend. Hopefully I can keep staying busy.

August Happenings

June and July were super slow. Stuff has picked up again have been crewing mostly lately. Finished up as a media transcoder on a commercial with the 7D. Basically two 7D's PL mounted with zeiss superspeeds and a canon 25-250mm. Pretty ridiculous looking once all the camera support (rods, matte, monitor) is put on that thing. Three fast days and awesome crafty :).

Did some second ac work for two days on a feature this week. Much different than the commercial, super professional to um well not so professional. Regardless was a fun two days and made some dough.

In preproduction on a short film coming up for August. Pretty excited to DP it. Great script and great vision. Laslty Cole Complex got into the Atlantic City International Film & Music Festival. Thats number two hopefully we will get in some more.

optimo 12-120 (no 25-250 pic)

my transcode setup

7D PL

SLOW SLOW AND SLOW

Wow it has been a kill month in a half. I have had nothing :(. I thought I would have about 4 things lined up from mid june to now but all fell threw. Maybe some projects coming up but its really slow. On some good news;

Cole Complex was accepted to the 29th Annual NJ Film Festival

and

Salt Water was accepted to the 27th Annual Long Island Film Festival

Both films I shot and am happy they have made it to some festivals and hopefully a few more. Also the music video I did for It's Him "I'll Be Alright" has been playing on Mundos so thats pretty cool.

Keep It Movin

Video came out a week ago. Shot on 7D with Sigma Fish Eye and Zeiss ZF primes (35, 50, 85). Had the redrock shoulder mount for support.

Busy

Its been a busy month which is really nice. Haven't graduated yet (next Friday is the big day) and I've been fortunate enough to have a paid dp pretty much each week of the last month.

Shot two music videos. One for this rap/rock artist in Harlem Lamec. We did a lot of crazy stuff with the 7D. With its small size we were able to rig it to a monopod which we then set up to a bike to get a real cool performance shot. Also played around a lot with the Spike Lee person on dolly trick.

Other music video was for a latin r&b kind of artist. Had a crazy 16 hour day. Shot at this real sweet balcony on 56th, than central park with steady cam, and lastly to this location in BK. Really used the source 4s for a lot of the set ups. We were creating a kind of noir/romantic feel.

Finally shot a short horror film :). I have been wanting to work on a horror project for a long time now. It was a fun shoot. Used the T2i with zeiss ZF primes which produced a very nice image. My lighting package on this was nothing pretty much had a 650 Arri Kit, a shitty lowel chimera (which I never used) and a bunch of 150watt 212 bulbs. Nonetheless we had some cool setups and the makeup is pretty sick.

Cole Complex Screening

Thesis Films are screening May 2-5 and four of them I shot.

Still Point - Sunday May 2 6:35 PM

Slipping Stone - Tuesday May 4 6 PM

Cole Complex - Wednesday May 5 7:08 PM

Salt Water - Wednesday May 5 7:55 PM

I am very happy with all four projects. Cole Complex I also co-produced with the director Michael Wallach.

It's Him Music Video

Wrapped up a music video this past weekend for the artist It's Him The Black Hispanic (great name). Shot on the RED with Zeiss Superspeeds at 4k HD. This is my second time working as a DP with the RED and it was a great relief from adaptors and 7D's. It was a pretty crazy day, 5 locations in 12 hours. It was my first time working with a legit steadicam and operator. I have never been a huge fan of the steadicam movement but I will say it grew on me for this video. We shot all exterior and I did have a nice 1.2k PAR HMI which worked really well. I found myself using it pretty much at every spot except the roof.

On a side note, I used to be a big fan of the Ruff Ryders. For those of you who don't know that was DMX and Swizz Beats group (consisted of The Lox, Eve). One of the Ruff Ryders "Drag-On" (also a actor in such fine films as Exit Wounds) made a cameo in on of the performances. Pretty dope.

Slipping Stone

Finished up 4th thesis film "Slipping Stone." Shoot was early days with little crew and a shitty G&E package. Shot with the Letus Ultimate Zeiss Glass and the EX-1. Had problems with the adaptor, at times it wouldn't spin and other instances the edge to edge focus wasn't very good. That being said I am pretty pleased with the results of have less then a skeleton crew (most of the shoot I was my own DP, operator and AC). Luckily I had my gaffer every day except one which was a plus. I think "Cole Complex" and "Slipping Stone" (Dir. Amira Moodie) are my most visual thesis pieces.

Super 16ke

Ah, Kodak came to show off the new Vision 3 250D stock. The footage was shot by Fred Murphy ASC and looked amazing. Having shot only HD this semester (RED, 5D, 7D, and EX-1 w/adaptor) I really miss film. I was looking at a project I shot last year on the SRII with 250 vision 2 and 500 vision 3 and it just has such a organic feel to it. It can handle the highlights and shadows unlike any other format out. I hope to do a little project on S16 it before I graduate.

Cole Complex

Finished up thesis film "Cole Comple." Wore two hats as the DP and producer. Was my first time working with the RED and I really am happy with the results. We were able to get a set of Cooke's 16mm, 25mm, 32mm, 50mm and 75mm. Found myself using 16, 25, 32 and 50 quiet often. We shot 4K HD frame guided to 2.40. These are just some quick CC screens of what the end product will look like once we get it colored professionally.