Thursday, October 14, 2010

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.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

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.