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