Summer Is Just Around the Bend

I was working at my desk a couple of days ago on beautiful day in March when I heard a trumpet blast announcing the arrival of spring and summer... the Mr Softy Ice Cream truck jingle. As a kid growing up in New York summer evenings always concluded with a strawberry shortcake or a vanilla cone topped off with chocolate sprinkles and when I heard that sweet sound I could only think that cold days of winter are behind us. To celebrate this occasion I pulled out a stop motion video I shot in Central Park on an incredibly warm day in Sheep's Meadow, Central Park last July, 2008.

Go grab your ice cream...

Fashion with Friends, NYC

Friends Elizabeth Marz, makeup artist, and Marissa Waters, stylist, and I got together one recent Saturday afternoon for a shoot on the roof of my building. It was unusually warm for the mid-February day and the sky was a beautiful cadet blue. Inspired by a recent Japanese anime, Marissa pulled a wardrobe fit for Blade runner and Liz complimented the attire with an equally impressive hand at the makeup and hair. In the end, a day intended for fun, turned into a great collaboration... big thanks goes out to Dasha from Elite NYC for bearing the above average but cold temps :)

Here are a couple of the non-retouched images:

Video Trailer - Jamie O'Brien Shoot, North Shore, Hawaii

It's a great feeling when you finally see the fruits of your labor. The crew of the Jamie O'Brien shoot in Oahu, Hawaii put in a tremendous amount of work on a daily basis and I'm honored to be part of it. Please take the following link to see the finished trailer (2 minutes long) showcasing the work of Vincent Laforet, Nich Childs, Mike Isler, Tab Firchau, Ryan Hughes and myself and of course... Jamie O'Brien.

VIDEO LINK

Betties and Biffs - SNOWBOARDING

ROAD TRIP!

We could have worked

We decided to play

Now my body feels it the next day 

It was a really great day out on the slopes (hill), but what a fantastic, last minute trip it turned out to be.  Special thanks to my stunt team :)

Karen "The Flame" Heston

Sarah "The African Bullet" Hart

Chris "The Sabo" Le

It's Friday, we're all back to work, but the daydreams of the white powder and blue skies make the day fly by that much quicker.  "wait, what's that, oh who's at the door?... oh, hello Weekend, won't you come in..."

Good times...

Sydney, Australia - Music Video Shoot

The crew was packed, the equipment was tested and check out from Panavision, and the crafts were purchased, this could only mean one thing... road trip!  After consulting with the local film counsel for locations and two days of scouting, our crew headed approximately 250 miles west of Sydney to the barren town of Narrowmine on the western edge of New South Wales, Australia.  We wanted a sparse landscape and isolated roads to serve as the backdrop to the "Raw Style" music video.  Capturing the video with the Sony F23 was an amazing experience. The camera, despite her 60 lbs fully loaded was very easy to work with and was very comfortable to work with handheld.

Zeiss Digiprimes (7mm, 10mm, 20mm, 40mm all T/1.6) and Fuji 10-100mm T/1.8 were our lenses of choice.  Luke and Paul did a great job developing the common the story boards to our narrative that would run throughout the 3 minute video.  In the end we had 4 performance pieces, a narrative, and a dead body in the boot of the car all checked off the list.    

The Long Road Home... to get to another marathon - The ING Miami Marathon

38 hours of travel and six ports of call (SYD -> HNL -> LAX -> JFK -> LGA -> MIA) deliver me at the starting line of the ING Miami Marathon for the fourth year in a row.  Fighting the jet lag has become a science, but I look forward to shooting the race for ING.  20,000 people are expected... that's a lot of coffee and bananas for the 5 am call time... how are they so pumped so early will continually escape me.  

Aloha, Honolulu... G'Day, Sydney Australia

The final days of the Jamie O'Brien documentary finished strong. The weather was cooperating, the work flow was smooth, and the crew had survived the dreaded company move from our first base of operations to our new home located directly on Pipeline Beach... VERY NICE! Working with Tab, Mike, Ryan and Vincent on this project offered an opportunity to make collaborate with true pros.

As things go, the 3 weeks in beautiful Hawaii had to come to an end at some point, however with a very fortunate call from Australia and a quick ticket on Jetstar, I'm off to the even more amazing Sydney Australia.

So the evolution of camera geekology begins with the crawl of the Canon 5D MKII, to speed of the RED One, and to the amazing beauty of the Sony F23 Camera ($300,000 for the body! "Hello B&H, may I get 3 please...haha")and Zeiss Digiprime lenses (my fav... the 7mm T1.6) throught the 10mm-100mm Fuji Cinelens T1.8 . From the ground up, including the strong foundation of the Sachtler 2575 head... Panaivsion has outfitted the music video shoot for Redbak and DJ DreadJuan I am DPing with some pretty nice toyzzzzz.

The Crew
Director: Luke Torrevillas
Director of Photography: Richard Patterson
1st AD: Paul Misbrener
1st AC: Rose McVittie
Playback Operator / Producer: Nic Godoy

We're off to the deserts and western plains of New South Wales tomorrow and will begin shooting on Monday and Tuesday. SPF like my age... 30 something +

...more to come soon
Cheers :)