TV Series Pilot: "Love Finder"

____At the beginning of July I worked as a Key Grip on a TV series Pilot called "Love Finder." It was a 7 day shoot and we were working with a 1 ton lighting and grip package. The shoot consisted of some pretty involved night exterior set ups as well as a bunch of scenes in a night club which offered an outlet for some creative lighting techniques. I was really impressed at the area we were able to cover for night exteriors even with a small package.
The biggest light we had on the truck was a 2k Fresnel but we were still able to light every night scene properly.


One of the setups I was most proud of was a night exterior in which the main character walks down a long patio along side a house and then stops to talk with another character at the far end of the patio. (LEFT) This was one of the widest night exterior shots and one of the most complex lighting setups of the entire 7 day shoot. We used the 2K Fresnel on a high roller to illuminate the bushes and ground on the far side of the patio as well as a Daylight CFL softlight behind camera to provide a backlight as well as additional ambient "moonlight". We then strung an array of tungsten bulbs under the bushes along the bottom of the patio walk way to back up a few practical units that were in frame. We then placed 2 Kinos with tungsten bulbs and an additional tungsten softbox on the inside of the house shooting out onto the patio walkway to provide a warmer light source motivated from the house. The tungsten softbox at the far end of the house also provided the key for the second character.

One of the other locations that was pretty cool was a night club on Santa Monica called Voyer. The producers had a connection there and we were able to get the location during the day when the club was not open to the public. It's a great looking place and added a ton of production value to the film. (ABOVE) We used a fogger a lot in this location as well as a mixture of party gels on a bunch of 650w fixtures. The smoke gave the colored lights shape and created a cool atmosphere. I have heard that the pilot is being pitched to networks like SPIKE TV and Comedy Central. I hope it all comes together in the edit as we were able to capture some pretty sweet images.

Short Film: "Open Road"

___In the Middle of June I worked as a 1st A.C on a short film entitled "Open Road." We were shooting on the RED with a small crew. Mostly all the coverage was on sticks so there weren't any insanely hard pulls. We used .9 ND Hot-mirror all day in order to open up the lenses to around the 4.0-5.6 range. We used the 50mm mostly but we did pop on the 200mm for a specialty long shot of an actor riding his bike toward camera from a distance. That was probably the hardest pull all day.

We had a great location on a long dirt road in the desert and were able to capture some really great visuals. We had a 12x12 frame that we used 1/4 Grid in to knock down the harsh sunlight. We also switched out the 1/4 grid rag for an ultra bounce when we needed a strong key. I really liked working with this D.P as he used a light meter for every set up and was open to sharing his insight with me. I haven't worked with many D.P's who meter light and it is something that I have been trying to do more on sets in which I am D.Ping. It was a solid day with the only issue being the insane amount of planes that were flying over our location the entire day. Overall it was a relaxed shoot and I definitely learned a lot from the D.P.

Director of Photography: Music Video- "Bummer Summer"

___At the beginning of June I shot a music video entitled, "Bummer Summer" for The Hub Network. It was a simple shoot consisting of all day exteriors. We had a 6x6 frame with full silk along with a few reflectors. We used the 6x6 frame to knock down the harsh sunlight and we used the silver side of the reflectors to give strong back and edge lights to the actors. I had an ND fader that I used a lot on the 35mm lens in order to open it all the way up to a 1.4 when I could. There were a few shots which involved the 70-200mm but for the most part we stayed on the 35mm.

The director, Jason Perlman, is a good friend of mine who I have been collaborating with a lot recently. He is meticulous when it comes to pre-production and I wouldn't have it any other way. I like working with Jason because I always know exactly what the day consists of and how much time we have to get it done. I'm a huge fan of planning ahead and I'm glad Jason is too. He is also great at keeping the energy level up on set which is really important when working on pieces for The Hub. Everything is always high energy and the actors need to have exaggerated movements and animated facial expressions because the target audience is young kids. It was a good shoot and I think we got some really pretty stuff despite the small amount of grip equipment we had to work with.

Director of Photography: "The TKO 2.0"

____In the middle of May, I traveled to Orlando Florida for a 7 day commercial shoot for professional magician Jeff Kaylor. We shot mainly in the "Magic Estate" where a stage was set up for performance purposes. We used this stage as our main backdrop for the commercial piece, "The TKO 2.0." We had a very small lighting package but it got the job done. To light the scene, I used a 650w fresnel to rake the background curtains, two 300w fresnels w/ 216 diffusion as back/edge lights and a 300w bulb threw an umbrella as a key. For fill I bounced another 300w bulb off an umbrella. It was a simple set up but it worked well. For product/close up shots I just made small adjustments.

We also shot some run and gun street magic over the course of the week and that footage looked great as well. It was a relaxing shoot and a great time over all. Check out Jeff here: www.thekayloroption.com.

Gaffer: Short Film- “Last Words”

____I recently gaffed a short film entitled "Last Words" staring Mark Pellegrino (LOST, Supernatural) and Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead). Friend and fellow D.P Jess Dunlap asked me to come on board and work as his gaffer on the project. Jess and I have collaborated on a few pieces together in the past and I really enjoy working with him. The short, written by Dan Perrault and directed by Tony Yacenda, is a comedy about a dying civil war soldier’s not so profound last words to his comrade.


The film consisted of all day exteriors so our main goal was to utilize and shape the natural light to create contrast. In the early morning hours there was cloud cover so the light was relatively flat and diffused. We used a 6x6 frame of griff plus scraps of duvetyne that were hung from the bottom of the frame for negative fill. As the sun rose higher and the cloud cover cleared we switched out the griff in the 6x6 for full silk and used it to knock down the harsh sunlight. We brought in a 4x4 bead board to bounce for a key as well as a smaller show card to wrap the key even further. Eventually we had to tabletop the 6x6 silk as the sun rose directly overhead. To avoid seeing the hard edge of the 6x6 frame shadow on the ground, we cut off branches from a nearby bush and clipped them to the edges of the frame so the shadow would blend in naturally to the shadows already thrown on the ground from a nearby tree.

Everything looked great based on the few times I was able to see the frame. The location worked well as a civil war setting as the framing was kept relatively tight to avoid any nearby houses, power lines etc. The wardrobe and hair/make up was spot on, I really believed that these were civil war soldiers in the midst of battle. There was even a battalion of 7 fully outfitted extras bearing muskets as well as one on horseback. I’m sure the “battle sounds” that will be added in post will really help bring the scene to life even more. Overall, it was a good shoot and it was great to work with some new people. I’m looking forward to seeing the final product.

Director of Photography: Short Film- Blackstone (Day 2)

___The second day of production took place at a private residence that we used for a total of 5 different locations in the film. In the interior of the house, we used a bedroom and a living room (more affectionately coined the "murder room") and the exteriors took place in the front yard, a storage shed and a small alleyway at the side of the house.

The scene I was most proud of on Day 2 was the "murder room" (ABOVE). When we did the original location scout, I saw that the room had a fireplace and immediately wanted to incorporate that into the scene. I knew that it would be a great motivation to use some creative lighting techniques. One of the main goals I had with this production from a lighting standpoint was to mix color temperatures. I had done very little of this in prior projects and it was something that I really wanted to explore. In the scene, a mother and father are tied back to back on the ground by numerous "assailants" who circle them ominously before going in for the kill. We shot the scene day for night so all the windows and doors were tented to eliminate any sunlight spill. We left a small portion of a window uncovered in order to key with a 1.2 HMI through 216 diffusion from outside the house. We gelled this with 1/2 CTB so that it would play as moonlight. We added an additional 1K Open Face with full CTB as well to bring out some more detail in the book cases. Then we hid a flicker box with a 650w fresnel gelled with 1/2 CTO on the ground behind the two subjects. This was our motivating fire light. It provided a nice flickering hard edge. Our last light added was a pepper shooting up from the floor also gelled with 1/2 CTO to fill in the mother's face with a soft orange glow that was also motivated from the fire.

The set dressing was amazing and the Christmas lights added a nice touch to the background elements. Overall, the scene came out almost exactly the way I had envisioned it in my head, which is great. I loved the way the blue moonlight looked mixed with an orange flickering edge as well as a soft orange fill. We ended up having to open up all the way to 1.3 on an 80mm lens at the end of the scene in order to save time. I was extremely lucky to have 1st A.C Austin Ahlborg there pulling focus as the depth of field was insanely shallow and he nailed it all the way. Camera Operator Garret Williams also did great work as well as Gaffer Stephen Chang who quickly became the other half of my brain on set.



Director George Tunis commanded the whole operation and did a great job despite the tremendous amount of pressure that must have been on him to complete a 15 page short with "name talent" in 2 days. Producers Eric Goldrich, Ian Wallace and Adam Kuyt also worked extremely hard getting everything organized. I don't think Eric slept for the entire week prior to shooting. 1st A.D Jon Melick and 2nd A.D Brianne Richards did a great job keeping us as close to on schedule as humanly possible. Everyone on the crew was amazing and there are too many names to mention but as I said before, I was extremely lucky to be able to work with everyone and hopefully "Blackstone" is just the beginning of our collaboration together.

Director of Photography: Short Film- Blackstone (Day 1)

____I recently shot a short film entitled, "Blackstone" starring JK Simmons (Spiderman, Juno, The Closer) and Sasha Grey (Entourage, The Girlfriend Experience). We shot on the RED MX with Zeiss superspeed primes. The budget was around $30,000 so we were able to get a great camera package, lighting/grip package and hire a great crew. It has been a long time since I have had the luxury of working on a project in which I was given both an amazing camera and lighting/grip team to work along side of. I was especially proud of the amount of pre-production that went into this project. There is a great feeling of confidence when you can walk onto set knowing that you are as prepared as you possibly can be for the whirlwind of activity and "organized chaos" that is about to consume your life for the remainder of the production.

I met with director George Tunis numerous times to discuss overall visual style and to create overheads of every scene that outlined the blocking as well as the coverage/camera position. I was also able to do a walk through of each location with Gaffer Stephen Chang and Key Grip Jeff Marlowe to discuss exactly where/what kind of lights would be needed for each scene. Stephen and I then sat down together and added these specific fixtures to the overheads so they could be handed out to the rest of the grip team. This way while we were shooting in one location, another location could be prepped at the same time. Without the overheads this would not have been possible. I live and die by those on set, they are more important to me than the shot list or script.

One of the setups I was most proud of on Day 1 was a scene in which J.K Simmon's character confronts Raven (Sasha Grey) in a small "interrogation room." (TOP RIGHT) One of the concerns I had early on about numerous locations in the film were the abundance of WHITE WALLS. I hate white walls. In order to break up the walls, Stephen and I discussed creating a subtle striped pattern on them by shooting a 1k through a single net that was taped off with black gaff. Mixing color temperatures also helped break up the walls as well. We discussed creating a sodium vapor look as if a street light were shining into the room through a barred window. We also had a skirted Kino mounted to the ceiling that provided a top-light as well as a key as it bounced off the silver table in between the actors. We gave Raven an edge light using a 650w fresnel that was gelled with the same color combination as the 1k. We then gave J.K an edge light from another Kino to help keep him and his black suit from blending into the surrounding darkness.