B.A. obtained. Got to see some of my best buds this weekend!
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Got mah hairs cut today! Never before have I seen a man cut hair with that much precision and attention to detail. Thanks Jonny’s Classic Barber Shop!
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Self;
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Some of my photos are on Huffington Post!

Check it out! Huffington Post wrote an awesome article about BVChicago! They included several photos of mine!

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WIWT
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cinematographers: Coming Soon Designed by my brother Kit.
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cinematographers: My Own Practice: “Litter Troubles” - A Discussion On My Methods and Practices. - Above is a screen shot from the Directing 3 project I shot a few weekends ago for my digital cinematography class. This is my friend Sam working as the 2nd AC, slating the shot below: This was shot on the RED One in Humboldt Park in Chicago, IL. I really love this shot, and I think it’s going to go in my reel when I’ve got it updated. I worked very closely with my production designer going over certain color palette’s with her, and she did a great job matching this character’s wardrobe to her surroundings. The character is an environmentalist girl who pretends to be more interested in recycling than she actually is. Mainly she wants to prove people wrong and be in the right the whole time. Some time later in the story, the character, Olivia, encounters a gangbanger guy and confronts him for littering. For the shot above, I edged the gang member’s face with a Junior (2,000w) from about 30’-35’ away, and gave him a little fill from a Baby (1,000w) bounced through 251. Throughout the film, we had 4 nights of exteriors, and due to availability issues, I had two different gaffers. This made keeping lighting consistent from night to night, somewhat difficult as their styles differed a bit. The shot above was gaffed by a guy I camera assist for pretty often, Taylor. He had been my gaffer through pre-production, and I had talked with him about the look and aesthetic I was going for and he helped with solidify some of my lighting setups. However he was only available to gaff for a few nights. However, all the shots below were gaffed by my friend Robby, who did an absolutely terrific job, and helped facilitate the set to where we got things done on schedule. He was originally supposed to just be best boy electric on the the shoot, however when Taylor was not available to come out, he stepped up and gaffed. Unfortunately I hadn’t had time to really go over him in depth about the look that I wanted to create beforehand, so that all had to be done on the fly on set.  After the gang member gets into an altercation with Olivia’s friend’s younger brother, Olivia takes off, refusing to help the wounded boy. When Veronica arrives she screams for help, and I had this headlight gag set up off camera that was just two 1k’s hooked up with offset arms that pivoted on a light stand. The tree shadows on the pillars, as well as the edge on the gangbanger’s jacket were created by blasting two 1,200w HMI’s through the trees behind camera. These guys were a good 50’+ away from where we were shooting, and still gave me a good amount of light to work with. For the fill on the ground on the far right of frame, I threw a Junior a good 25’-30’ away from the gazebo to hit the pillars as well as add a little more detail to the edge of frame as a method of foreshadowing the approach of the car. For this close up, POV shot, I let the character move in and out of focus, as I felt it would be a very affective method of showing the younger brother starting to fade out of consciousness. This shot was edged with one of the 1,200w HMI’s we had up in the background. I had my gaffer move swing it around to be a little more frontal to give just the slightest edge on the gangbanger’s face on the left. The rest of the shot was keyed with a baby dimmed down to about 55%, with full CTO, bounced off a reflector board through 251 diffusion. I wanted to keep the inside area of the gazebo at a warmer color temp than the rest of the scene, both for recreating some of the existing sodium vapor lights in the park, and to give the sense that there was some kind of artificial lighting in the gazebo itself. Here are a few behind the scenes photos taken during that shot. We threw the RED on a sandbag and kept our angle by throwing an apple box underneath. I decided to operate from the onboard monitor, so I could keep my head away from the actor’s flying fists a bit! This shot was a reaction shot of Olivia watching the younger brother get the crap kicked out of him. I did a very slow dolly in that ended in an ECU, which, while it looked great, made things very hard for my AC David. I shot this on a 100mm REDPro Prime, wide open at T 1.8, and he pretty much nailed it. There are, however just one or two moments when our actress would get off her mark, or take an unexpected step back, and the focus would get buzzed a little, but since the shot is also supposed to be somewhat of a POV of the brother who’s getting beat up, I feel it’s acceptable and can be viewed as him starting to lose consciousness.   For this shot, I had the same book light set up, bouncing a baby with full CTO off a reflector board through 251 diffusion. Then I hit the tree branches in the background with a 1,200 HMI and edged her hair with the 2nd 1,200. For this shot, it’s the same lighting set up as the previous shot from this angle, only sans the headlight trick in play. For this I did an extremely slow dolly back through the pillars while Veronica examines the wounds on her younger brother. In the end I feel it’s a very powerful shot, and a great way to end the fight scene that was so fast paced. As we pull out, we see no sign of anyone around; these characters get smaller in the frame and there’s nothing but darkness around them. No one is coming. Olivia, having taken off during the fight runs off into this alleyway, and has an emotional breakdown after realizing that none of her efforts are going to make a difference in the long run. The alleyway was our first night of shooting, and our first night exterior. I’d already written about some of the troubles we had with shooting this scene in this post. For the wide shot I lit with the existing sodium vapor street light that was in the alley, and threw a Dedo light in the far back to give the bricks an edge, as well as give some color separation. For this shot, I had a slightly different set up. Again I used my trusty book light set up. Bounced a 650w Tweenie through 251, and edged her hair with the existing sodium vapor, and the Dedo light, which also edged the trash bin on the left of frame. For this close up of Olivia grabbing a bottle she trips on and throwing it against the wall of the alley, I lit it with the Tweenie book light set up, just swung around to the other side, and I edged the bottle and the bricks with the Dedo from the end of the alley. At the end of the film, we enter into this very industrial area where Olivia and Veronica are sitting on a bench, unaware that the other person is there at first, as their view of each other is obstructed by a large man who sloppily eats a sandwich.  This was our last day of shooting, and the weather worked out incredibly well for this scene. The overcast sky made is so that a) I had nice even lighting to work with and b) it fit the mood of the scene perfectly. This area made for a really great location, especially since it contrasted so much with the beauty of the park we had been shooting in. I spent some time while we were waiting for one of our cast members to return to set, getting some b-roll footage, which I’m very pleased with.  Despite some of our setbacks with power, an often shorthanded crew, and communication issues between the director and I, overall I’m very pleased with how the footage turned out. I am very thankful to have had the crew that I did. Having two gaffers was a very interesting experience as well, trying to keep looks consistent at times proved difficult, but I think we’ll definitely be able to make it cut. I’m looking forward to seeing an assembly cut here in a few weeks and seeing how it has come along!
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cinematographers: Behind The Scenes: Litter Troubles - Day 1 This is me looking through the director’s viewfinder to make a lens choice on the first night exterior shoot of my D3. We shot in this sweet alleyway in Logan Square. We actually ended up scrapping this dolly shot due to power and time constraints. We had a lot of trouble with our generator, mainly being that I had to light this whole alley on 20 amps. The guy who supplied the generator did not include a twist lock with it, so I couldn’t tap into the other socket which would’ve given me up to 70 amps to work with. However, this is the master shot I ended up using. I’m very happy with how it turned out, especially given our setbacks. I’m also extremely happy with the decision I made to shoot a 2.40:1 aspect ratio, it definitely fit the film and helps really give all our locations so much more space. We really wanted to showcase how large of a space we were shooting in when we shot in Humboldt Park, and that aspect ratio helped accomplish that incredibly well.
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Me on the set of “Litter Troubles,” the Directing 3 project I DP’d.
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Yesterday made day 2 of my 5 day shoot for the Directing 3 project, “Litter Troubles,” I am shooting. We did a shot looking out over a pond onto this bridge as a character was biking across it. My gaffer (far left), jib op (center) and 1st AC (far right) setting up for the shot.  About $200,000 hanging out over a cold murky pond.
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cinematographers: My Own Practice: Found an old office building in the warehouse with broken glass on the door, decided to shoot through it. The quality of the lighting from the huge windows on the east side of the building gave us such great light to work with during this shoot!
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cinematographers: It’s Bill Murray’s 62nd birthday today! Happy Birthday my friend, it was a great honor to work with you! This photo was from working with him on the film Passion Play in 2010, where Mickey Rourke, Bill Murray, and I got to shoot the shit and talk about how they got their start and I talked with Bill a lot about Chicago (this was before I had decided to move here). I remember when I first met him we’d been shooting in this old abandoned prison, where there was one of the most violent prison riots in U.S. history there back in the 80’s. We were shooting on sound stages the production had built, in what must have been the old gymnasium. He came on set and looked over at me and said “Oh yeah, I’ve got a much better feeling about this room. They must’ve burned some sage, or some incense in here or something. Trust me, I’m a Ghostbuster.” He’s one of those truly funny people, and I hope that one day I’ll get a chance to work with him again.
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“Twins.” Mirrors create this illusion, all in camera. The only post done to this was a change in color and some minor touch ups.
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