NEWS / BLOG

BLOG ARCHIVE FROM 6/22/2007 to 1/10/2007

6/22/2007 CINEGEAR

Cinegear was yesterday, There were a few new things, lots of old things, and many brilliant solutions to problems I was not having. Of note in the new ( at leaast to me ) category was the PS technic Skater Scope and Skater mini dolly, these two together seemed like a good balance between being capable and simple, something that other snorkel lenses / tabletop dollys seem to have trouble with.

6/20/2007 TV STUDIO CULTURE CLASH

We were shooting in a real TV studio doing a fake news show for some Time Warner Cable spots, and silly me, assuming that I being the DP should be able to set the stop flipped the camera into manual iris and set the stop ( it was way too dark ) A few minutes later the engineer charged out of the control room and demanding to know who had messed with his camera! They usually control all the settings from the booth. Anyway we eventually worked it out but it seemed like a totally new concept to him that the guy at the camera could be actually in control of anything. They even could override focus and zoom if they felt like doing it.

6/17/2007 VITAMIN PEOPLE

Shot with Charles Jensen of Go Film a few days ago. They are elements for an interactive piece, it should be really cool once it's done. I'll link to it.

6/16/2007 PHONE EAST LA

I've been a bad blogger. I hope this green phone photo makes up for my abscence.

5/27/2007 CONGRATULATIONS STELLICT LICHT

Congratulaitons to Carlos Reygadas for picking up the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes for his film "Stellicht Licht". Carlos and his D.P. Alexis Zade worked with Nicolas Martin ( my friend / steady cam op ) and my Konvas 2m camera to go shoot a few snow scene pick ups in Canada. I think this is going to be a remarkable film from what I've heard and seen.

Trailer here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=AufewteAg7g

5/23/2007 VHS PURGE

I Attacked the big shelf full of VHS tapes that I have in my closet and tossed anything that I could. I kept just a few things - stuff that I had worked on that is not available on DVD and films that are hard to get otherwise "I walked with a Zombie" and "Superstar, The Karen Carpenter Story" It's a little sad to throw away films that I might watch sometime, but in reality I don't even have a VHS player hooked up anywhere. I can repatch but it's a pain...

5/2/2007 HD VIDEO PRO MAGAZINE STORY

HD Video Pro magazine did a nice story on the Shout commercial I shot with Richard Sears - I actually sound pretty intelligible in some of the quotes. There are a few errors but let's not dwell on that... You can find the story on page 84 of Issue #1.

4/29/2007 GRADUATION WINS PRIZE

Graduation, a film directed by Mike Mayer that I shot in Pittsburgh in Summer 2005, premiered at the 40th Annual WorldFest-Houston Film Festival last week where it went on to win the Platinum Remi Prize. It also got a great review in the Houston Chronicle. ( click here for the review in PDF )

4/25/2007 PARIS

I'm in Paris this week to filming a Thierry Amiel's new video for director Marc Maggiori. It's unusually hot in Paris and we are filming in Malakov - just outside of the south side of the Paris city limits. Rush Hour 3 consumed all the C-Stands in town so we have to use Beefy Babies for our flags.

4/20/2007 SPECIAL FEATURE

Yestrday Nicolas Martin and I recorded our part of the DVD special features bits for the DVD of Guiana 1838. It was fun recounting stories about when we went to South America in 2005 for 2 months to film this epic. I have a clip of it on my site here. The DVD should be out soon.

4/15/2007 OPEN HOUSE

On Saturday, Art Center in Pasadena rolled out the welcome mat for open:house, a futurist showcase on housing. What may look like "Logan's Run"-inspired chess pieces made from suet, below, are actually skyscraping frameworks for a city that integrates living space and green areas.

4/10/2007 THE GEEKAGLE HAS LANDED

It's NAB time again and this year has a few new large sensor digital cinema cameras. For the first time these cameras are seriously nipping at the heels of the gold standard: 35mm film. The Image quality is neary equal and possibly better in some respects and the workflow while at this time unproven promises to be simpler and better than film.

These cameras will change everything and nothing. In the next 2 years they will displace film cameras at the low and middle ends of the market. At the high end, where the cost savings are less important aesthetic or practical choices will rule. Crews will change some, the film loader will still sit in the dark, but he/she will be copying drives and maybe making DVD's for dailies in the camera truck.

Electronically shot films will start look much better, but the cameras won't make better films, that will still be up to you and me.

4/06/2007 THELMA

"Thelma" is a beautiful and extremely depressing film that I shot for Marc Maggiori. More info soon about it's premiere. It's unlike anything I've done before and I'm excited about it.

3/25/2007 WHY I DON'T HATE WHITE ( OR MAYBE I DO )

"Matt, you're going to hate this location," he said. "Why?" I asked. "White walls..." he said, with a shake of his head.

He was the fouth person on the shoot to send up the warning. First, it was the art department's picture cars , then wardrobe and then God himself with a dreaded bright, hazy white sky.

When confronted with a bright large area the eyes stare for a bit and then scan around for any focal points. Lacking any, they start looking for smaller points of contrast, horizontal angles. Once the obvious information is absorbed, assuming the shot is long enough, the eyes start digging around in the background, getting into the details and context of the image. So, yes. Let's not leave our friends staring at white walls, if we can help it.

3/25/2007 UN MILAGRITO EN BUENOS AIRES

The Shoot went GREAT. My crew was very skilled and enthusiastic. Gracias Quito, Jose y Magdalena !

3/22/2007 BUENOS AIRES

I'm in Buenos Aires to shoot another Cetelem Job with Rafael. I met this sign painter who was very friendly and we hung out for a bit. He and some friends publish a absurdist polital 'zine. Argentinians see the absurd more easily than most of us, when their life savings were lost in the great financial bungle of 2001.

3/18/2007 IMAGE VERSUS CONTENT

Some scientists mapped the eye movements of visual artists and psychologists and found that the groups use their eyes very differently. Click the image to go to the article.

3/12/2007 WHY I STILL HEART LA

Vincent who we met while scouting near the LA River gave us a complete update on what films were shooting in Downtown, who was starring in them, and how good the craft services tables were!

3/10/2007 ADIDAS "THE GONZ"

We filmed skateboard legend / artist Mark Gonzales along with the other members of the Adidas pro skating team. There were some amazing setups around downtown LA. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished spot. This shot is from my digital elph in movie mode. Eric Noren directed you can see some of his work at eyebooger.com

2/18/2007 ASC AWARDS

Fun Times with legendary cinematographers. I was seated back to back with Michael Ballhaus and a director everyone kept calling Marty.

2/9/2007 CONCERT TO END SLAVERY (2)

Daryl Hannah went to Cambodia to document the plight of young women there. I did not want to break her concentration so I shot this off the monitor while the director, Brandon Dickenson was talking to her. Tomorrow we fly to SF to film Switchfoot.

2/8/2007 CONCERT TO END SLAVERY

I DP'd a concert film yesterday, for a project called "The Concert to end Slavery" . Slavery, in this context being better decscribed as human trafficking. I think the final film will be finished black and white and it should be very beautifull. We shot with 3 Aaton X-Prods ( thanks Jen K. at Panavision Hollywood ) and I had Jake Sarfaty (Gaffer) Michael Sky ( elec) , Greg Willaims and Ruben Russ (cam Op's ) helping me. Thanks guys!

2/3/2007 THE ACT OF SEEING WITH ONES OWN EYES

I know I'm stealing this excellent title from my old prof. Stan Brackhage, but he implanted too many things in my mind ( totally against my will, at the time ) that are just now coming to bear fruit. I was visiting with the wildly talented costume designer, Julie Weiss and in the hall of her studio an amazing light show started to happen.

1/27/2007 FILM IS NOT DEAD YET, BUT IT IS GETTING BLOOD ALL OVER THE FLOOR.

We had a 710ft short end and magazines that would only hold 400ft. I find this kind of waste painfull.

1/15/2007 INEEDTOSTOPSOON dot COM

I Spent part of my weekend helping performance artist, Marc Horowitz www.ineedtostopsoon.com make some short videos for an art show in Italy ( he's making about 50! ). I think some of them are going to be quite poignant and others quite silly. I'll try to follow up with some video....

1/10/2007 MEXICO CITY

We went to Mexico City for New Years, FUN! I (probably) have a project that will shoot there in about 2 months and I'm looking forward to working there and getting to know the town.