Monsters Inside Me Season 6

I am excited to announce that the latest season of Monsters Inside Me is currently airing on Animal Planet. This is my third season now as DP on the recreations for this show, and the look of the show has always been dark, but this time around I was pushed to take that darkness to a new level and I couldn't have been more excited at that challenge. Every time I thought I was gong too dark, I was told it was not dark enough, which could not have pleased me more.  To achieve this look I worked with my lighting team to devise a lighting strategy that would maintain a cohesive feel while tackling each distinct location a little differently. The general scheme was often a single hard light source coming from directly behind and above the subject. Depending on the tone of the walls and the size of the room we would let the light bounce back from the opposing wall on the camera side, but most often we would place negative fill on all surfaces and tightly control the spill to keep the camera side very dark. Our camera setup was a Canon C300 EF with the incredible new Canon 17-120 Cine Servo zoom lens. Using this lens with a Teradeck Bolt wireless video system and a wireless follow focus allowed us to move very quickly and cover a lot of material very efficiently. The camera department was small so eliminating BNC cable runs and lens changes freed up my first AC. Below area  few of my favorite frames taken directly from the C300 footage. You can see more at the Flickr link below.

CLICK HERE to go to the Flickr gallery.

Tune in to Animal Planet Thursdays for Monsters Inside Me Season 6.
http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/monsters-inside-me/

Monumental Mysteries - Travel Channel

I have just returned home from shooting a round of segments for Monumental Mysteries - Season 2 and it occurs to me that I never got around to sharing the adventures I had shooting season 1.   On our epic Odyssey of Monumental Mysteries we traveled to landmarks like the Niagara Falls, the grand Canyon, Yosemite National Park, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz just to name a few.  We went to Sylacauga, Alabama to tell the story of a women, the only human in history, on earth, to be struck by a meteor that fell from space.  The meteor crashed through her roof,  bounced off of her HiFi and  finally struck her while napping on the couch.  We went to the mythical "crossroads" in Clarksdale, Mississippi and interviewed a great grandson of Robert Johnson.

A highlight of the series for me was getting to work with several super talented jib operators around the country in telling these stories and capturing these landmarks.  Of note, was Jimmy Dunn. 

Enjoy some pictures from the scrapbook below and tune in to Monumental Mysteries on the Travel Channel!

http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/monumental-mysteries

an afternoon with Martin

A few frames from my afternoon filming an interview with Martin Scorsese, Saturday at the DGA theatre.  This was  a really funky camera rig, the production called for the camera to be oriented in a "vertical" position, wich is common in still photography but almost never done with a movie camera, ever.  I was lucky enough to have a great AC, Arlen Cooke on set, who sourced a variable tilt mechanism from TCS.  This was a beautiful hand made, gear driven device made from forged steal, that would facilitate tilting the camera (Sony F-3) to a 90 degree angle.  With the added wight of the tilt machine, and the camera being cantilevered on its side, we also had to rent a Sachtler 150 head.  It worked perfectly, and needless to say, it was a real treat to get to be in the company of Mr. Scorsese even if for only a half an hour.  Cant say much more about the project for which this interview will be a part of but stay tuned.

The Badlands

In March I spent two weeks shooting for a new doc project in and around the Pine Ridge reservation.  I cant say much about the details of the project at this point but I wanted to share some stills from the field.  This was my first extensive, verité shoot with my Sony F-3 rig.  I recorded 10 bit, Pro-Res 422 HQ (220mb/sec) to the AJA-Ki Pro Mini via the 1.5Ghz HD-SDI from the camera.  My main lens's were a Nikkor 17-55 f2.8, Tokina 28-80 f2.8, and Nikkor 80-200 ED f2.8, swapping the supplied Sony PL mount for the MTF Nikon-F mount.   I also carried a full set of Nikkor manuel focus Ai-s prime lens's.    Overall, I was extremely pleased with the images that I saw at the end of each day.  I utilized the Abel Cine "AB Range" picture profile for everything, underexposing the mids when necessary to keep the highlights from clipping.  The Range profile substantially opens up the shadow areas giving me a flat image with detail everywhere.

Belize with Eddie Bauer

Here are some snaps from the road/sky/river, in Belize.  I took a trip there in November for Eddie Bauer, shooting video material that will support the spring 2012 catalog which was being photographed there.  Was an epic trip by air, land & sea.  Enjoy!  and watch out for the spring 2012 launch from Eddie Bauer.

cheers!

Prudential Sunrise - TV spot

In May, I was enlisted to shoot a couple shots for a commercial that felt pretty special.  The concept was to have several skeleton crews, each with their own DP, align across the country and capture the same sunrise, on the same morning, as it moves from the East coast to the West.  Because of my Iowa cred, I was assigned to Davenport, IA, which was a real treat.  Davenport is where my mother lives and it is across the Mississippi River from my home town of Moline, IL.  The longer I am away from the midwest, the more beautiful the place becomes to my eyes.  The midwest offers a truly unique and picturesque landscape.  On location, each camera fed  an HD video signal via HDMI into a device called a Taradek.  The Taradek beamed the video signal to a local wireless hot-spot that was set up by our Taradek tech,  The Director in New York City was able to watch each camera's feed from across the country in real time over the internet; Directing each crew as the sun rose in each respective time zone.

The spot is airing now and seems to be viewable on youtube.  Click the link below and check it out.  Try and spot the Iowa farmer driving the truck.

Watch the video at youtube:
http://youtu.be/BqHUb8dkj-o

2011 Prime Time Emmy Nominations

Last year I had the pleasure of contributing as Additional Cameraman to two films that were nominated for 2011 Prime Time Emmy Awards.  Jaws - The Inside Story, and John Belushi: Dancing on the Edge.  Both programs were produced for the Biography Channel.