Obama Socks Commercial

www.Obamasocks.com The Commercial

This was just a fun easy campy shoot. King James and Queen Skittles (Peer from Art Center) are kinda crazy folks anyway and they came up with this idea for their socks about Zombies that take over and the only thing that makes them happy (and stop eating the humans) are the Obama Socks. I did camera B crew and the behind the scenes footage, while helping out as camera assistant when possible. Click on "The Commercial" link above to view it.

PNKY SWR/ Major Player music video

PNKY SWR /Major Player music video

MY CAST OF CREW:
Erik Wong: I have known for a while and we hang with the same group of friends, however, we have never had the pleasure of working together.
David Dibble: Who I have worked recently with on the Going Green Film Festival 2012 trailer
Robert Pimentel: Gaffer I met and worked with on the GGFF 2012 trailer, he was AD on this project

David Dibble was once again shooting on his Super 8mm camera and recruited me for assistance. Erik Wong was directing this music video for PNKY SWR. This was shot in a small club/restaurant for this video. I was happy to see Robert there too as I really enjoyed working with him prior. We worked all through the night. There was a scene with balloons dropping from over the tables with party poppers and streamers basically a real mess. We had to clean it all up for the next shot but we were able to get rid of most of the extras that accumulated from word of mouth on the streets and grew bigger and bigger by the minute.

$400 Kiss

$400 Kiss (trailer to come)

This was brought to me by an old college friend over in Flint Michigan, Charles Shaver, who had this idea of three directors shooting three different films and showcasing them all together for Project Swan.

He sent me the script for $400 Kiss, a romantic and vulgar nior script. After reviewing it, I said "yes" and revised the script. We had to cut a lot of things down to make it more realistic. The contract was a challenge as were were to keep it as a low budget film and everything had to be donated including the actors and crews time. Luckily, I had the best people in LA to help me out.

We had a blast playing with all the "toys" we had. We have all this equipment around us for jobs, yet we rarely get a chance to play with them ourselves. We had access to any Wooden Nickel equipment and my friend Hillary had her own equipment and Claire had her Canon camera to shoot with. Everyone had such grand ideas, I directed and produced it but I really enjoyed everyone taking their own ideas and contributing on this project like it was their own. I did not want to take away from that. We had the natural dramas that creep on sets, but we over came them in the end.

ManDoula

ManDoula sizzler

This job was great to work on...
I walked on set and this girl was screaming while giving birth and some guy was in between her legs with a fireman and a police woman dancing around in the background while a porn was playing on the TV. The guy next to me put his finger up to his mouth in a "shhhhh" motion indicating they are filming. Oh good this is part of the movie, I thought. Whew.

I had no idea what was going on or what this film was about. Erik Forssell called me up and asked me to help him on this job. He also mentioned it may be the last time I'll get to work with 35MM film, which is true and so I said yes.

Erik is a teacher for OCC and has brought some of his students to the set to teach them hands on what it is like. This is what I enjoy about Erik, he had enough to do on this job, but also taught the kids what to do. I admire him for how he goes out of his way to teach.

The sizzler came out really good and once seeing everything in sequences it made a lot more sense to me. I was laughing out loud at some of the scenes. My favorite was at the strip club with the long moving take we did. After all the set up work to get the shot, totally worth it. They are in the process of taking the sizzler around for financial backing and we are all sure they will get it. The crew is all on stand by as we await for the "Go Ahead" to make the feature.

Going Green Film Trailer

Check out the Trailer  GGFF 2012

The Going Green Festival need a trailer to promote the Festival. Enter David Dibble. He had done the one for 2011 and now he was doing the 2012. He worked with Super8mm film, which is how I got involved. David Dibble and I met on set on Beautiful Damnation some time back. He was the DP and I was a Producer for it.
He called my office last year about doing the trailer for 2011, I talked my boss into donating film and HD telecine for his project. He called me again for the 2012 trailer and this time asked me to work with him on it.
We went to Hanford, Ca. to shoot. This was a small farm town and everyone seemed to want to be a part of the filming. I had kids constantly ask me if I needed any water or coffee that they can get for me.  We shot in this old run down mill, which was dirty and scary but was not a time to act like a helpless dame. The crew were people I mostly worked before with so it seemed to go by really easy. Super 8mm cameras are so easy to work with and to transport from one scene to the next the set up times were quick and painless. Running film, you do not have the options of 30 takes so we did a couple takes and it was on to the next shot.
Hanford is where David grew up in, so he gave us a grand tour of this town that looked straight from the 50's set of "Back to the Future" We ended up at the best place for ice cream, Superior Dairy and had ice cream that came in the size of a volleyball. I could not finish mine but the Sound guy David Hersey sure did.

David Dibble is like a local celebrity in this community he even made the papers there. Big Time

Vita Eternum DP

 Vita Eternum trailer

IMDB Link

This job I did moments after I graduated school, I remember I was so tired from the semester and wasn't sure if I had the energy to do it. But I did and I am happy with how it turned out. I am not sure how I got this job, but I showed up and didn't know anyone (which is normal) but it turned out this crew was all very sweet and friendly and went out of there way to make me feel welcomed. This film had sword action and fight choreography. The group had a lot of background with this and was something new to me. 

John-Paul (The Director) had talked to me about some of the framing and set ups he wanted to do. There was a long homemade track on the hill that I was nervous wouldn't be too stable to work with. It turned out pretty smooth. Then he pointed to a scaffolding that some people were building and I was to hang from the top to get the next shots (the overheads). I don't think I said anything but looking at the scaffolding I was certain I was going to die. But went up anyways. After seeing the footage, I think it was my favorite of the whole picture. [Note to self: Just go with it] The next shots I had fun with was the fighting scenes. All handheld and following the acton. It was a beautiful fight scene that was choreograph and it was my intention to justify it as such on camera. 

John-Paul had a lot of SFX composition and special effects to do (no I did not go to space to shoot the beginning) and I didn't hear from him a year after shooting. When he sent me the final work, I had almost forgot about it but I loved how it turned out.
I the end, I was an outsider to this project as it was for their church. I am assuming that is why they kept my name out of the IMDB credits, as their principle photographer,  but still got a DVD of it and my name is listed there.

Roleplaying

Roleplaying
IMDB LINK
When I got the call to work on this project, I was so excited. I have never met Jason Johnson (the director) before because he is from San Diego, but some of my old college colleagues knew him. He enlisted people that he was friends with and friends of those friends (me) to work on his short: "Roleplaying". roleplaying trailer About four guys with extremely different backgrounds getting together on a Saturday night to play a game.

This project was so much fun to work on because of the crew made up of mostly people I have gone to school and hadn't seen or worked with together in awhile, we worked really great together. We pulled the long hours but we made it fun. When we were finished I didn't even want to leave. 

In the end Jason and his now wife Elizabeth have continued to be my friends. I still wait for the time I can work with the group again...