Monday, October 24, 2011

Frankenstein's Dog



Here is a short I directed, shot, edited and cowrote.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Monday, October 17, 2011

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Monday, September 26, 2011

DP




I worked as a DP on a short this weekend and it went incredibly well. Thanks to all for their help

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

PreProduction


We are in preproduction on a short that I will act as a DP.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Sly Sylvester/DP


We are in preproduction on a short to be shot next week.

Friday, September 9, 2011

10 years ago

Writing about 9/11 from the distance of California reminds me of that joke about how many Vietnam Veterans does it take to screw in a light bulb ?
Answer:"I don't know"
Response, "You don't know !!!! You don't know because you weren't there man!!!!"

I was in the kitchen in Japantown in San Francisco making breakfast for our one year old and for her 8 year old sister. A friend called knowing we did not have a TV and we watched the second tower fall on the CNN website. The 8 year old thought it was a movie and said "Cool! I closed the computer and did not watch any footage again.

For the next three or four months everything seemed different. Everyone seemed more careful with each other on the street. We were all more patient with each other.

A few weeks after September 11 I was at the counter at Peet's coffee and there was a long line behind me. I paid for my drink and put 40 dollars on the counter and told the woman behind the counter to buy everyone behind me what they wanted and walked out. Stangers paid my toll on the Bay Bridge.

Now 10 years later it is hard to remember that time at all. Looking back buying those drinks for those people seems grandiose. We are back to cursing at each other on the freeway. A woman yelled at me because she thought I was trying to cut in line at Whole Foods. I catch myself notifying an assistant that we could no longer work together...via text message.

We are like that married couple who come close to breaking up and decide to reconcile. For the first few weeks things seem like they are better but slowly they forget how close they came to ending it all and soon the old problems return and they learn to live with them.

But I remember when things were different and I will not forget.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Le Monde Travel Piece


I shot all of this within 5 minutes of my house in Oakland.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Steve Jobs


I got a call from Fortune Magazine asking me if I wanted to shoot Steve Jobs and some new device Apple was working on.It was 2001. I had shot him before and always left the shoot a little shaken but said yes. We got to Apple early to set up. All the traffic around the building was stopped and blackout curtains were put up around the room. Someone put a plain cardboard box on the table.

Steve Jobs rolled in and I spent about 15 minutes photographing him and this little white music player ( the image above is from a later shoot) .

After he left, I picked up the iPod and held it in my hand.

'Mheh" I thought to myself.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Maine Dream


Most of my film work has been shot with the camera or a jib. I recently saw a movie that was shot with a lot of hand held camera work and I wanted to give it a try while on vacation in Maine. I like the looseness and spontaneity of not having the camera weighted down by a tripod but I found that I have to shoot a lot more footage than I usually do.

This song is from a John Lee Hooker album from the early '90s.