My Hero Project

This semester has been crazy. I haven't been able to update my blog in quite some time due to the large number of projects I have been helping. I shot a short film and a commercial. I am also going to shoot 3 more short films and another commercial. So it has been a really busy semester.
I wanted to just upload some pictures from the last film I helped out on. It was called my Hero and it was so fun. We worked with 30 kids making a fun kids film. I was the Director of Photography on it. Enjoy.

The Pre-Production/Production

First off a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have donated. It helped fund this film and future films to come. So in a sense you are all Executive Producers on this film.
About 2 years ago I had this idea for a film that I wanted to make about a guy who worked at blockbuster and finds out he is dying. Since he has done nothing with his life he deciedes since he has seen every heist film that he can rob a bank.
Than six months ago I wrote the script in a screen writing class I was in and the students loved it. So much so that I found my co-director Boston McConnehey and locations/2 Assistant director Spencer Scanlon to help out. And I set on getting the script ready to shoot. Doing re-write after re-write after re-write. Boston was an amazing help at this stage because he brought things to the script that I hadn't even thought of. It was awesome.
Than came crunch time. Two weeks before we shoot and I had so much to get ready. I tried to find someone to help produce but failed on finding anyone. Therefore, I produced it. Not a good idea and not one I ever want to repeat again. The locations were crazy. A Bank, a video store, and a Jail to name a few.
The bank was going to be the hardest to find because we needed to find one that had a working vault and would let us rob it. Ha! Impossible. Well not if you find one that has closed down recently which we were able to do. After about a month of call them I finally got through and they said yes. Amazing. After the bank the rest of the locations seemed like a cake walk.
Here is a picture of us in the Hollywood video store. It was closed down so the city let us use it for free. We just had to bring in all the dvd's to fill the shelves.

Four Days of Shooting

Hey Ya'll
I just finished shooting the biggest project to date. It was super intense and really fun. Stay tuned for the trailer. Thank you for everyone that has donated thus far it has been awesome. The film is one I wrote produced shot and directed.

First two weeks of a Feature

The experience of being a best boy electric. You may wonder what that is well allow me to explain with some pictures.
The Lighting

And the crew.

A best boy electric is an awesome title for the head assistaint to the main lighting expert on the film. Therefore I was the right hand man. The film was a feature called "For Robbing the Dead" you can check out more pictures and stuff on Facebook they have fan page there.
Any-who. It was my first feature film that I was on for the entire time. 30 days. The first two weeks we where at the LDS Motion picture studio which was crazy cool. We shot on some sound stages and the back lot.

On the Sound Stage

A typical lighting set up
A typical night shoot. All the grave stones are sousaphone and to light this we had a 60 foot lift with a 20,000 watt light on it shinning down it was pretty crazy awesome. Along with some other lights on the ground.
Those where the first two weeks on the shoot join me next time for the next two weeks.

Running with the Zebras

This last semester I had the rare opportunity to go to Africa and shoot Zebras.

Well, not really, but we did find some Zebras to shoot in south Utah. Go figure in all the places in the world you could find a Zebra farm in south Utah. So there we were living the high life shooting Zebras and superimposing them in a different scene.


Of course I can't take the credit. I was the Gaffer on the film. Which means I was in charge of the lighting for the film. At first it wasn't very difficult because we were outside but we did have a cave scene with torches. That was tons of fun too. Hauling a 200 pound generator up a huge hill and lighting a 30 foot high and 80 feet deep cave. It was awesome. The end video turned out great. It was tons of fun. I didn't direct. I mainly focused on lighting which was a job in of itself.
I did get the chance to help shoot.
You may think that we are using only picture cameras. However, this is the new Canon 7D which shoots full 1080p which is an extremely high quality video. It makes great images that has a nice film look to them. It has some problems but all in all it works great.

On the Brink

This is it. My first post to my silly film fun blog for those who wish to help support a starving film student make a difference. I guess? This blog is made mainly for friends and family who wish to help support me in my film making endeavors. However, if you are neither friend nor family feel free to donate. I thought it a little tacky to just ask for money straight out so I thought I would provide some sort of service. With a $20 donation you will receive, after I graduate, a DVD copy of all the films I have made in school. A more then $20 dollar donation would be very much appreciated as well. Especially if you want multiple copies. Along with the DVD I will be updating this blog periodically with adventures of my film making days. Thank you so much for all your love and support and hope to see you in the movies.


Here is one of my Demo Reels Put together really quick for all of you.