Little show from a few weekends ago just went up; thanks to director Carlos Lopez Estrada as well as my Gaffer, Coco Moore, and Jenny Hou, who lent me some of her many talents, pulling focus for the show. Colorist Trevor Durtschi did a great job sweetening that holiday feeling, and Cameron Clark's VFX work is spot on. Check out Carlos' director's cut!

Red ONE MX
Zeiss CP2 Prime Set
Rentals from Digital Film Studios, Dependent Media, LA Grip

Co. 3RoundBurst
Prod. Edgar Romero, Rich Salamone
Dir. Carlos Lopez Estrada

Just wrapped shooting in Pheonix, Arizona with 3RoundBurst, shooting for broadcast with a pair of Sony F3s.

The show was a run and gun affair, and I was glad to be joined by AZ locals Webb Pickersgill and Nick Labord as B cam operator and utility, respectively. We also sourced much of our equipment locally, gathering one of the F3s as well as much of our lighting from Pheonix rental house Broadcast Rentals.

As a side note, lensing this show reminded me how slim a selection there is of lightweight PL zooms if you can't afford Angenieux's DP line of lenses. To stay on our feet and keep the crew slim we had to carry at most two lenses per camera; we ended up with original Red zooms, keeping in mind the full days of handheld (poorly balanced handheld, as these are F3s) we had ahead of us. I guess lightweight broad range zooms are another one of those things keeping the 2/3" format alive for the ENG guys.

There will be plenty of images forthcoming as 3RoundBurst heads into post with this project.

Sony F3
Red Zooms
Rentals from Broadcast Rentals, Stray Angel Films, Reel Men

Co. 3RoundBurst
Prod. / Dir. Edgar Romero
Prod. Lili Montero
PM Rich Salamone

Just got back from a weekend of hard-and-fast music video photography with director Trevor Durtschi and producer Geoffrey Leatham in Ridgecrest, CA. That's another couple hours north of Palmdale, which is my typical measure for "out there a bit." The town was a great place to shoot, though; Geoffrey sourced PAs and extras locally and found all of our locations at no charge. It's always a relief to get out of Los Angeles and remember how psyched most people are about what we do for a living.

"Haley" is a video about an old miner looking back and realizing that he's missed who could have been the love of his life. Trevor and Geoffrey's biggest concern was to aim for a more cinematic look than a video, graphic look; every shot was to be more about telling the story than about sweet lens flare. So the video has a more measured rhythm throughout the story segments.

It was cold up north; the only break we got was our second night exterior, which featured two raging bonfires, courtesy of our pyro team.


Canon EOS
Canon L Zoom, Nikkor Primes, Tokina Zoom
Rentals from Wooden Nickel Lighting, Alan Gordon Enterprises

Prod. Geoffrey Leatham
Dir. Trevor Durtschi

Just finished shooting with 3RoundBurst and director Edgar Romero for MTV tr3s’ Hispanic History Month. It was a pleasure to meet and shoot Music Producer, DJ, and Song Writer Fernando Garibay, Fashion Designer, Model, and Social Advocate Zoe Damacela, and Chef, TV Personality, and Author Marcela Valladolid. The other two spots, shot by Arlene Muller, turned out great as well! See the 30 second spots here!




Red ONE MX
Zeiss Super Speed Primes, Red Zooms
Rentals from Dependent Media

Co. 3RoundBurst
Dir. Edgar Romero

Had a little fun this week shooting a couple inserts for a spot MTV had already photographed for their European Music Awards. We had the pleasure of five minutes in Jared Leto's life (five minutes, very serious; he's a damn busy man!) and a slice of Jessie J's VMA rehearsal time to shoot the material. It was definitely a special kind of pressure to work under, but time constraint is not unfamiliar territory.


Red ONE MX
Zeiss Super Speed Primes, Red Zooms
Rentals from Dependent Media

Co. 3RoundBurst

This little spot for MTV’s new “bling” line of bling survived catastrophic drive failure and a power outage. A little elbow grease later we had things under control; by the time editor Trevor Durtschi put everything together all that panic had just turned into a good story. See the spot here!




Red ONE MX
Zeiss Super Speed Primes, Red Zooms
Rentals from Dependent Media

Co. 3RoundBurst
Dir. Sergio Abuja

Just wrapped a short for director Jocelyn RC, shooting all round Los Angeles on a 5D and 7D pairing outfitted by Digital Film Studios.

The fun for this show was getting a 5D and 7D to cooperate quickly with a variety of shooting environments and camera support accessories. As a sort of life-experience-en-montage, the show required we shoot all around greater Los Angeles and even as far as Lancaster on a very tight schedule; our cameras had to be able to swing between the Steadicam, sticks, handheld, and the car seat quickly.


The Viewfactor solution DFS uses is the most pragmatic and effective solution I've found for these idiot-savant machines. Having an Anton Bauer battery solution simplifies power for the camera, monitor, and whatever focus accessories are needed; running the Marshall through the Blackmagic rather than raw HDMI is cumbersome, but who can blame a professional rental house for shying away from the hell that is HDMI? What gets me is the complete absence of carbon fiber: it's a wonderful material for the Video world, but I'd never handle some Redrock system the way I could handle this system with all its weight. Throw a pair of Spider Grips on the rig and it's like you've got a real camera, even handheld! I digress.

Canon EOS
Canon L Series Lenses
Rentals from Digital Film Studios

Prod. Jenny Hou
Dir. Jocelyn RC