Earlier this month I headed down to New Orleans to work with the non-profit Rethink. This is my 4th year shooting and producing a project for them. Rethink. is always one of my favorite gigs and I really enjoy the long term working relationship I have with them. Plus each year I work with Colin M. Lenton, a great photographer and also one of my best friends.

Tracing my work through Rethink. is also interesting. The first year (2007) I shot the project on the DVX100a, last year it was the HPX170 and this year it was all shot on the 5d mkII. I’m particularly happy with the interviews, which I shot at 1250 ISO with only one 500watt light source, quite a change of pace from a lot of other shoots i’ve been doing.

I returned to Philadelphia last week to shoot another series of short docs for the wonderful music non-profit Weathervane Music. The first session was with the Philadelphia based band The Party Photographers and the Second session was Twin SIster (pictured above), an amazing band from Long Island.

Weathervane Music is always a blast to shoot for and I had a really wonderful time. For The Party Photographers, I utilized a lot of time lapse to match their fast punk rock feel. For Twin Sister I focused a lot more on slower dolly moves and abstract back lite scenes. Twin Sister’s music has a very cinematic feel to it and they were wonderful to work with! Check them out!

This past weekend I DPed a really interesting project for History Making Productions, a relatively new documentary production company in Philadelphia run by Phil and Sam Katz. The production involved shooting reenactments for a short doc they are producing on Richard Allen.

Shooting a period piece and reenactments were both a first for me, but despite this and being a little under handed, the shoot went amazingly well! We put a lot of thought into camera movements ahead of time and it really paid off. Our primary camera support was a doorway dolly with wheels, straight track and curved track. We also used a small jib arm on a few shots as well.

We were also privilege to have a great mix of wonderful professional actors and a small group of dedicated volunteers for extras! I really can’t wait to see the edit!

I’ve been getting behind in my updates lately. The other week I shot a project for BMS (Bristol Meyer Squibb) Films that included a NJT train, a 3 ton grip truck, 20 x 40 green screen and a pretty large crew. The video was for an overseas audience so the NJT train was mocked up inside to look like a chinese train! The art department did an excellent job!

Tech wise we shot it with a 5d mkII and a HDX900. I have to say its interesting switching back and forth between a HDX900 and a 5d mkII, the two couldn’t be more opposite! While I love the amount of color info the HDX900 gives you, the 5d mkII really does provided a richer, more film like look and considering the price difference between the two, that says a lot!