Still no baby, and we are two days past the due date. I have continued to spend some time on this Director of Photography reel, have a look and let me know what you think.

Past Work, Photography, Business, DP reel, Cinematography, Director of Photography | 3 Comments »

No baby yet, so I have been using my weekend to work on a new reel to showcase my cinematography. I am hoping that this new reel will help me land some Director of Photography positions on documentary feature films.

This is just the beginning of the reel but feel free to click and take a look, and let me know your thoughts.

Past Work, Future Projects, Business | 1 Comment »

Recently, it has been brought to my attention that I might be charging too little for the services that I offer. Of course this really is a subjective topic that has so many variables: where are you located, what format do you work in, what equipment do you own, how much experience do you possess? But how does one find out how much they should charge for production services?

I have found that in the work place people are really quite tight lipped about how much people are making and especially about how much people are worth. The other night at the Intervention premier party after a stiff drink I began to present the “money” question to the production manager. That got me nowhere. So, that next day I hoped on The D-Word, a forum of documentary filmmakers and aspiring ones. This has proved to be quite a great resource, after I posted the “money” question within 6 hours I had responses from big shot producers and Academy Award Nominated filmmakers. It turns out that according to California state law I have to charge more, you see I have not been getting paid for overtime on television work this year, and when you tend to work 14-18 hours a day of shoots that overtime easily turns into a lot of breathing room in the bank. The tricky thing about cinematography rates in Los Angeles is the fact that it is so easy to price yourself out of work because there are hundreds of young talented camera people just waiting for a break, and many will work for pennies to get it. (I know, it was not long ago that I was one of them) So for right now, I am going to start logging how many overtime hours I work on my next few shoots. If it is quite a few, as I expect it will be I will have a nice chat with the line producer.

Pricing for corporate work is different, rates are more dependent on the services that you offer, so in order to raise my rates in this side of my business I am going to be taking a close look at investing into the world of High Definition. I will keep you up to date on that.

Present Work, Goals, lessons, Business | 2 Comments »

Occupant Productions has a Flickr account, be sure to take a look at the every growing, changing and I hoping improving photography.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/occupantproductions/

Photography | No Comments »

Tonight the wife and I are off to the premier party for Intervention. I hear that we are not going to watch the show, if we did we would all feel terrible about enjoying a drink, what fun would that be? I am hoping that a little party is just what Deborah needs to get the contractions going, we are ready to meet our little girl.

Present Work, Intervention, Family | No Comments »

The stork is quickly approaching and the wife and I have yet to agree on a name. If someone out there can come up with a great name for a baby girl that Deborah and I agree on you will win a fantastic prize.

This is not a picture of a stork, but a seagull that I captured hovering over the Pacific.

Family | 3 Comments »

I have been out of town for two weeks and did not find any time to blog while I was on the road. Sorry about that. But the last two weeks have given me a nice chunk of life to blog about. Let me start with yesterday afternoon. My lovely wife picked me up from the airport and we headed to a coffee shop to catch up. As we waited in line to order a young woman came running up to us, frantically she asked, ” Did you just park your car outside?”
That is an odd question, “Yes we did.”
She continued, “Well, someone just broke in and took off down the street with your things, I think he is still out there!”
Deborah and I took off out the door, Deborah yelled, “Hey!” and then I noticed the man in a brown plaid shirt running down the sidewalk with my video camera bag over one shoulder and my digital camera over the other. I took off running after him, he was about 100 yards ahead. I yelled louder than I ever had in public, “Hey!” Immediately he dropped both bags and  a few steps later he dropped my harddrive, I had not noticed that he had it until I saw it slam into the concrete. I was calling 911 before I reached my bags. They put me on hold. My heart was thundering fueled with adrenaline as I waiting on the phone watching the thief run down the sidewalk and out of sight.

Lessons Learned:
1) Insure your equipment
2) Don’t trust 911 in California
3) Hard drives can take a real beating and still work
4) Good Samaritans  and miracles just might exsist

lessons | 10 Comments »

January 18th marked my one year anniversary shooting the show Intervention.

I have been yelled at, kicked, have been called an angel, and any swear word you can imagine. I have found myself in the sewers of major cities, waist deep in the swamps of Florida, and in jail. I have learned more than I have seen and I love the job more than the day I started.

I need to write a book someday.

Present Work, Past Work, Intervention | No Comments »

For the last few days I have been thinking of a photography project that I want to do. Well, is might be more aptly named a photo walk. I woke up the other day and had the urge to just go for a walk, not an “around the block walk”, but a, “what if I walked all day” walk. Before long I had the idea to find a nice long street in Los Angeles and walk it from the southern end of the city to the northern edge. The idea is to take copious amounts of photos along the way documenting the vast cultures that the city holds.

When I first moved to LA I lived in the Hollywood area, and was really surprised at the lack of diversity, to me LA just looked like pretty people with pretty things working hard to convince everyone that life in the city is perfect. That is what most people see when they think of Los Angeles. Now that I live more south, south of the 10 freeway I see a vastly different LA, and I like this LA better. Interstate 10, or The 10 if you live in LA was built in the 50’s to act as a barrier and buffer between the white area, north of the 10 and the black area, south of the 10.

I want to walk 10 miles up La Brea, from Inglewood to Hollywood with a hope that I can bring light to both sides of the 10, and really illustrate how culturally diverse, pretty, petty, and how imperfect Los Angeles is.

I hope to do this sometime in early February.

Future Projects | 2 Comments »

This morning I went to help out with a camera test on the new JVC GY-HD250U. Actually the test was really about testing a new Fujinon lens. The camera performed great for only having 1/3 inch chips, but the form leaves something to be desired. The camera is surprisingly heavy, and long, especially with the wide telephoto lens on there. As a shooter I would not want to use that on a cinema verite documentary, it would work fine for news or Nation Geographic shoots, where the camera is on a tripod 80% of the time, but I would really feel trapped with that thing on my shoulder.

This test is for a new feature doc that I will be working on this year as a second camera man, the DP and co-producer is Richard Pearce who shot the great documentary Hearts and Minds, which happened to win an Oscar.

Present Work, Equipment | 1 Comment »