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Designing a Future

As a Creative, I spend a bit of time thinking. In fact, sometimes, possibly most instances, the bulk of the heavy lifting I do when building content, revolves around me sitting in a dimly lit room alone, in silence: thinking. Then I lay out my project with the myriad number of variables we all must juggle when building our work, and get to it. This stage is the fun-easy part. But it goes nowhere of significance without me doing the former. This blog post from Seth Godin says a lot. So off we all get to go. As a

Is the Future Here Already?

I am frequently asked this question: “What is it that you do, exactly?” It is actually a pretty fair ask, though I am never quite sure what to tell people. I am involved in a lot of rather unique trades and projects. One of the things is that I operate camera as a specialty camera operator in marine environments. I have been able to create a body of work that is incredibly vast in stills, yes, but also in Motion Picture. The work has gone everywhere and I fondly and flippantly refer to it as digital litter these days. But

Studying Life

My education in Art began really early on in life, at crayon and fingerpaint age. My Father had taken up oil painting in what I believe may have been therapy, to alleviate pressure created by his work in Aerospace and Defense. Helping architect weapons that can end Humanity takes it’s toll on some people. I had seen the affect on my own Father. So Art made sense for him. But at the same time, my uncle Joe would come and visit from Hawaii. Joe was a successful and talented painter who also taught Art at UH. He would tutor my

Life as a Ceremony

My wife and I are on Bali for almost a week now. Days and nights have been full of image creation. My little MBP is on 24 hour duty cycles processing time lapse sequences. The collection of clips completed on this trip is at 22 and building as I write this. I have been exploring the dynamics of a time lapse program called Panolapse. It is a good asset to have in my arsenal of programs. The developer and I have exchanged a few e mails. I am impressed at what the man has done and is doing. Grateful, actually.

Risen

I typically dislike Bible based films for a large number of professional reasons (as a Cinematographer). So it was with rather low expectations that I sat in on a screening early this morning. This is possibly one of the best crafted motion pictures I have seen in awhile. It portrays a well known storyline, in a manner which is both relative to and believable by culture today. Every Department performed with near flawless precision and Senatore’s work as Cinematographer was just the right amount of stunning without overwhelming the storyline with hero shots. I was inspired on many levels. Here

Samsung NX1: Throttling Up

The past week has been a blur of field trials and digital lab examination of an array of image files produced in a wide range of subjects on the Samsung NX1. Doing this, switching out from my amazingly detailed and efficient Canon system, to neophyte professional imaging contender Samsung, with it’s NX1, is a lot of work (and fun). In the middle of it all, my last shoot on Canon was published, along with a cute little videolog I produced, to illustrate better the texture of our day at the beach here. The feature is titled “Ventura Highway: Three Blondes”

Samsung NX1: We Have Lift Off

The above image and copy is a post I did to my Instagram and Facebook pages this week. This Post is the first in a series of pieces I will do on my transition from the Canon System to that of Samsung. My perception is that this one system could serve as a foundation for professional level content creation in photography, cinematography and audio production. In my career in imaging, these shifts are more like massive leaps, and occur very infrequently, but always for the same collection of reasons. Those reasons can be summed up in this statement. “I want

The Good Day

When we arrived on Bali, our first phone call was to Gusti, who Donna has worked with and known for close to twelve years. He was distraught. His Mother had just returned home from a walk (at 80 she was a vital part of the family) and collapsed in the driveway. He was taking her to the hospital. He later told us that she had a stroke and he had stayed with her, and two days after that conversation, she died. We actually spoke with him the moment after her death (weird how this all works). So we knew the

Bali Journal: Week 1

This first week has been hectic, sort of no surprise, as the travel and shoot modus all of us use, is deeply embedded at this point in my life. We are staying on the outskirts of Ubud, off the beaten tourism path in the compound of a Balinese family and the home of A fascinating Yogi- fitness authority named Jocelyn Gordon. We did a little bit of motion capture for her website, Hoopyogini. Fun and she is quite elegant in every way (good subject) Days are a series of time lapse projects, design meetings for Donna and Betty B with

Running and Gunning

Whew, just off a series of e mails with Lorenzo De Stefano, who is Director of the film Hearing is Believing which I am the Director of Cinematography on. The crew will be down at the Blue Whale in LA filming a performance by Rachel and the remarkable Taylor Eigsti for the project Thursday night. I on the other hand, will be on Bali working on some development projects for my wife’s company, and meeting up with a couple film makers there to possibly create something rather exotic. Life is hectic in a good way. This week saw a fantastic

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