Derailer.

Yet another film I was fortunate enough to help out on. This one centers around an injured downhill mountain biker who doesn't let his handicap dictate his life. Simple story, great visuals, compelling storytelling... what else do you need? Director Eric Gillespie has a bright future ahead of him in terms of action sports filmmaking. Good luck my friend.

Dinapoli Tomatoes.

About six months ago, I was approached by a local tomato company centered out of Los Gatos, CA to help create an edit for their upcoming site. The point of the video was to showcase how the organic tomatoes were grown and harvested. I was to use footage that had already been shot, which proved difficult considering it was shot on one of those camcorders that records straight to DVD. We worked through all the hiccups and after a number of e-edits later, we had a finished product. I had a wonderful time working on this project with Rob Dinapoli of Dinapoli Tomatoes and hope to callaborate with him and his team in the near future.

The final edit can be viewed on his site: www.biancodinapoli.com

or you can check it out here. Please heed the SD footage.

Smallfrys Contest.

**UPDATE** We Won!!! Build-a-Bear purchased our commercial for $7,500! Feels good man.

In an attempt to make some money, a few friends and I got together to work on short spot hosted by poptent.net. The contest was to make an advertisement for Build-A-Bear Workshop to promote their new "Smallfrys" line of plush animals. After much debate, we settled on a concept that involved a monster costume, which we all hoped would set us apart from the competition. On Friday, David, jenny, and I got together and bought all the necessary building materials to create our epic monster. The green fuzzy fabric we got shed like no other. As much as I'd like to say David and I contributed equally to the building of the monster, it was really all Jenny. As the only one who knew how to operate a sewing machine, David and I were sort of at a loss. Thanks Jenny for your master craftiness!

Here is the head of the costume Jenny made. It sort of resembles an Admiral Ackbar...


On saturday, we met up in Millbrae with David and his girlfriend, who is also conveniently named Jenny (hinting at sarcasm here). David's Jenny had found not only a house, but a mother and daughter who were willing to act in our commercial. We met the family and thanked them for helping us with our project. The daughter, who was about seven, was a bit timid at first. Although, once Jenny put the monster costume on, it was nothing but giggles. Even from behind the camera, I could not stop cracking up. The way the mouth on the monster sort of sagged and flopped when Jenny talked was hilarious.

Millbrae was already excruciatingly hot, but to be in a green fuzzy monster costume was torture. Because of this we had to shoot quickly so as not to overheat our awesome actress Jenny. Both the mom and the girl were extremely good sports about doing things a number of times from different angles. It was both a challenge and a blast to work with a child actor. you really have to break down an action into steps otherwise our young actress would rush and blend all the actions into one. She was great and we got some really genuine expressions and emotions out of her.







When $7,500 is at stake, it's no wonder there were so many last minute entries. After the contest closed yesterday (July 4th 9pm), there were 138 video submissions in total. I feel a little better about our commercial being one of the "staff favorites" along with 26 other videos, but there are some really great professional-looking ads in the running. All we can do now is keep our fingers crossed...

Check out our entry!

Hester Prynne.

Here's another short film I helped out with from my Film 196 class taken at UC Santa Cruz. I was Director of Photography on this particular project. After numerous complications with actors bailing, I think the film came out as good as could have with the script revisions. I was also fortunate to work with a great group of people who all have their unique passions, which helped make this film so much stronger in the end. I mean come on, who else has an orchestra score their senior thesis film?

Synopsis:
"There are skeletons in Robert Cleaver's closet. When Robert's wife, Martha, is late to meet him at the theater for a showing of "Hester Prynne" - a theatrical interpretation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" - Robert can do little more than wait and dwell in his thoughts. That is until the show starts. To Robert's surprise and horror, he witnesses the skeletons he had been hiding manifest themselves onto the stage."

Warning: *MATURE CONTENT*

Peace by Piece.

One of my good friends and classmates Ben Zhang recently uploaded his senior thesis film. Not only is this a truly inspiring documentary that portrays the long-term effects of love and perseverance, but I helped DP a number of the shots within the film. I am extremely honored to have been a part of this project and to have met the couple portrayed within the narrative. Please check it out!

And Just Like That, I'm Done.

It's been a fast four years. I didn't think my years at college would fly by like they did. Since starting at UC Santa Cruz four years ago, I have met so many awesome people, many of whom I can see as being lifelong friends. I have learned so much, both inside and outside the classroom. And even though the film major proved to be a bit of a letdown, I hope I have made those important networking connections to carry me on to the next chapters of my life. So what's next? Grad school? Nine-to-five job? Well, for now it doesn't matter. All I'm concerned about at the moment is just taking a few weeks off to relax. I'm looking forward to a very restful next few weeks. Real life is knocking at my door, but I'm in no rush to answer.

Here are some photos of my graduation from Porter College.

"Parallels" is a Wrap!

My screening for my thesis film I made while attending UC Santa Cruz was this past Friday. As stressful as it was, I think it was received very well. I was lucky to have worked with a great group of passionate people. I was also fortunate enough to have the privilege of filming in Saturn Cafe, the awesome vegetarian all night diner located in Santa Cruz, CA.

For those that don't know, my film was an attempt at portraying two seemingly unrelated stories on screen simultaneously. Using a mix of graphic matches, similar visuals, and juxtaposing elements I wanted to connect the two stories beyond the confines of their isolated frames.

The saying goes, "We are our own worse critic." This holds extremely true for this piece. I was on the fence about so much stuff. Because of the level of attention that had to paid to timing actions and image composition, I became extremely burned out. I'd wake up sick, sore feet, and back, but in the end, it was all worth it.

If I were to go back and do it again, I probably wouldn't have made a film like this. With that being said, I've have learned so much from this experience. So, if hypothetically I was to make another split screen film again, I'd be much better prepared.

Please enjoy!



Here are a few of my favorite still from the film