Wizards Beyond Waverly Place school plates

The first half of season 1 of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place has dropped on Disney and Disney+ and I shot all the school exterior establishing shots. Sometimes we'll have a producer with us, but this one was off on our own, so I ended up figuring out a lot of the shots and directing the actors. Not that building exteriors are overly complex. We shot day, dusk and night shots just in case the main unit had any school scenes that take place at other times, but so far all of them have just been daytime.

We shot this on the RED Gemini, which is great for when night started to fall and we had super limited lighting options to light up an entire school building facade. For the daytime, we used an Angénieux Optimo 24-290 zoom for ease of focal length changes, but switched to Zeiss Super Speeds and Sigma Art Cine Primes for night due to their much faster T-stop. Nighttime lighting was primarily done with Aputure/Amaran LED sources since we had limited power and crew. Daytime lighting was provided courtesy of the giant nuclear furnace in the sky through a nice soft diffusion of airborne H2O.

Part way thorough the shoot day, they asked me to find additional building shots that we hadn't approved ahead of time. I sent them the above shot from my phone as a potential angle/location, got approval, and then matched the shot with our RED. 

Here it is in the show. I think we lined it up really close to the reference I had sent them earlier.

It's always interesting to see how many different establishing shots I shoot and then how many and which ones they choose to use in the show. I try to make sure I get plenty of coverage for all sorts of scenarios, times, and shot variety so they always have the option to change things up a bit in future seasons as well.

Fast Netflix turnaround

The other day I was 2nd Unit DP on this commercial for Netflix. We shot on a Friday and I happened to see the ad on Facebook the following Tuesday. A four day turnaround (over the weekend no less) is probably the fastest I've seen for a commercial. That's pretty crazy.

While I haven't seen Marie's show yet (or read her book), the internet let me know not to let her see my book collection. I might have a couple more than 30 books. As in, add a zero to the end of that number. She should also not see my movie collection, though I'm working on cutting down the movies that don't "spark joy" anymore. Okay, maybe she should just avoid ever seeing my entire place at all.

Nike Run Club spot

Working with director of photography Chris Saul, I b-camera operated and second unit DP'd this spot for Nike. It's the one that's playing in Nike stores and was shot in the "sideways" 9x16 aspect ratio for use on the store displays, which utilize screens with this same orientation. We had a lot of fun and I'm happy to be able to now share the finished video.


NIKE from Chris Saul on Vimeo.

Nike store - The Grove Mall, Los Angeles

Last August I posted about a Nike shoot I worked on. I had heard that it was playing in stores a couple months back and finally had some time to make it down to the local Nike store to check it out. Oddly enough, I couldn't find it playing on any of their tall aspect ratio store screens (which all seemed to be displaying shopping portals, not video), but a cropped version was playing on the giant wall of screens right behind the checkout.

It was pretty cool to see some of the stuff I shot on that big of a screen. I just wish I could have seen it the way it was originally intended to be displayed. I know it was shown in the full tall aspect ratio at another store, as the main unit DP showed me a picture, so perhaps I need to drop by a different location. Either way, it's still cool to see my work playing at Nike.

Nike Store at The Grove.

Sorry for the terrible color balance. I took this with my phone.

More Nike BTS

Our key grip Gino Nix sent me a few behind the scenes pictures he took of me at work on the Nike shoot, so I thought I'd share. A-Cam Op/DP was Chris Saul. B-Cam Op/2nd Unit DP was me.

Me (left) and Chris Saul (right) on the gator about to chase some the runners.

Me (left), director Martin Desmond Roe (center), and Chris Saul (right) talking through our next shot.

About to shoot off of the gator while standing.

Shooting with the Ronin in the rain, I decided to be my own umbrella operator.

About to pursue some runners through the street after a wetdown.

Nike shoot

This past week I operated the B-Cam/2nd unit DP'd a Nike spot produced by Dirty Robber. Since we were shooting for Nike's displays, which are widescreen televisions rotated 90°, we also turned our cameras on the side, resulting in a 9x16 aspect ratio. That was a fun aspect ratio to shoot in, as it's not something I normally get to do.

While the A-Cam was handheld and operated by Director of Photography Chris Saul, my B-Cam was mounted on a DJI Ronin the entire time. It was quite the workout with the additional weight of the gimbal and I did a lot of running (forwards and backwards) with the unit. At times I'd use an Easyrig, but since it can add a lot of bounce, I just used my arms when running.

The spot was shot on RED Dragons with Zeiss Super Speed lenses in 6K HD.

In the rain. Photo by @emmahollyjones

Director Nick Frew looks over my shoulder as I get a sweet sunset shot.

Director of Photography/A-Cam Operator Chris Saul gives me a break from operating the Ronin rig.