Rogue Warrior premiere, some music videos, and more!

A lot's happened since my last update, as I've been busy with numerous projects. First off, I shot a music video for Karmin for her track Love Is Louder off of her upcoming album. We shot that at the YouTube Spaces on a RED Epic Dragon with Canon CN-E prime lenses. The camera lived on a Steadicam for the shoot. The final edit just got locked and I'm quite pleased with how this turned out. I'll share the video once it comes out.

Next up was a lyric video for Emii's track Wait. It was kind of a rush job, as they decided late into the schedule to change from a standard lyric video into a lyric/music video hybrid. Since the song had a hard release date, we rushed in to get this shot and it was an ambitious concept with lots of set changes and wardrobe/makeup changes. We shot RED Epic MX with Sony CineAlta lenses. The camera spent a good chunk of time on a Ronin. I'm not totally thrilled with the color grade, as the turnaround was so fast that I was unable to sit in on any of it.

Moving on, the science fiction feature film Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter had its premier this last weekend at the Action on Film Festival. It was pretty well attended and I enjoyed seeing some of the cast and crew for the first time in almost a year and a half. The movie went through some extensive rewrites and subsequent reshoots in the time since we wrapped principal photography, so it was interesting and surprising to see the final product, as I was not involved in the shooting of those additional scenes. Here are a couple pictures from the night.

Rogue Warrior premiered on the opening night of the Action on Film Festival.

A big chunk of the cast, and then me on the left repping the crew.

Screen 12. Same screen where the festival debuted the last two features I shot for Neil Johnson.

Lastly, Action on Film also screened the DC Comics fan film, Fair Fight, which I shot 2nd Unit DP. Due to other obligations, I was unable to attend that screening. Fair Fight has also been invited to screen at another film festival, so it sounds like it's being well received.

SDCC 2016

Another year, another San Diego Comic Con. As in recent years, both Nobility and Space Command had panels. What was different this year is that Nobility has a finished project, with color correction, sound mix, and FX complete (or nearly complete). The panel was well attended and the footage looked the best it has yet. This year, we even managed to get Doug Jones in on the panel.

Nobility panel and screening

For the Space Command panel, they had to use the entire length of the table! The panel was huge! Hey, wait...is that Doug Jones again? That guy is everywhere! Unfortunately, I had an appointment to keep and was unable to make it to this panel. They debuted the opening 6 minutes of the film. The VFX were not quite complete from what I've been told, but it's a start. This movie is extremely FX heavy so the post process has been excruciatingly slow, as they're working on a very small budget for what they're trying to pull off. But they're still at it.

Space Command panel. That's a full lineup there!

This year, Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter had a signing. Dave Seeley designed the movie poster and was kind enough to let us do a signing in his booth. I'm pretty sure nobody cares about getting my signature, but it was fun nonetheless. The film is in the final stages of the sound mix and color correction, so the director says he's aiming to premiere it at the Action on Film Festival in early September.

(left to right): Robot Fighter lead Tracey Birdsall, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Marc Hawes, not-appearing-in-this-film me, and (just offscreen) Neil Johnson.

Other than that, at one of my meetings I received some great news about Mystic Cosmic Patrol, the pilot I shot last year. It seems that there is some definite interest in it, with a deal very, very close to happening. As we all know, nothing's certain until the ink dries (and even then plans change), so I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that project. It was one of my favorite things to shoot and possibly my favorite end product, as it looks fantastic, sounds great, and is hilarious. I'm usually very reserved in my praise, but this is a show that I'd tell everyone I know to watch.

Well, that's it for Comic Con. It wore me out, but I had a lot of fun and my meetings went well. Here's to hoping I'll have some other new projects to showcase at next year's SDCC!

Mid-January update

I'm still working on pre-production for the short film I'm shooting at the end of the month. We're getting the equipment orders put in and finalizing details. Tomorrow we have a read-through of the script with all the keys and will be making sure we have everything ironed out for the shoot. Everything seems to be coming together nicely and I'm excited to get this made.

Last night we had a cast, crew, and friends/family screening for Mystic Cosmic Patrol, which is a television pilot that I shot last year. We screened two of the three episodes and got a great response. Not only did we have an awesome cast (Chris Masterson, Timothy Jo, Laura Monaco, Chris Candy, Chelsea Tavares, and Tim Russ), but a great crew and production team. It was nice to see a lot of them again and I was very pleased with how the final product turned out. I tend to be a pretty harsh critic of my work, but even I liked it. Hopefully, we can find a studio that enjoys it as much as the audience at the screening did. This was my favorite project to shoot and ended up being my favorite completed project as well, so I'd love for it to get a series order.

In other news, the recently released January issue of Talent Monthly Magazine is loaded with projects I worked on. It features interviews with Tracey Birdsall (Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter, At the Edge of Time), Aaron Jacques (Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter, Starship Rising), Barry Corbin (At the Edge of Time, No Country for Old Men), and Stephen Manley (Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock). The issue also debuted the poster for the movie Rogue Warrior, pictured below.

Tracey Birdsall (center), Daz Crawford (left) and Aaron Jacques (right)

Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter pickup day

Today we went out to the desert to shoot a couple pickup scenes with actresses Tracy Birdsall and Marilyn Ghigliotti. It was a pretty light day, with only a couple pages of dialog to get through, but the location was pretty fantastic.

360° panorama

Setting up a 100mm two-shot.

Checking out the mine next to our shoot location.

Titan pickup day

I had scheduled a day to grab some location shots for my Titan teaser trailer and finally got some time this last week. My DP for the first day was on a job in Texas, so I shot this myself. Having sold off the RED Dragon I used on the first part, I opted for a Sony A7s with some old Olympus glass and an EF adaptor for this stuff. The lenses had some nice flare and I'm pretty happy with the organic edge they added to the Sony. The Sony was shot in Slog-2 (Picture Profile 7).

The plan had been to mount the A7s on a DJI Ronin M for some super smooth, match cut follow shots to contrast with the handheld nature of the spaceship footage. The Ronin, however, ended up having a major issue and wasn't smoothing out the shots. The Sony has major rolling shutter issues if trying to walk handheld, but I did my best to walk smoothly. It wasn't perfect, but for my no-budget trailer I'm shooting, the footage got the job done.

My friend Jim Zicree also came out with his DJI Phantom3 drone. With the sun going down, we knocked out a couple quick shots that ended up working well. We all wish we could have had a bit more time to play with the drone, but the Ronin gimbal issues at the beginning of the day ate up a lot of time and set us behind schedule. Fortunately, we got all the shots I was after and they're what I needed for this trailer.

Great aerial shot as the sun went down.

Sort-of-a-match-cut shot #1.

Sort-of-a-match-cut shot #2.

Sort-of-a-match-cut shot #3.

One more drone shot as the sunlight was dying.

Stan Lee's Comikaze 2015

This was a pretty busy convention for me this year. Space Command had a panel where they debuted a new trailer with some of the completed FX work and rough color correction. Part of the cast was there for a Q&A session and panel. They also talked about their plans for more upcoming films.

I also attended another panel for Triborn, a project that I'm discussing coming on board to shoot. It's an original science fiction property and has some great names attached. For being a small, independent production, there was a pretty good sized crowd in attendance.

The big event, however, was the premiere of Nobility. The guys have really been working hard in post to get this thing finished and we were able to screen a near-final cut of the film. It was well received and there were a lot of people there to see it. Here's what people were saying on Twitter after the showing:

Comikaze was a good convention and it was a real pleasure to have participated in a couple of the projects that were featured there. Hopefully I'll be back again next year with more projects to share with the world.

Arriving at the show!

Space Command panel.

Nobility invite only panel, with Star Trek's Walter Koenig.

Nobility screening Q&A

The crowd is gathering for the Nobility premiere screening.

Waiting for the Nobility premiere to start.

A few more Titan shots

Here are a few more shots from the Titan teaser trailer. I have a rough cut assembled, but still have a few locations shots to grab. I'll be re-grading everything, as I just built an initial quick look to get a feel for it.

Titan teaser trailer

Yesterday, I had a change of pace and directed a teaser trailer as a proof of concept for a short film (though I have additional story elements already in place so I could easily turn it into a feature). My friend had built a set for another movie that I was set to shoot when the production suddenly shut down and the movie was canceled. Since the set was due to be dismantled at the end of this month, we thought it a shame it hadn't been used and decided to shoot a small project on it.

With little warning that we had access to the set before being taken down, this shoot was kind of a last minute thing, so rather than having auditions for casting, I went with some actor friends of mine that I knew would be great. I wrote a short trailer script based on an idea I've been tossing around for a while, and got my actors all on board. Then I spent this past week tracking down wardrobe, generating character breakdowns for the actors, and drawing up storyboards. Nick Forte, my usual 1st AC (and sometimes camera operator), does DP work as well and we get along great, so I brought him on to shoot this for me.

We had a good time, got some great footage, and even finished out the day early (just barely). I had sent Nick some reference screengrabs from Aliens and Prometheus as the look I was going for, kind of an old, run down look with pools of light, and he did a great job giving me the dark, oppressive lighting I wanted and he got it done with a two man crew and minimal G&E kit. When I wasn't busy working with the actors, I also pitched in a hand with lighting.

Shot on RED Dragon, 5.5K WS @ 6:1 compression. A set of T2 Sony CineAlta PL lenses let us make the most of the limited lighting available. Screenshots have a quick grade on them, but may not be the final look.

Starship: Apocalypse premiere

Last night was the premiere of the science fiction feature film Starship: Apocalypse, sequel to last year's Starship: Rising. Once again, it debuted at the Action On Film festival. It was interesting to watch this, as I shot the movie almost 3 years ago. I also enjoyed catching up with some of the cast and crew that I haven't seen in quite some time, some of them since we originally shot! Good times.

Sci Fi Magazine Oct 2015

The current issue of Sci-Fi Magazine features an article that talks about two feature films I shot recently. The cover is here:

Sadly, I didn't shoot the movie that made the cover. But within this magazine are a couple movies I did shoot.

The article interviews actress/producer Tracy Birdsall, who starred in and produced both At the Edge of Time and Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter. She was a real pleasure to work with and we had a good time. The October 2015 issue of Sci Fi Magazine is available at most major magazine retailers (Barnes and Noble, Frys, Hastings, many comic book stores, etc).

Hey, we got a full page!

More Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter!

And here are a few more screengrabs from Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter.

Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter screengrabs

I've finally been told I can post some screengrabs from the feature I shot in March, called Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter. We shot some days on stage, some in the desert, and some in Malibu. The movie is currently being edited, with pickups to come in the future (pickups were pre-planned).

Back from San Diego Comic Con

I took last week off to attend Comic Con. Space Command had a panel along with a signing, and Nobility had a panel, a couple signings, and a booth. It's pretty cool to have shot two projects that both have panels at SDCC.

The big announcement for Nobility is that they will be debuting the series at Stan Lee's Comikaze Expo in October. I've been told that they've brought a colorist on to finish the looks and the FX are coming along nicely. A lot of these sci-fi films I shoot have very long post-production times, mostly due to the amount of VFX work needed on lower budgets. So it'll be nice to have Nobility coming out this year and seeing the final product.

At the Edge of Time: screengrabs pt. 4

Okay, here's the last batch of screengrabs that I managed to snag for At the Edge of Time. Hope you like them!