Miramax invites Sundance filmmakers to share their craft

January 22, 2013

Miramax recently invited me to write a guest post on their Sundance blog where I explore passion, creativity and influences. Full text below.

It was several years ago, sometime in the winter I was working on a short film in the swamps of Western Massachusetts. The temperature was dropping quickly and giant, sticky snowflakes were beginning to fall lazily from the gray sky overhead. Knee deep in mud and leaves, freezing, wet and miserable, with a heavy camera on my shoulder, it was there that I turned to a close friend of mine and said “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. Would you?” At that moment I knew I had found my life’s passion.

So it is intimidating and invigorating arriving in Park City for my first Sundance Film Festival surrounded by nothing but passion; for films, stories, life, friends old and new. Some of the most influential filmmakers in history have passed through here, and I like to think that they felt the same excitement and butterflies as I do. One of my all-time favorite filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino, premiered Reservoir Dogs here just over 20 years ago, and has since continued to leave his mark on modern filmmaking, and me.

I was 14 years old when I first watched Pulp Fiction, and I remember absolutely hating it. I was bored at first, then annoyed, but for some reason, I found myself watching it over and over. There was something special about it – something that was unlike anything I had seen before. There was a cool, funky beat to the dialogue and action; it ebbed and flowed, sped up and slowed down. It was visual jazz. It was perfect in its imperfections, and I grew to love every second of it.

Like Tarantino, I did not go to film school. I dropped out of UMass Amherst after one year of missed classes and alcohol-fueled ragers, during which, somehow, I was able to participate in a feature film that was at once an utter disappointment and an eye-opening experience. It was a no-budget, multi-year project on which I wore many hats and made me never want to work in film again.

Over the next few years, I had decided against culinary school and was toiling away in a fluorescent-lit hell, dreaming about doing something I could love. On a whim, I took a screenwriting class at a local nonprofit and volunteered to be cinematographer on a 48 Hour film for my professor. Six months later I was laid off and spent the next 24 hours freaking out, only to realize that I had already found my calling.

Fast forward to 2011 – a woman named Stacie Passon emailed me saying she had seen my cinematography reel and would like for me to read her script to see if I would be interested in shooting it. One engrossing read later I was ecstatic and overjoyed; I wanted to cry and scream in anger and happiness. This was a film that needed to be made. This was Concussion.

A beautiful, raw story; the barbaric yawp of a million voices trapped within suburban prisons and behind walls of discrimination. An unrestrained revolt against the status quo whose time had long passed, but was still parading through the town square, nude, oblivious to the shouting voices around it. One giant risk that was worth taking simply because there was no other choice, and thus we dove in without hesitation or reservation.

Although the film is first and foremost about the performances, Stacie encouraged me to take risks with the cinematography. We used odd angles and perspectives; we cut off faces with the frame. We even had a long list of rules to guide us to create the visual narrative – but the most important rule is that rules are made to be broken.

It’s important to have someone that can encourage your passion and risk-taking. Miramax has made a mark on the indie film scene exactly because of this reason – they believe in filmmakers to tell their stories the way they should be told. It comes as no surprise that some of my favorite films have made their way through Miramax: No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Sin City, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Amelie, Hero, and every Tarantino film. They foster a culture where voices are heard and ideas can grow.

Every passionate storyteller deserves to have that environment, be it a trusted friend, a mentor, a loyal crew or a studio that is there to nurture, to educate and to inspire. Love and passion and fearlessness of the unknown should be encouraged to take us forward. We have a responsibility to create and grow a community that champions these ideals.

So at this Sundance, I feel that I am truly surrounded by it – and it is beautiful.

Exploring available light for feature film "Concussion"

January 22, 2013

Director: Stacie Passon

Director of Photography: David Kruta

Meet Abby - a bored, wealthy, lesbian housewife from the suburbs who, by day as her kids sit in school, becomes a prostitute for women. The piece is actually a character study of a woman who, given every advantage, still finds herself lost in life. She has made every choice in her life, she's been able to educate herself and to fulfill her potential. Still she sits alone in the suburbs folding laundry - hidden - devoid of passion and purpose.

Starting in a spin class, as we hear the punk rock song "Connection" by Elastica. Over the course of the film, we meet our Abby's family, her contractor, and her friends. Her female-only clients range in age, some funny, some quirky – all mirroring her in a specific way.

Abby is played by Robin Weigert, a Emmy-nominated actor for her performance of Calamity Jane in HBO's Deadwood. She has been featured prominently in movies by Suzanne Bier, Steven Soderbergh and Charlie Kaufman. Supporting cast includes Maggie Siff (Sons of Anarchy, Mad Men), Janel Moloney (The West Wing), Ben Shenkman (Pi, Requiem for a Dream), Julie Fain Lawrence (Law & Order), Emily Kinney (The Walking Dead) and a slew of other great talent.

The most interesting part of how this film came to be from the a cinematography aspect was the growth in scale. In my earliest talks with director Stacie Passon, it was meant to be an extremely low-profile, guerilla filmmaking adventure. I took a lot of inspiration from the films of Terrence Malick not only for the aesthetic, but to learn as much as I could about what shooting only available light meant. And although the size of the production grew very rapidly, we had created a look that we would pursue throughout the film.

The story of Abby starts out with her living in a cage - a modern housewife locked at home with the laundry. The lighting and framing choices reflect her claustrophobia in the use of long lenses, closeups and foreground elements to show her obstructed on all sides. As she finds more freedom in the city, the framing widens and camerawork becomes more playful and dynamic. Finally, as her two lives collide, the aesthetics start merging and overlapping.

We shot on the Red Epic camera using Zeiss Superspeed lenses. The lenses have fantastic coverage of the larger sensor, all the way down through the 18mm. I chose the Superspeeds because they were the fastest lenses we could get within our budget range, and although I hesitate to shoot at a T1.3, due to our limited equipment we had to use it several times throughout the film. However, the imperfections in glass this old meant that we got a very beautiful, organic look on a camera that can sometimes feel very cold and unforgiving.

Although our mantra was to use modified available light (modifying meaning using negative fill, light grid, flags, etc) we did do quite a bit of lighting to wrap the sources around our actors. Gaffer Jordan Parrott, Key Grip Omar Addassi and I developed a few methods which enabled us to set up quickly and get great results. Our daylight wrap came in the form of a Joker 400 bounced into a 4x4 Light Grid, or if space was tight we would put the Joker in a chimera.

For nighttime, I took inspiration from the film Hanna and created what we termed the Hanna-light: a 2x3 sheet of foamcore with Christmas lights taped to it. Depending on how much setup time we had, it would be softened with Light Grid. The beauty of the Hanna-light is that it acts like a much larger source and thus creates a no-light scenario in which you can get exposure without making it look like there's a light somewhere. Key Grip Omar Addassi also constructed what we called the Omara, a frosted 150w bulb in a Chimera. We would use this in conjunction with the Hanna-lights to bump up one side of a face and give it some shape.

In addition to the available light approach, Stacie and I set some rules for the visuals. I was adamant about staying away from "light sandwiches", a rule I borrowed from Tree of Life. This meant light would come from one angle, and we would eliminate any bounce or edges on the opposite side. I also tried to seek out mixed color temperatures and lens flares for Abby's liberated life, while keeping her home life monochromatic and clean.

Overall I believe we achieved a fantastic look in a short schedule on a meager budget, and working with Stacie was a fantastic experience. If you would like to stay updated with what's happening on Concussion, please like the Facebook page or follow @ConcussionMOV on Twitter.

Behind the Scenes released for Gillette "Light It Up" with Klip Collective and BBDO

October 22, 2012

Check out the wonderful behind the scenes from the Gillette "Light It Up" commercial shot at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, MA for the 2012 Summer Olympics. As always, there is some fantastic work from Klip Collective, showcasing some insane water projections.

Levek gets surreal in new video "Black Mold Grow"

October 11, 2012

Director: Michael Lawrence

Director of Photography: David Kruta & Michael Lawrence

Levek’s new album is a haunting mix of 70s style psychadelic rock mixed with modern electro-pop, and is a masterpiece. Director Michael Lawrence and I were lucky enough to be able to shoot the video to their single “Black Mold Grow”, an eerie, calm and trippy song that elicits a primal reaction when listened to.

Although the budget was tight, we decided to keep the concept reasonable and the logistics simple. We piled into a sedan with actress Kelly Thomas and headed up to Mike’s hometown of East Aurora, NY - right on the outskirts of Buffalo. There we met with Toronto-based operator and Scarlet owner Kiel Milligan, and proceeded to location scout and shoot.

This shoot, more so than any other I’ve had the pleasure of doing with Mike, relied very much on a fluid, organic process that combined a mix of faith, luck and spontaneous inspiration to be successful. Although frustrating at times, this we remained optimistic, and with such a small crew, we were able to be nimble and react quickly to unforeseen changes in weather, locations and time of day. A testament to this method is that we managed to capture two separate locations in the same golden hour timespan - an impossibility on a larger shoot.

We shot over the course of two days and the morning following, and were extremely lucky with weather. The first morning we were soaked by thunderstorms, but managed to capture some stunningly bleak imagery that helped separate the passage of time throughout the video. That same day, as the storms passed, the sun came out and presented us with a magnificent sunset, which we rushed to capture in as many ways possible.

As the shoot unfolded, we started realizing that the look that was coming together was a mix of grainy 70s-era film and somewhat modern British realism, so we pushed for that feeling more. We didn’t shy away from lighting night scenes with only a flashlight bounced off of a shirt or car headlights, and we would roll seeing not much but edges and black on the screen. Between some clever post-work and editing, I think the look came together brilliantly for this piece.

Although this shoot was shot overwhelmingly with available light, there were a few small tricks we used. My kit consisted of a haze generator, two 12x12 solids and my iPad, with which I modified or lit a couple scenes. When our heroine wakes up in the 50s-era Galaxie convertible, the silhouette is enhanced by the solids blocking light from behind the camera, and the beams of sun are made visible by the haze hanging in the air. When she is running from the pickup truck, the driver is illuminated by a creepy green glow, courtesy of the iPad.

We shot on the Red Scarlet, Canon 7D and GoPro Hero2, with a wide complement of lenses such as the Canon 70-200, Tokina 11-16, Sigma 105mm Macro and a small selection of Nikkors belonging to the director. We used the Scarlet as our main camera, with 7D providing close ups and long-lens action. GoPro was used to quickly grab underwater shots.

The town of Aurora served as a beautiful, yet haunting, backdrop to Black Mold Grow, and provided us with many opportunities. We were extremely lucky to meet many helpful inhabitants who willingly gave us their time, properties and help, allowing us to shoot in many beautiful and strange locations. We even had “catering” provided by the director’s parents, who welcomed us into their home and treated us all like long-lost children. All in all, being at the mercy of nature was an inspiring challenge, and embracing the unknown was a refreshing break.