Club Killers Apparel Commercial

This was an exciting shoot for me because I got to film a commercial on my own company's product for Advertising Production class. Club Killers is a company that focuses on DJs and anyone who generally loves music, through music and video production, as well as through clothing. This particular commercial was for our clothing brand. The talent was my friend DJ Earwaxxx, who DJs many clubs around the strip. We filmed it in the video room at The Art Institute of Las Vegas, utilizing the green screen. The equipment I used for this shoot was the Lumix GH4 4K camera, a crane jib, a tripod, and some Arri lights to evenly light the green screen, as well as my subject. The most difficult part of the shoot was lighting the green screen evenly with the amount of lights we had, because we also needed to shoot his whole body from head to toe. We did a lot of multiple takes - wide, medium, and closeups with the different outfits on. It took us about three hours for the entire shoot and I feel the final product came out very well. But, if I were to do it again I would tried directing him a little better with his actions and have taken a lot more wide shots of him.

You can watch the full commercial by clicking here! 

Dash Berlin Interview

Last week I was given the opportunity to film an interview with DJ Jeffrey Sutorius, the front man of the DJ/production group Dash Berlin. They are based from the Netherlands and have had many breakthrough and award-winning songs on the trance charts. Jeffrey was in town to headline an event at Marquee Nightclub, and he was nice to enough to come into the 98.5 KLUC studio to give a few lucky fans an exclusive one-hour interview where they were able to ask him questions too. I used four DSLR cameras for the interview, three on tripods and one hand-held. One of the camera was a medium shot on the interviewee DJ CO-1, the second was a medium shot on Jeffrey, the third was a wide 2-shot, and the fourth one was hand-held to give the interview a different feeling than just static shots. The studio already had some good lighting, however we setup two LED panels to brighten it up a little more. We recorded the audio of DJ CO-1 and Jeffrey directly into a computer using Adobe Audition from a Shure SM-58LC microphone. Audio came out excellent, except for when some of the fans asked questions because we did not have a wireless microphone to mic them. This was my first time shooting an interview that was almost like a press conference, so it was a good learning experience with maneuvering through the crowd and putting the cameras in the right position to not have them in the way of the fans. I also had to use zoom lenses on all the cameras since there was some distance from me to the subjects. Jeffrey is a humble and talented character, even at the end of the interview he took pictures with all the fans, signed autographs, and gave away free tickets to the few lucky fans who got to be there.

Drone Shot for Luwee13's 'Peek-A-Boo' Music Video Shoot

On a very early morning, like 3AM type morning, the crew woke up to shoot Luwee13's music video on the top of a mountain. Our director wanted to get the sunrise to get the perfect light from the sun, but we did not anticipate the sunrise to be about an hour and a half later then we expected. So while we waited, the crew pretty much caught our breath after a rough hike up the hill and carrying all the equipment. When the sun came up over into the valley, I have to say it was a beautiful sight to see. We knew we were only going to have the sunrise for a short period of time so I had to quickly get the DJi Phantom Vision Plus (drone) up in the air and try to get a few aerial shots. The weather conditions were great, it was not windy so I was able to control the Phantom. The difficulty with the Phantom is that the camera attached to the unit is only a fish-eye lens, therefore it is difficult to get everybody out of the shot because it is so wide of an angle. The director had to get everybody to hide behind big rocks so they would not be in the shot, but it was also hard for me to not get in the shot as well without seeing physically where the Phantom was flying. After getting the shots we wanted, it was a little difficult to land the Phantom because there was not a real flat surface for it to safely land on, however after a few tries I was able to land it. This location was amazing and I plan on filming there again in the near future.

You can watch the full music video by clicking here.

"Rabbit Hole" Dialogue Project

The "Rabbit Hole" dialogue project was manifested through my Acting and Directing class. I was fortunate to have two great actors in directing and filming this scene. The equipment I used was Lumix GH4 4K camera, three LED light panels, and a Rode NTG-2 shotgun microphone. Unfortunately, sound was my biggest obstacle because we were recording right next to a refrigerator, but I was planning to do re-recording of dialogue anyways so it was not too big of an issue. My two actors, Aaron and Katie did an amazing job because they both memorized the whole script so we were able to make this a quick shoot. We did a wide shot, medium shot, medium close-up on each character, and close-up on each character. After those shots, we did several cutaways and cut-ins. There was not much action in this so the actors really had to put a lot of emotion in it to give the scene a touching impact. I purposely made the set design messy and disorganized because that tells the story of the character's relationship. During the final edit, I did some color correction to make the mood more cold and dark.

Aveeno Commercial

This thirty-second 'Aveeno' commercial was my first directing assignment done for Acting and Directing class. I was lucky enough to direct and film this at a friend's house in Southern Highlands where it was the perfect setting for a sunscreen commercial. I did not use any lights for this shoot because it was outside, and I was using a Lumix GH4 4K camera with a 50MM and 24-135MM lens with variable ND filters on both of them. In this particular medium close-up shot, she was slowly walking towards me while I was walking backwards and using a glide cam. The sun was out that day, however the it was really windy that day so it gave me some complications with the microphone and my actress' hair was blowing everywhere. I used a windscreen on the microphone but the wind could still be heard in the recording. Also, I wanted to use my DJI Phantom II Vision Plus (Drone) but when I flew it, the weather conditions could not allow me to get a nice steady shot above her. Another issue I did not realize was that there was a huge mountain in the neighborhood of the house I was filming at, so the sun came down a lot earlier then I had expected. Besides the handling of the camera, it was also a good learning experience in directing because the purpose of this assignment for class was to direct talent. It was a lot more difficult then I had expected even after all the pre-production work because sometimes it is hard to explain the vision that is in your mind. Overall, it was a fun and great experience in directing.

You can watch the commercial by clicking here!

The "DJ Earwaxxx" Documentary

This picture was taken from the making of the documentary "DJ Earwaxxx" at the "House of Waxxx." Charleston Perez aka DJ Earwaxxx is a Las Vegas DJ, originally from Southern California. He has been a DJ for over twenty years and came to Las Vegas about seven years ago to fulfill his dreams to become an elite DJ in Las Vegas. This documentary interviews DJ Earwaxxx, as well as many of his other DJ friends, and they discuss the struggles and successes in his journey in becoming one of Las Vegas' most talented DJs.

The "DJ Earwaxxx" documentary is a long-term shoot because I am trying to show the story from a lot of b-roll footage throughout a period of time, maybe 2-3 years. Specifically in this shot of him showcasing a performance, I am using a Panasonic Lumix GH4 4K camera on a glide-cam, as well as a Canon T4i on a tripod and slide. There are three LED panel lights, and for sound I am using a Rode NTG-2 shotgun microphone on a boom pole. The set design was excellent, perfect for the scene I was trying to shoot and the lighting was also great, allowing me to set a low ISO for no noise. The only difficult part of the shoot was being able to move around a lot with the glide-cam because there just was not a lot of room to get the angles and shots I hoped for. However, overall it came out nicely!

Steve Aoki Interview

Steve Aoki is a talented DJ that travels all around the world DJing at big nightclubs and festivals. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to shoot an interview with him as well as working with the crew from 98.5 KLUC Las Vegas. We filmed this at his suite at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas right before he had to DJ at Hakkasan Nightclub. We used three cameras - one on our interviewee Steve; one on our interviewers DJ CO1 and Yung Jon Que; and another doing a wide-shot of all of them. We had four big LED light panels that filled the room nicely, which allowed us to lower our ISO all the way to 200 to reduce the grain. It took us about fifteen minutes to smoothly setup everything and the interview was great. All of the cameras were on tripods making them all static shots in the final edit. The full interview was over ten minutes, however we cut it to about five minutes with some b-roll of his previous performances from different venues. It took me about three hours to cut the full interview with some added color correction to make it look a little more cinematic. Steve is incredibly talented and has a great sense of humor, if you ever have the opportunity to see him perform, it will be an experience you will never forget!

You can watch the full interview by click here.