I hope this past year had some great moments for you and your loved ones. As per tradition, I’m thrilled to share some photographic highlights from 2024. To mix things up a bit, I didn’t strictly adhere to the literal definition of “ten photographs.” Please enjoy!
Fellow Northwestern alum April Wright has a gift for documenting essential elements of American entertainment. From drive-in theaters to movie palaces (aka those elegant theaters that were replaced by multiplexes in the 1970s), April lovingly focuses her camera on subjects of a bygone era. In January, we filmed Dominic Cangelosi, the legendary owner of Glendale’s Moonlight Rollerway, as part of her new film about roller skating. It’s always great collaborating with April. We first connected through the Northwestern Entertainment Alliance (NUEA) in 2007 and made our first short together fourteen years ago.
In searching for a viable loophole to share an image from this classified motion capture shoot from March, I discovered this wonderful tutorial. I lack the patience or expertise to use AI, but these crazy results are also worth sharing from OpenArt: FISH MAN and the ever popular ARMY CADET. The project’s director wanted the handheld movements of the camera to feel realistic even though everything would be computer generated. The VFX team painstakingly tracked every movement of my ARRI Alexa 35 and matched in real time any focal length adjustments I made on the Angénieux EZ1 zoom lens.
In the most pivotal scene, the cameraperson jumps out of the plane with the actor. To even better meld digital and analog technology, I suggested the stunt team rig me into their suit to capture the most authentic feeling possible. After experiencing the discomfort of a suspension suit for a few hours, I have even more respect for stunt people!
Whenever Paul B. Cummings and Matt Marenyi call me for a gig, I know we’ll have a blast together. While we only collaborated once in 2024, it happened to be promo for one of the year’s biggest films: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. I’m quite happy with the final product.
Thanks to Jordi Matsumoto and his production company, Marching Penguin, I spent three days on stage shooting two groups of ads for Metro by T-Mobile. I blogged about the experiences extensively, so I hope you read about both. Jordi directed the first set of spots. This still is from the second series of commercials, which were helmed by the busiest director in advertising, Tom Morris! If they look familiar, it’s because these were all over social media this fall.
I wished upon a star for a repeat job that would happen roughly every quarter. Not TOO regular, but something reliable with a great cast and crew. I’m scared to jinx it, but for the last two and a half years, we’ve assembled on Disney’s Grand Central Creative Campus to do just that! We’ve spent so many hours in the trenches together that we try and have some fun. When I looked over to video village for notes from my longtime collaborator, Mark Rinehart (Producer/Director), I noticed that someone “replaced” our affable Writer/Producer, Nathan Redfern, with a stuffed animal.
Shooting at the Happiest Place on Earth required sleep deprivation. The climax of the Disney docuseries, Create Your World, takes place in front of Cinderella’s castle in Disneyland. Sadly, that required a wake up time of 2AM to arrive in Anaheim by 3:10AM to clear security. Suffering is temporary, but the result will live forever on YouTube. I snapped the shot on the left of my trusty C-Camera Operator, Max Schmige, along with our show’s host, Riley Van Cleve. Our stills photographer, Jiro Schneider, took that shot on the right of me (along with countless other great shots over the years working with Disney).
In order to highlight the power of Vizcom’s groundbreaking AI tools, filmmaker Reza Bird crafted a 60-second commercial to illustrate how the platform can assist designers in making tangible products. That’s exactly what we did for the ad: they designed the teal chair you see using Vizcom’s AI platform! Vizcom has become a great client this year and hopefully beyond. I really love the video we made for their initial product launch.
When Gordon Garreau checked my availability to work on 10/31, I told him that I’d likely come dressed up for Halloween. Did it matter that it was a one day shoot with a large crew of mostly new people? Nope. To my surprise, only the sound person and I fully committed to our costumes. If you aren’t enjoying your job, then what’s the point? Hopefully my team had as much fun as I did shooting the large LED walls. I hope 2025 brings some more opportunities on the volume.
Given the future of AI and technology, this seems appropriate for the countdown. Steve Talkowski has a rich history designing/sketching robots. After our studio shoot for Vizcom in November, he used a photo of me as a training reference to build DP robots with the Vizcom app! It’s an honor to have such a great artist integrate me into their work and it offers great insight into the system workflow.
It’s hard to see all those iterations from that initial screenshot, so I highlighted two of my favorites and shared the source image. I have no idea why I had my knees bent so much. It’s as if I were about to do deadlifts.
I love photography and if we’ve ever shared a set, you know I take stills whenever possible. I recently acquired a Fuji GFX 50S II along with some exciting lens options. Here’s a portrait from the final shoot of the year with Vizcom and the immensely talented designer, Scott Robertson. The hazed location and Mamiya 645 80mm/T1.9 lens pair perfectly. I can’t wait to share this episode of Decoded where—in conjunction with Baxter CameraWorks—we got amazing running footage of Scott’s retro pick-up truck cruising around Culver City at dawn.
Aside from a wonderful year professionally, I’m excited to share a bonus personal shot from the second total solar eclipse I’ve witnessed in the last decade. Iris and I had a blast with my Aunt and Uncle in Dallas soaking in the unforgetable celestial phenomenon. The New York Times is likely accurate in predicting that the next best opportunity to catch an eclipse will be on 8/2/27 in Luxor, Egypt. I’ll meet you there!
While I have your attention, I’d like to close with one other accomplishment from the year. I have a fresh line-up of genre specific Cinematography reels. Each one features new music and I crafted Documentary and Music Video cuts for the first time.
To continue down memory lane, here are links to the eleven previous yearly recaps: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. What’s your favorite shot of the bunch?
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