Türkiye

2023

When I woke up on February 6, 2023 and reached over to grab my phone and saw the New York Times breaking news notification outlining the magnitude of the earthquake that hit Turkey, I knew immediately that's where I was going, and began packing my bags before I even got the call - which came about an hour later - from my boss. The earthquake spanned a 300 kilometer stretch that decimated dozens of cities. The destruction was unfathomable.

The operation was our most challenging because of the scope. Ultimately we set up 10 kitchens across the country. I managed our supply chain. Which meant that I was supplying all those kitchens with food and supplies either purchased in country or shipped from outside. We partnered with a food distributor and setup in one of their warehouses as a forwarding base for our operation and also purchased an enormous amount of food from them. I spent three months there. I stayed in the city of Adana - which is world famous for its kebab, so we ate a lot of kebab - and our warehouse was in a city called Osmanye. We also ate a lot of baklava. But I did get the chance to travel to all the kitchens as well.

This project was a turning point for the organization because of the scale. We certainly bit off more than we could chew, but ultimately our philosophy and approach meant we just keep going and doing what we can and that's what we did.

In A SILENT WAY

Technically this is my third feature film that I shot as a DP, but I consider it the first. It was certainly the first I thought had potential and I wasn't secretly hating as I shot it. It started as a short film the director - Collin Levin - and I made I think in 2014 or 2015. Then he went to the Sundance Short to Feature Lab with it, and worked on his feature script. Then around 2018 we shot the feature. It was a lot of fun, and it utilized both my documentary experience and improv experience. I quite enjoyed the challenge of performing with the camera in real-time, as the cameraman was a character in the movie. Ultimately I'm proud of what we created. With only a 30K budget, it's not attempting to be something more than it is - as in, if we had more money, all we would have done is pay people more, but otherwise the film isn't missing anything as a result of our not having money. Not sure how, but the whole movie is on YouTube below, and below that are photos I took on set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNCGhPEO0jw

WARRIORS OF WINTER

In high school all my friends played hockey. I did not. Instead I filmed them play hockey. This was a convenient way to hang out, it was also basically my strategy for making friends to begin with. HBO had a show at the time called Road to the Winter Classic - which nowadays is not so extraordinary - but at the time was a unique and cinematic telling of a professional sports teams journey. I decided I would do the same. I borrowed as many go pros and microphones as I could and mounted them all over the rink, on the bench, in the penalty box, gave mics to the coaches, players, and refs. The media management and battery charging at the end of the days was bananas. But I made it through. Ultimately I edited it into five one hour episodes. I used all copyrighted music because I didn't really have any sense of what to do with it other than share it with the team when it was done, nor did I have any understanding of copyright law. Consequently when it was done, it was just done, and I entered a phase - which I think a lot of filmmakers go through with projects - which is the obsessive-trailer-editing phase. I think I cut together over 15 different trailers. Ultimately this was a probably the best one. Indulgent, yes, self-aggrandizing yes, but I think it's fun nonetheless and it saves you from having to watch all five hours. I also learned the hard way that you should tell your interview subjects to spit out their gum.