CINE REELS
- Aug 12, 2025
- 1 min read
Updated: Aug 25, 2025
Going through film school as a DP, your reel is your identity. It's the most important thing. Each DP released a new reel every other heart beat, trying to get asked to shoot the best projects the director's at the school are offering so you can finally have an excuse to try the 1.8K HMI, or 9-light, or Fischer Jib, or Arri Master Prime Anamorphics on someone else's dime. As a closeted director I found myself shooting fairly strange projects. There was the Mac N' Cheese x Lifetime branded content short film about a woman who is sleeping with her daughter's boyfriend who had some romantic connection through the consumption of the overcooked and cheesy pasta, there was the Avion tequila spec ad in the style of a Michael Bay action movie, the ad for the dive bar in DTLA that was targeting the misfits of the city where my AC and I became defacto bar tenders as we were trying to get a dolly shot with the track behind the bar and being the only ones with access to the tap, there was the spec trailer for the chinese murder mystery, and so much more cringe-inducing projects. But such is film school, where you think you're doing God's work, but you're actually producing Satan's vomit. Enjoy these best of the hundreds of cinematography reels I churned out in my four years at ArtCenter College of Design.