Double Stick Blues

My brother-in-law, Brandon Cheek, is a freelance commercial art director in New York City. To put it mildly - he works on some crazy projects. As he regularly builds props for things like Comedy Central skits - there's no end to the wild things he'll have to create (like in the picture above where he had to make several cat toys in human scale for Cat Scratcher Rock). To see more of his work - check out his art department blog Double Stick Blues.

Making of a Movie - Tenure

One of the greatest crews I've ever worked on has to be the crew of the movie Tenure. You never know when you join a crew how that "family" is going to work together. But the family of Tenure was an altogether amazing experience - from the 1st AD, Mariela Comitini's weather controlling rain boots to getting the chance to work with Steve Yedlin (I'm a dorky-huge fan of this amazing cinematographer). I would give my highest recommendations to all of my crew members from this film.

So when I noticed that the filmmaker, Mike Million (Director/Writer) put together this film on his website I couldn't wait to share it with everyone. You can even see me working in several shots! Check it out!

DARE was honored at Sundance!

Adam Salky's first feature film, DARE, was nominated for the Grand Jury prize for Drama at the 2009 Sundance film festival, and I was lucky enough to be a part of this incredible production last year.

Filming over the summer went well - despite incredible bad luck with the weather (it rained almost every day they were meant to film outside). I think that things went so well partly due to everyone's enthusiasm for the project, but also because of the outstanding performances by the cast. My very first day on set Emmy Rossum was performing an incredibly high stress scene - and she nailed it for every take (despite having to go from happy to tears take after take). It's talent like hers that makes me realize that not everyone can act - we just think we can because they make it look so easy.

Here are a few of my images that have been used in the DARE marketing campaign.