On Top of New York: Towerstream

Brett Marty and I got to go over to New York for a couple of days to film this for Towerstream, one of LaunchSquad's clients. I was pretty siked when I was told we had unrestricted access to the coolest and tallest buildings in New York. Here's what we came up with!



There are a lot of really cool shots in here of skylines, clouds, and giant towers. There was one night where we were chilling on the top of the LaunchSquad New York office with a six pack, timelapsing footage of the Empire State Building. At the same time, we were doing a "Dolly Timelapse" where at every interval, we pushed the camera forward on our Glidetrack. It was funny, because we were doing this every 30 seconds, and we would sit down in between the intervals. So Marty and I had a lot of short, 25 second conversations: which is perfect for our rapidly declining attentions spans.

Me on top of "The Hub".
Marty on top of the Empire State Building.

Timelapsing sunrise from the top of the Empire State Building might be one of the coolest things I've ever done. We got a ton of beautiful footage for this film. We're excited to go on top of Chicago and Miami next!

J Hilburn - Revolutionizing Men's Clothing

About a month and a half ago I rolled to Dallas to film for an up and coming men's clothing brand called J. Hilburn. What they do is pretty awesome, and I had a blast getting to know the guys behind the idea. Check out the video, I think it does a good job of explaining how their business model works, and why they are able to offer top of the line custom clothing for less than half the cost.



I shot this with Vitalie Ungureanu, who's quickly becoming my go to shooter. Both days we shot were scorchers, luckily the 7 million dollar mansion we were shooting in was pumped with AC that felt almost as valuable. We used two 5DmkII's, an assortment of lenses, and the 'ol glidetrack. We got tons of good footage, some of which you might see more of. Every interview we shot was just packed with soundbites. It was a very successful shoot.



Going into filming, I knew that I wanted to include some elements that made the video look a little more "magazine-esk." I had a couple of different aesthetic choices in mind, and we ended up going with a merging of the different looks. Nick Markham did the visual effects in the beginning of the video, as pretty much his first dive into After Effects. So excited to see how far we're going to go with motion graphics and visual effects. We've just begun.

Editing this puppy took a while; lots of late nights, chipotle, and scotch. But I think that we definitely got a winner here. I'm very proud of it.

Danielle and Dan's Love Story

I shot this with Nick Markham a few weeks before Danielle and Dan's wedding. You may remember them from their Engagement Shoot from a while back. Here is the Love Story that we played at their wedding reception.

Dan + Danielle "Later, San Francisco" from Sandbox Love on Vimeo.

This was made for my freshly launched company, Sandbox Love. We went down to San Jose to film with Dan and Danielle and we had a pretty fun time. When Danielle first mentioned that one of her favorite memories of Dan was when they were eating ice cream on the hood of his car, I just HAD to have images of that.

I also did a lot of vintage cinematography for this piece, using my Digital Harinezumi. It's a toy camera that produces an image that looks similar to 8mm film. I'm siked with the vintage effect that I got with it.

I also think it is worth mentioning that my approach to editing this piece was to use the small moments of when Danielle and Dan speak to each other. I love how they speak with little pauses and in a volume that is really just for them. Super cute.

Diapers.com

Made this for LaunchSquad's client, Quidsi (parent company of Diapers.com and Soap.com) for the press event and launch of Soap.com.



I loved shooting this video. The coolest thing about working with LaunchSquad is that our clients are all so innovative. It wasn't hard to understand why Diapers.com was #34 on the fortune 500. I mean, they legitimately save moms tonsssss of time, which allows them to spend more time enjoying their kids. Diapers.com is brilliant.

Morgan + Charlie's Love Story

We shot this with Morgan and Charlie two weeks before their wedding. All of their wedding guests attended the rehearsal dinner at The Lodge in Sonoma, and we had the chance to play this film for everybody there. After a very kind introduction by Charlie, I hit play.



When the lights came up, I looked around and saw so many teary eyes. The applause we received was pretty moving, and I didn't really know what to do. It was great though, it definitely set the mood for a touching and fun wedding the following day. Many thanks to Nick and Vitalie, who shot the Love Story with me for Sandbox Love. It's so inspiring to shoot with those guys, since we all see the world in different shots. When it's all added up, it always comes out well.

Defining The Difference

As my company blog and my personal filmmaking blog start to head off in different directions, I want to define the difference a little bit. Sandbox Love is the company that I have been building for almost a year. On there you will find nothing but wedding related videos. However, on that site I will talk about the couples I get to work with, what I find inspiring about their story, and a little about how the films were made.

On my personal filmmaking blog you will find a lot of videos that aren't related to weddings. It will be videos for the PR firm I work for, films I make with my friends, and any solo cinematography projects I do. I will also post wedding films that I made with Sandbox Love, but in the text I will talk more about how I made those films. More of a behind the scenes if you will.

Allison + Craig Wedding Highlights

Allison and Craig's wedding was such a fun event. Check it!



This was the video I wanted to launch my wedding film company with. The joy, playfulness, and cinematic opportunity at the wedding was exactly the feel I wanted to base Sandbox Love on. For more about the approach to my company, see below or click here.

Going into the day, Nick, Rob and I planned out how we wanted to do most of the shooting. I rolled around with the glidetrack and wide lenses mostly while Rob "rocked" the 85mm close ups. Nick (quickly earning the nickname "Iron Nick") was using the glidecam to get all of the great sweeping shots. The combination of all of this is a magic combo. We should give it a name.

While we were taking a break and restoring some of our brain's creativity, Cassie and Dan at Los Gatos DJ Company played that first song you heard in the video. I turned to the rest of the team and said, "we're using this."

A huge shout out to Ashley Maxwell and her husband Jason who are incredible photographers, super warm people, and quickly becoming friends. We've shot with them before and can't wait to shoot alongside them again.