Twitter: @221films
At the time of this writing, we are in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and many people are out of work. I want to reflect on what work means to us in our community. I will feature people I’ve had the pleasure to worked with and hopefully continue to do so soon. Either, I’ve been able to bring them in on projects as additional support or visa versa they were able to return the favor.
Brad is one of my longest and trusted business colleagues. We’ve hired each other for projects many times and he’s always a pleasure to work with. He’s flexible and always has a great attitude even in difficult situations. He’s always thinking on his feet and can easily navigate through any problem. I believe his self-starter background pushes him to be a great professional. He does a wide variety of video work on-location with his clients and is always working on producing his next horror movie.
Where are you from? What was it like growing up there?
I grew up in East Taunton, MA. It was a pretty rural-ish area in a blue collar city. We were on 2 acres of woods so I spent a lot of my childhood running around the woods, playing sports, etc.. It was a good place to grow up.
How did you get started in the video production business?
Being from that area did have a drawback, which is the idea of making films or videos was never really on my radar as an option. Everything was centered around more practical jobs, and I even went to a vocational high school to learn a trade . I was going to be an electrician. That changed toward the end of high school when I really started to get into the idea behind films as a craft, rather then just entertainment, and I started making my own with a friend of mine as something to do. That eventually turned into an awakening of a passion. Soon the idea of being an electrician went out the window and I wanted to make films. I got a regular day job in IT to pay the bills and started making movies on the side. After some years of learning how to make movies, making shorts and a couple features, I had met someone who lived in NYC, and that gave me the opening I needed. I decide to make the move and quit my job and move to the city and pursue films more seriously. When I got to NY I made another feature film but I quickly realized I needed another day job. I didn’t want to go back to IT so I looked at the skills I had honed over the years of making films and found that I always tended to run camera a lot and with my tech experience a migration to cinematography would be a natural fit. I put together a reel of my work and started applying for jobs online for various freelance camera operator jobs, then scaled from there.
What type of productions do you do? What kind of people have you worked with?
I work mostly on what I would call beauty videos. Corporate branded content, some television shows, and a few feature films. I do some events occasionally, but mostly its interviews, with a cinematic flare. I work mostly with smaller boutique production companies and clients.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
I love the creative element of my work. I spent a lot of time in the IT work pining for the creative outlet of films, and so the ability to create something with lenses, angles, and lighting that create a mood or atmosphere is my favorite part of the job.
Describe a project you are proud of? What was fun or challenging about it? How long did it take?
The projects I am most proud of are, not surprisingly, the more narrative ones. I was hired to be the directory of photography on a small low budget film a few years back and the thing I enjoyed was trying to make situations work with the limited resources available using whatever was on hand to make the best look I could. I think it really opened my eyes to being as resourceful as possible and shaped my skills later on. It ended up being spread out across several months.
Do you have a career highlight? Do you have an interesting work story you like to share?
Not sure it’s a career highlight, but something I am proud of, years after that film I would be in another country and needed to setup an interview, but the electrical converter I bought was blowing all of my light bulbs, so I had none of my lights. Having the experience of working on some of the low budgets projects of the past helped me not panic in the face of the client and rework the scene so that we could get a great looking interview that no one would know the difference. As a more traditional career highlight would have to be my last feature film that I directed, The Killing of Jacob Marr. A slasher horror film I shot several years ago on a shoestring budget. The fact that we were able to pull that off with the minimal amount of resources still baffles me, and I was there!
What are you doing to stay productive during the pandemic? Do you have projects you are working on?
I am currently about to direct my next feature film, a horror film about a creature in the woods of Maine terrorizing a small town. We were supposed to shoot on April 6th but had to push the dates to May 4th because of the pandemic, and recently again to June 1st (Let’s hope that sticks). So I have been spending this extra time going through all of the pre-production stuff and making sure I have everything I need. I have never been a big storyboard person, maybe because I suck at drawing, but I have been slowly trying to turn our shot list into storyboards because that can only help expedite the production once we actually start. Fingers crossed.
What advice would you give to people wanting to work with you?
I’m not sure I have much advice, but I will say the people I like working with the most are ones that are open to learn and try different things, and don’t always assume they know the answer. In other words, someone flexible. There are a ton of tech heads in this business who think the amount of gear you have dictates how attractive you are to work with. I would rather hire or work with someone who doesn’t have the best gear, but is eager to focus on the job and get the best result as possible however that is done.
