Lexus ES 350

LEXUS ES350 from Thierry Bearzatto on Vimeo.

Director: Thierry Berzatto
Director of Photograrphy: Scott Shepard
Shot on Arri Alexa

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2013 Hyundai Veloster Turbo Walk Around

2013 Veloster Turbo | Walkaround from Scott Shepard on Vimeo.

Shot on Arri Alexa supported with a 30' Techno Crane

2013 Hyundai Veloster Turbo
Director: Tim Baur
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Client: Hyundai
Agency: Innocean America
Creative Director: Scott Muckenthaler
Associate Creative Director: Hoon Koo

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Mazda Sizzle Reel

Director: Tim Baur
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Client: Mazda
Agency: GARAGE TEAM
Chief Creative Officer: Harvey Marco, EVP
Creative Director: Kelly Kleibe,
Creative Director: Sandra Luciano

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A More Promising Future – Vandana’s Story

Director: Rodney Rascona
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Producer - Phil Tidy
Writer: Russ Haan
Editor - Warren Meneely
Gaffer: Chuck Linkes
Client: United Nations Foundation and The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

    Just one in a series of short films about the the need and effect of clean burning cookstoves on behalf of The United Nations Foundation. These films debuted at The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil For most of her life, Vandana used a traditional mud stove to prepare daily meals for her family in Jagdishpur, India here. The smoke from the open fire made it difficult for her children to do their school work inside the house and affected Vandana’s health. Daily exposure to harmful smoke is greatest among women and young children, who spend the most time near open fires tending to the family meal or studying by the weak light of the fire. Vandana wanted a better life for her children.
    Watch this video to see how a clean cookstove has allowed Vandana to prepare her children for a more promising and healthier future.

http://www.cleancookstoves.org/

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Sarah's Story- The global impact of clean cookstoves

Director: Rodney Rascona
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Producer - Phil Tidy
Writer: Russ Haan
Editor - Warren Meneely
Gaffer: Chuck Linkes
Client: United Nations Foundation and The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

Just one in a seriesof short films about the the need and effect of clean burning cookstoves on behalf of The United Nations Foundation.  These films debuted at The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
     In sub-Saharan Africa, 609 million people cook over an open fire, and women can spend up to 20 hours per week collecting fuel to cook their family meals. Before Sarah was introduced to a clean cookstove, she was no different. The long hours she spent in search of cooking fuel in northern Kenya left her little time to do anything else.

Watch this video and see how a clean cookstove has given Sarah more time to help her children with schoolwork and the confidence set up her own shop.

http://www.cleancookstoves.org/

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Clean Cookstoves and The United Nations

Here we go again... back overseas to shoot a series of short films for the United Nations. You can follow along on my adventure at the super official blog of Cookstove Films.

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That's alot of cameras

It started with a call from Tim while I was in Haiti. "Hey brother, do ya know anything about the Red?" Just weeks before I had spent two days down at Clairmont Camera doing some work flow and shooting tests and had immersed myself into the deep menus and great mystical settings the Red had offered. "Sure man, what do you want to know?" I replied. "How would you like to come out and DP a Hyundai Sonata video for me?" asked Tim Baur, Director extraordinaire!

2011 Hyundai Sonata

Director: Timothy Baur

Director of Photography: Scott Shepard

Agency: Innocean

Creative Director: Kelly Kliebe

Art Director: Andrew Reizuck




Flash ahead to the California desert at the HATCI Proving Grounds in Mojave. Hyundai America Technical Center, Inc. (HATCI), is the design, technology and engineering arm for all North American models of the Korean-based Hyundai-KIA Automotive Group. The $60 million California Proving Ground is one of the most comprehensive and advanced vehicle testing facilities ever built. Anywhere.

Our goal was to take the new Hyundai Sonata and accelerate it, turn it, and brake it. We had quite an arsenal of cameras and equipment at our disposal. Let's see, 1 Red One camera with the new Mysterium chip(killer), 2 Canon 5Ds(what's that you say? If it's good enough for "House" and in HD and on the networks....)a couple of Gopros(the new POV standard), a Canon XL H1A, the totally rad X-6(Google it), and last but certainly not the least... the Filmotechnic Gyro Stabilized CRANE on top of a new Mercedes AMG ML63 with 505hp. That's 0-60 in 4.9 seconds! Whew!! What a selection. It's a good thing that we had all this equipment because for almost a week we shot all around the Sonata with cameras on the crane, on sticks, and hand held. We shot on it and under it and in it, not to mention over it. We shot it wet and we shot it fast. Slow motion and quick shutter speeds, from the crane and from exterior car mounts. We put cameras in the suspension under the Sonata and under a HELO over the Sonata. We covered it from here to eternity and back! We shot beauty shots and car to car shots. We shot interviews and test drivers. I could go on and on. Let's just agree that there is a LOT of beautiful footage for our carveboard riding Art Director(Andrew Reizuck) to choose from. Don't be surprised to see the documentary surface sometime in the future.

A few days later we ended up at the old, and near to my heart, El Torro Marine Corps Base(Semper Fi) I could still smell the jet fuel and diesel if I closed my eyes.

The base is now home to the AMCI proving grounds and special events field. Because it used to be an air station, AMCI has miles of flat tarmac which used to be used for aircraft carrier landing simulations. That makes it perfect to run vehicles wide open and still be relatively safe. This time we got to shoot the Sonata going hard and fast into turns, wet tarmac handling tests, and fighter jet length runway braking tests. Awesome! More interviews with the AMCI staff and the most amazing beauty light I have seen in a long time. Things went so smoothly on this job. The only thing that really came up was a few missing generator cables and a rapidly overflowing data capture station. Is that a bad thing? A few new terabyte hard drives later and we were rocking. I've had more problems getting my ipod to work on my home theater during my annual Fourth of July BBQ.

On the last day of shooting we were at Hyundai's design center in Irvine. Aside from having my truck towed the night before and scrambling to get a cab the day went smooth. Sixty bucks later and I was at location and only a few minutes late. The design center is so cool and modern and clean that it made me feel like I had to clean my house. Peer pressure I guess. The shots were mostly of the design team members and some of the facility. We shot a lot of hand held style and multi camera captures here. The Canon 5Ds really shined here. Their small form factor and the amazing footage they created, allowed us to get in with a small production foot print and still be able to deliver some truly beautiful footage. This setup really sings!

After all was said and done I would say we killed it. The agency was very happy with the shoot and the deliverables were above and beyond what they had asked for.

On a side note, I wanted to talk about the camera house we rented the Red Camera from. Keslow Camera is in Culver City, CA. Robert Keslow(CEO) went out of his way to accommodate my camera equipment needs. He went as far as giving me extra lenses and equipment at no additional charge just for me to try out. His shop is large and clean and the tech and support staff are great. Dennis McDonald, Robert's Director of Operations, is just plain crazy but in a good way. The kind of crazy you only get from military service and that was the reason we got along fantastic. Before I left, Robert bestowed a great honor upon me...he gave me a Keslow Camera shot glass. Scoundrels and scalawags!

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Wyn Guitars NAMM Show HD promo

This is a motion project for a custom guitar maker, Wyn Guitars, that I filmed in Los Angeles. It was a live shot capturing the very first moments when Abraham Laboriel and James Lomenzo of Megadeth, received their custom built guitars. What an amazing jam session. The unbelievable location belonged to Randy Fullmer, the owner of Wyn Guitars. It was shot with a Canon 5Dmk2 with ML firmware. On board sound with a Juicedlink CX231 pre-amp. Canon 50mm 1.4 and 24-70mm L 2.8. The final destination will be a HD Flat screen in Wyn's exhibition booth at the NAMM Show which is taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Orange county this month.

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Robert Primes

Here is another series of images from the ongoing advertisements for Clairmont Camera. This ad will be featuring Emmy winning Cinematographer Robert Primes. Bob earned Emmy Awards for Felicity and My Antonio, and a third nomination for Harrison: Cry of the City. Bob received the ASC award for the series MDs, the first digital show so honored and has had ASC nominations for Felicity and the Reasonable Doubts pilot.

While setting up at location, we found these great big drums of used film. I thought it would be awesome if we could shoot Bob fooling around with some of it. When he arrived on set we started to collaborate and kick some ideas around. I told him about the film idea and he said he was willing to try anything. I get so stoked when someone with obvious talent is willing to explore some of my creative ideas.

We started by giving Bob some film to hold, but that didn’t last long. Bob is a real funny guy. While we were shooting, he started throwing the giant bunch of film around, including at me.

It was starting to look great. I wanted more film in the frame so I had Curtis on camera left and Laurie on camera right start to throw big bunches of film into frame. The timing wasn’t always right but I knew we were onto something great.

Some of the shots were hysterical, like this one above. It looks like a giant wall of film is about to devour poor Bob. Bob never lost his genuine enthusiasm during the entire time we were shooting. At one point the film swallowed him whole.

I was shooting with Profoto strobe packs. The flash durations on these packs are really short. It does so well at freezing the action that the film started to look like a crazy sculpture. It really would not have been possible with any other lighting system. The other great thing is to shoot tethered to a capture computer. The ability to review the images on the fly allowed us to shoot until we were sure we had the shot. Below is the final image used for the Clairmont Camera ad in the International Cinematographers Guild magazine and the American Cinematographer magazine.

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Michael Bonvillain

Cinematographer Michael Bonvillain earned an Emmy and a second nomination for his work on Alias, as well as two Outstanding Achievement Award nominations from the American Society of Cinematographers. It was my privilege to photograph him for an advertisement for Clairmont Camera. Clairmont Camera is a motion picture camera and equipment rental house. Clairmont is a big player in the camera rental business with offices in Hollywood, Vancouver, Toronto, Albuquerque, and Montreal.

I was contacted by Mardrie Mullen from Clairmont Camera to create images of Michael Bonvillain that establish a new creative direction for their company advertising. Mardrie wanted to do something more cinematic and dramatic than what they had been doing. She wants to showcase Cinematographers who can give a testimonial type endorsement for Clairmont Camera's equipment and customer service. Michael had recently shot the pilot for a new series called "Fringe". It has a modern, dark and edgy feel to it. Michael also has "Lost", "Alias", and "Cloverfield" on his list of film credits. The idea was to shoot something a little grittier and urban, instead of a DP sitting in the studio behind a camera.

Our shooting schedule was quite narrow because Michael had a very limited time with us. He had flown in from Europe late morning on the day of the shoot. Initially we had scouted a few spots at Clairmont Camera's building, but I soon realized that our time wouldn't allow multiple setups on different floors. Oh and to add to that the roof was a great spot but there was only stairwell access. Lots of fun with camera carts and capture computers and such. The day of the tech scout I found the underground parking at Clairmont. Right away I knew that it would work great.

On the shoot day Curtis Marzinzik and I arrived a few hours early to setup. Curtis is a Marine Corps buddy, the owner of Bouquet Pools, and trusted comedian. Anyway, we set up the Profoto strobes with a large Mola dish and a few grids and ran a few test shots to balance the background color temperature. This was a few weeks back when the humidity in LA was like 110%. It sure was hot three floors down. You would think that it would have been nice and cool in the subterranean concrete parking structure. Noooo! I think they turned on the heater to see if the two jarheads could take it.

By then Michael had arrived and we got started. He is a very nice guy and he was very up front when he said he didn't like his picture to be taken. Being the resourceful DP that he is, he came prepared with a solution (in a brown paper bag) to ease his reluctance. I only wish I had thought of that! We started to shoot a little and my producer Laurie, whom I tricked into marrying me, showed up to check on us. She had brought our kids to set and Michael, Laurie, and my oldest daughter Makena immediately hit it off. Once Michael started talking to them he completely forgot about me and relaxed. At one point he asked Makena to pose with him and he then asked her give him some direction in front of the camera. He wanted her to come up with an idea for a picture. She was a little embarrassed because everyone had stopped what they were doing and looked at her. She came through like a pro and told him to play with his hair and make it "stick up" (she tells me the same thing at home). Thanks to Makena for this one.

Michael saw the monitor after I did a quick B/W conversion in Lightroom and said he loved it. He said it captured the essence of what he feels like in this business. Kind of crazy, a little nutty.

We shot a few more set ups and reviewed the images . At that point we decided to wrap it up. We had created everything that Clairmont needed and Michael was set free. Michael is a great talent in his profession and quite charming. What I liked about Michael is that he knows about creating and lighting a scene, and he got what we were trying to do.

In the end we created some great images and the 17x22 proofs are beautiful. I had the great opportunity to photograph a very interesting person and produce a great job for Clairmont Camera.

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