Maserati for Robb Report Magazine

Director: Thierry Bearzatto
Director of Photography: Scott Shepard
Client: Rob Report Magazine
Creative Director: Ken Debie
Art Director: Rufus Agbede

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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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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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Jessica and the Merry-go-round

A while back I had this idea to shoot someone on the old style playground merry go round. I was hanging out with Curtis (translation: eating steak and drinking mojitos), and he said he knew of such a place not to far away. We decide to kidnap, err I mean, convince Jessica to go for a ride with us the next morning. Jessica is a family friend of ours. She had no reason not to believe we were going shoe shopping. Well she ended up being a good sport about it and we set off to make some images.

I wanted to rig a remote camera and strobes to the merry go round. You see, I didn’t want to be on that thing while it was going round and round. Not to long ago I was on a U.S. Naval vessel known as a HSV or high speed vessel. We were on our way to Spain from Morocco and the seas were angry. The trip lasted almost 24 hours and I was seasick for 20 of them. Now in my defense the seas were really, really angry. Anyway, I didn’t want to sit on this thing and go round and round so I rigged up the camera. I wasn’t worried about Jess, she’s young and needs to earn her sea legs anyway.

I attached some Pocket Wizards, aimed the strobes and started to spin this thing with Jess on it. I got it going pretty fast and then just started firing the camera with the remote. The images were coming out pretty cool. I should have brought my laptop and used the remote live view option to capture the images in real time. It would have been a whole lot less spinning, stopping, reviewing and spinning again.

We changed positions and I had Jess lie down on the floor plate. I put a snoot on one of the strobes and let the open shade handle the fill.

By now Jess has been spinning quite a bit and she needed a break. We moved over to the swings that were close by. I shot a few pictures of Jess swinging but the damage was done.

She was already turning green! Thanks Jess for being a good sport and thanks to Curtis for shooting the behind the scenes images.

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