Writer, Director, Actor, Cinematographer, Video Editor
Produced: December 2017
This is a trailer, proof of concept, and treatment, for what I hope to make into a feature length film. A young man attending an elite university begins to uncover aspects of his sexual identity at the same time he begins to reckon with a traumatic past. The main actor in this project, Jason Adulley, is really good at playing deep, brooding characters.
I let the focus rack in and out on him in certain parts of the narrative, and employed some light editing techniques (such as a composited time lapse effect) to give the sense that this is a character suspended and frozen in his emotional experience.
Writer, Director, Cinematographer, Video Editor
Produced: July 2019
This was my first time producing a music video, and I completed it for the Musicbed Challenge 2019. Their challenge was simple: in 30 days or less, make a film in one of 5 categories. I made one in the Music Video category, as well as in the Travel/Lifestyle category.
This music video follows a homeless man, and his irreverent grappling with race, capitalism, and religion. For this project, I tried to tell an ambitious narrative, and utilized everything I know about lighting, composition, and post production to bring this vision to life. The cross in the last sequence, for example, is completely composited, and did not exist on set!
Song: Take It by The Seige
Writer, Director, Narrator, Cinematographer, Video Editor
Produced: March 2019
This short film both is and isn't about me. I had multiple surgeries for my left knee in the Fall of 2018, and recovering took several months. Ostensibly, the script is based off my experience. However, it's really about loss—loss of any kind. Sitting in it, trying to surmount it, getting eaten up by it again. I wanted to tell a universal story through my own experience, about just how difficult having little or no agency over some aspect of your life can be.
I entered this film into the Moment 2019 Invitational Film Festival (pending whether or not I win!)
This was shot on a iPhone 6s as part of the festival rules, which was definitely challenging. It was an incredible learning experience if I ever have to shoot on a phone again.
For this project, I focused on quick transitions and sound design, really letting the sound carry us from one scene to the next. It's extremely difficult to condense a narrative like this into only 3 minutes, so having good sound design and a solid script with quick transitions was really necessary.
Videographer, Video Editor
Produced: July 2019
I submitted this short Travel/Lifestyle video about my experience growing up in a constantly moving immigrant household. I produced it for the Musicbed Challenge 2019, and for this project I focused on framing, composition, and cutting to the music. I wanted the music and sound design to be the foundation upon which the visuals would rest.
Writer, Director, Dancer, Cinematographer, Video Editor
Produced: January 2017
Back during my Sophomore year at Williams, I got the chance to study Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Defacement at length. If you haven’t seen the painting, definitely google it. It’s an incredibly rare piece (it likely won’t see circulation for a long time), and as such I felt compelled to do a piece involving it. Basquiat painted Defacement in an emotional tumult after his friend and rival Michael Stewart was killed at the hands of transit police in 1983. Similarly, when I see such a work, I am moved as well to my own canvas: dance.
This work, then, is in a lot of ways like a visual essay. I endeavoured to put myself in conversation with Defacement through costuming, color usage, lighting, choreography, and the tone of the video itself. The dance, for example, is only part choreography - the parts where the first figure dances with the defaced figure (both me) are choreography, while everything else is freestyle. This is similar to how Basquiat painted Defacement, as many portions of the painting were clearly concerted, but others were brought about by sheer emotion and spontaneity.