I spent the last six weeks traveling through Europe with my family - Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and France - and now my Photography section has been updated! Just click the image below to check 'em out:

Shortly after returning from my travels, my good friend and cinematographer Boa Simon called me up about doing a short spec commercial for an Old Spice contest. So yesterday afternoon and pretty much all through the night into early morning Boa, myself, and a skeleton crew shot this absurd spec with an even more absurd rig:

That's a Fisher dolly strapped to the side of our equipment truck, with the camera on the end of it. Boa and Michael Nie, the operator (who was also on La Nina del Desierto), stood back there and shot out through the open back door. The idea was that we get some head-on shots of this sports car driving along. Which is what we got!

Finally, here are some photos of the 2009 Cecil Awards, in which La Nina del Desierto won Best Picture, Best Director for myself, and Best Cinematography for Boa Simon. It was a great evening!

La Nina del Desierto just won three Cecil Awards - Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography! A host of other excellent films were also nominated and won in various categories. Robert Brinkerhoff and Daisy Robinson, sound designer and production designer on La Nina, got nominated for other films that they did great work in.

The Cecils are Chapman University's awards show, named after Cecil B. DeMille, who gave some large amount of money or did something worthy of having the awards named after him.

What a night!

On May 2nd, La Nina del Desierto will premiere on the big screen at Chapman University. Until then, we're going to be scrambling to finish. By "we" I mean the editor, Daniel McLellan, the composer, Brian Andrews, and the sound designer, Robert Brinkerhoff. A lot of work has already been done, but a lot is left to do.

In the meantime, here's a poster!

Some geniuses here at Chapman came up with the 10-second film festival. Here's my submission:
Not including titles and credits, it's exactly ten seconds.

I think this is a great idea - not just for fun, but to keep exercising those filmmaking muscles. Keeps you sharp, and keeps your creativity peaking.