I haven’t purchased a digital SLR since my 20D in early 2006. This past Saturday I made the 30 minute trip to Harlingen to pick up the only Canon EOS 550D (Rebel T2i) in the area. I’m going to shoot my next short film with it. It’s awesome. Check out this video clip I shot with it this morning:

These are fairly recent spots I made for the RGV Killer Bees hockey team. I’m opposed to making simple spots for the same “jersey giveaway” night or whatever for the Bees, so I instead make complicated spots with an interesting or weird skit for the gimmick to hook the audience with a hard sale somewhere near the end. It’s worked so far.

Lunchbox: Director’s Cut

En Español
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Wake Up, Bambi
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Totally Work
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Produced for my friend Alyssa who was taking a directing class and asked me to DP, It Happened One Night is a collection of scenes adapted from the 1934 Frank Capra classic written by Robert Riskin. Check it out here.

Below are two behind the scenes videos from Orange’s most recent project: a non-profit public service announcement for the CineSol Film Festival. The first video shows us working on a Vietnam War action sequence, and the second video is the horror sequence. Fun!

Cinesol 2009 – Behind The Scenes: “Vietnam Sequence”
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Cinesol 2009 – Behind The Scenes: “Zombie Sequence”
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I’m using the new Panasonic AJ-HPX300 recording on 16GB E-series P2 cards with the AVC-Intra 100 codec at 24PN. Lighting is two Arri babies and a vintage Mole junior on a regular gas generator. All the gear worked flawlessly and I am very, very pleased with the HPX300. The location shown in the videos was a good 200 feet from where we could bring our trucks so we had to haul our gear the rest of the way. We arrived at 4pm and left at 3am. I also did all the zombie makeup. All the footage on the BTS videos above was shot with my little Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS.

Here is a spot I wrote, produced, directed, edited and voiced for the RGV Dorados arena football team here in Hidalgo County, Texas. The gimmick was that the football team’s dancer squad and the local Hooters Girls were going to have a powderpuff football match as part of the half-time entertainment. Below is my Director’s Cut of the spot.

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Next up is a spot I made for a local clinic. It’s in Spanish but I think I did a pretty decent job on the first half of the spot where I took over a household dining area and turned it into a virtual movie set. I don’t think I’ve done location lightning quite like this: where the windows were small enough where I could flag them with a black comforter and some 1″ clamps. Enjoy.

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And a rough cut of the same spot, sans polish.

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An awesome lightning storm, shaped like a mighty anvil, waged its war above the clouds. This was taken last night in my driveway around 9:45pm as I was about to drive over to Rudy’s BBQ for dinner. There was no thunder, only wind.

Orange Media Filmworks’ Twisted Date: winner of four awards at the First Annual Cinesol 24 Hour Film Dash, May 2 and 3, 2009, including Best Sound (Rigo Montenegro), Best Original Music (Jason R. Johnston), Honorable Mention: Cinematography (Jason R. Johnston) and Second Place Overall. The nine total competing films were screened before the awards ceremony held May 8, 2009.

Teams had from noon Saturday to noon Sunday to create a five minute short film from scratch with the following requirements:

Prop: umbrella
Character: nerd
Dialogue: “You had me at hello.”
Action: spilled drink
Theme: twist of fate

Shot on a Panasonic AJ-SPX800P with an RNG35 v3.1 DOF adapter, with Nikon 50mm f/1.4 prime, mounted onto an AJ-D610WBP zoom. Recorded in standard def 1.78:1 (16×9) on P2, but composed and later flipped and matted for 2.39:1. Lowell tungsten lamps used, none brighter than 250W.

Director: Edward Cordero
Producer: Ivan Buenrostro
Writer: Bertha Gonzalez
Executive Producer: Erick Treviño
Cinematographer, Music: Jason R. Johnston
Editor: Gabriel Ramirez
Sound: Rigo Montenegro
Grips: Belit Martinez, Amanda Ramirez

Donald: George Magee
Gaby: Gabriella Gutierrez
Amy: Bianca Cantu
Drunk: Ivan Buenrostro
Waitress: Binky Cantu

Saw this Half-Life 2 inspired goodness on YouTube. Thanks to Mar and ExtraLife for showing it to me.

Just a little teaser of what we’ve been working on at Orange.

This is the teaser trailer for the new romantic short film “The Bench” I wrote and directed. HD version at YouTube and Vimeo.