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A while back, I sold my Blackmagic Pocket 4K on Facebook marketplace to a college physics major who’s also pursuing his passion for film. Weeks later out of the blue, he messaged me asking if I’d like to be DP on his short film, to which I said Hell yea!

The shoot consisted of 3 days at 3 different locations with multiple actors. No permits, run & gun, and minimal crew — these are the types of videos I grew up making so I thought it would be fun to sharpen the knife and see how well I could still handle the time crunch. I’m turning 35 in January, so working with a student 10+ years younger than me, was interesting. I remember being an absolute nutjob at that age although, still fascinated with film at the time.
It was nice working with someone young that wasn’t interested in Reels or TikTok for a change. I figured longer forms of content were generally dead amongst Gen Z’ers.

Instead of renting and going in blind, I opted to use my gear which consisted of 2, 6K pocket cameras, a compact set of lav mics, a DJI RS2 gimbal, a couple of tripods, and a single light and diffuser. The first day of shooting was probably the most difficult. We shot at an AirBnB that was a single room apartment less than 400 sq/ft. but we made it work.
Day 2 was shot at a public taphouse that ended up giving us permission last minute, the only stipulation being it would stay open to the public, although, not a single person showed up, working in our favor. The bar had a lot of interesting lighting that I was able to utilize which made setup a breeze, giving the Director more time to block the scene. I was really impressed with the talent that this student managed to find. Coming from New Jersey, Staten Island, and a few contracted locally, it was awesome to see the effort put in as we figured out specifics as we went with the script as our guide.
Day 3 and 4 were shot at a Dance studio who’s owner was nice enough to let use shoot prior to classes in the evening. A lot of the dialogue played into the large mirrors in the studio, a metaphor of the main protagonist’s reflection of poor life choices. I thought this was an excellent way to emphasize the inner demons the protagonist dealt with.

Overall, We ran a tight schedule to accommodate numerous scenes, angles, and takes. As someone who’s nonchalant in the field it was interesting working with a young Director adept to every nuance. Either way, I signed up to see how well I could handle the challenge.
Prior to this, the last real fun indie production I was apart of was Mockside 2.0 in July 2016, where we shot an entire 10 minute Walking Dead spoof in a single day in 95° heat with a crew of 20 people. It was an exhausting challenge but they’re always oh so rewarding.