Maximalist, intense, brutal, beautiful.

I have wanted to do a classic "oner" for a very long time, this particular script had been gathering dust for quite a while in my digital domain, so I thought I would attempt to shoot it on avery quick schedule. It was a fantastic challenge and one that I would love to do again. Originally, I wrote ROADAGE to take place during the blistering heat of mid-summer, but I rewrote certain aspects to fit with a frigid winter theme instead (changing a canteen to a series of hats, etc.), so that way I would be able to shoot it during the time of year I did. The whole thing, from gathering my crew to shooting, was done over a period of two days. The only thing that wasn't was the script, so in a way, it was sort of like a reverse 48 Film Competition that I self-imposed. I think all things considered, it turned out pretty well, although I'd still love to take a crack at it with the original script in hand, and without it being actually only a few degrees outside, I feel as though filming would go much smoother than it did. Ie experimented heavily with color-grading and editing techniques for this, as I wanted to stylize it in some way that it would stil feel like a "Merek Alam" film. Esentially, because of some of our limitations via the oner format, I felt I needed to tell certain aspects of the film in a different way, which I definitely think served the story over all.

One thing that I thouroughly enjoy doing, and find to be an extremely cathartic experience is making montages. There's something hidden in the proccess of shooting with only one goal, the final edit, and how things will be shaped by it. Montages, for me anyway, are a fantastic method to tapping into the "flow" of creativity. The mindstate where you don't need to think, you just know what you need to get next is exhillerating for me. So, I've made a lot of montages in the past. This montage is perhaps one of my favourites. It's was a great excersise of all of the previous skills I had established when making personal montages in the past, and helped my hone some skills that I try to never let rust. I was lucky enough to be allowed to film the cook at a local bar, which was a great oppurtunity. It was a great change of pace in contrast to my other montages, because I was directly following one person that I couldn't tell to redo something. I just had to hope that he would eventually repeat tasks so that way I could get beter coverage. Which he did, frequently. Experimenting with editing techniqes is one my favourite parts of montage making, and while perhaps I didn't make any "new" types of edits, I found ways to make some of the higher level after effects based ones much more seamless than I had in the past, which was very enjoyable. To me, this project represents the hussle and bussle of working as a cook, the rapid periods of nonstop food prep, combined with lulz and smoke breaks.

Have you ever been stuck at home, feverish, and bedridden? I tried to just take a slice of video that reflected the overall feeling of being home, and sick, something that to me, is very specific, but can't be easily staged or replicated, which is why I chose it for this project. I boosted the audio and reverbed it heavily to give it a more fever dream aesthetic, this was also achieved via a very warm grade. Everything else though, I left as it was, including me. As I had pneumonia or bronchitis in some way or another here, I didn't have to put on any sort of show. There was a lot about this I ended up enjoying, at least in the way that one might appreciate a painting. There is very little movement, generally, but when it is there, it helps tie this scene together. It adds to this narrative of being at home and ill that I strived for here. In this porject, I really wanted to further the sense of contextless environments that I had started on in my "Slice of a Foriegn Planet" piece. This time, I went in the polar opposite direction, attempting to make the viewer feel at ease, related to, despite not having any more context than what they could see.

This series is a slide show of areas I photographed in a "One time and move on to the next" way. I had one chance to get each shot correctly. Unfortunately, this aspect became very hard later on when one of the elements in my lens adapter broke. This project was shot on a Panasonic Gh3, with a 24mm prime Pentax lens, and an adapter to the Micro 4/3 Mount type. I focused on taking pictures around the city of Alma in a unique and unexpected way. I heavily emphasised closed framing for this project, as a I wanted to give the viewer a lack of context and an ache to see more, as opposed to the whole idea around them.

A window into a different reality. I corner of twilight somewhere in the far reaches of a different planet. There is no context. There is only emotion, frozen in time. What are the cirumstances surrounding this place? Who are these people? We won't ever know, because we're here, stuck in the inbetween.

For this project, I combined 4 self-portraits as a way of juxtaposing different aspects of my personality. Additionally, it was a good excuse for me to flex my lighting muscles by trying a variety of different techniques and gels. For the first image, I used classic 4-point lighting and warm gels. For the second, I used more surrealist lighting, and harsh color contrast inspired by Nicholas Winding Refn. For the next one, I took that same inspiration and inverted it, while at the same time, diffusing the light considerably. For the final image, I really wanted to highlight my facial flaws, so I took to a harsh bottom lit aproach.

A camera obscura is created by projecting light from outside of a structure, through a small iris, onto a specific surface. Here's a quick video on the subject. Fortunately I was able to create a very specific image that turned out surprizingly well. This image is meant to be a reflection on my time attending a private grade school, and how mental illness (specifically ADHD) was handled in that scenario. The sillouette being cast on both the board, and onto the large poster is meant to illustrate that despite being thrown to the wayside and being underestimated, that with apprioprate coping mechanisms and help, a person can do great things. Although, your interpretation may vary completely, as the image is very suggestive, as apposed to literal.