A chess match at Cornerstone restaurant in Fort Greene, BK.
Stills from my video shoot Soldier featuring Storyboard P.
Shooting in Brower Park, Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Storyboard P freestyles to The Beatles “As My Guitar Gently Weeps”.
Storyboard talks to me about stop motion and dance on a 15° afternoon in Fort Greene. Some incredible dance clips.
Caught up with Marvin actor Robbie Morgan heading to a chess match in Fort Greene.
Singer, songwriter, poet Siraj Nuri in Bed-Stuy.
Musician Christopher Smith in Sunset Park.
A test shoot with the Canon T3i. Dancer Storyboard P does a freestyle in Brower Park. Crown Heights, Brooklyn. See the video
Muse #6
THE DSLR CAMERA: The year was 2008. And like a lot of filmmakers, the video “Reverie” by Vincent Laforet CHANGED THE GAME for me. This video got over 2 million views the first week it was released and I know at least a hundred were mine. Why? Because it introduced many of us to the idea of using a DSLR camera (it’s a still camera folks) as a tool for MOVIE making. Working in the indie film world, I was used to 12 hour shoot days and spending hours with a big crew to get image quality like this. Now you could take a crew of two and in an afternoon shoot something insanely high end. And eventually I got a chance to do just that.
By the way the BROOKLYN bridge appears 5 times in this video…just sayin.
MUSE #5
Love is Real: Summer 2010. A childhood friend of mine, director Tishaun Dawson, sent me a text that simply said, “Is your passport current?” No sooner than he hit “send” came my reply. YES! Two weeks later I was on a plane to Venice to shoot Love is Real,a three part film series for Philip Bailey of the legendary Earth Wind & Fire. We shot in Venice, London and Paris. It was a dream job. And it was my chance to finally try out a DSLR (Canon T2i) for myself. I was amazed. The crew was just me and Tishaun. Our actress, the beautiful Sherina Manning. Two cameras and NO LIGHTS. Not only was the shoot easy but we had a blast. Remember I come from that indie filmmaker mindset that you had to suffer long and hard for your art. This shoot broke me of that completely. In fact, I was starting to think that once you put all the work in, you had to PLAY to make it work.
There are a multitude of things and people that inspire me to make films. But MuseBK is an idea that came from 6 defining moments. I guess you could call these moments muses. I can’t say it was just one but a combination of inspirations that started me on this journey. Here are the 6 muses of MuseBK.
A few pics from the Love is Real shoot
Tishaun Dawson-Director, 1st camera Sherina Manning-Actress Me-2nd camera Phillip Bailey joined us in London to shoot the final scene.
Here’s a video I shot for Siraj Nuri performing her song “Lukewarm Lullaby”.
Siraj Nuri and 3 members of her band doing a session in Sunset Park. I love this stripped down version of her song “Lukewarm Lullaby”. Travis Antoine on trumpet, Cory Jerome Cox on drums and Javier Santiago on keys. See the video
