About

Origin Story . . .

The MCU won’t make a movie of my story, but hey, I’ll quick cut it, so it feels like a coming of age Thor montage. HA! I’m no Thor, I hit my finger and wail every time I swing a hammer, but, go with me here.

The dot com boom hits the world hard, I write music and scripts for children’s games sold all over the country and develop them for Disney Interactive. The dot com boom busts, everyone in New York is bummed out, lots and lots of late 3 AM nights in the Village, plotting the comeback. 

I slide over to traditional media: photography, film, art. I share a space on Broome St. in SOHO with the great photographer Amos Chan, surrounded by original Walker Evans prints. Wow! Amos teaches me everything he taught Nan Goldin at Yale. I wish.

I study screenwriting at NYU with Chad Beguelin of Aladdin fame, do two years of intensive method actor training with Barbara Marchant at William Espers, and start trying to shoot my own stuff.

Lots of knocks on closed doors.  Eventually, the clients start coming: Ester Lauder, Elizabeth Arden, Sony, Lucent Technologies, Hanes . . . NYC gets fun again. I become art director for Molton Brown, travel to England a bunch, lagers and limes and HobNobs follow. 

I thought it would NEVER happen, but . . . After 10 years, I leave New York and head to Sarasota, Florida. I shoot and direct TV commercials in Tampa: Boar’s Head, Florida Hospital, Empath Health, Zoo Tampa, Tampa Bay Bucs, Feeding America, Seminole Electric. I expand the toolbox: produce, write, direct, light, shoot, edit, and color. Whatever it takes.

The Florida weather is great, the locations are strong, the area talent is special, but my next scene needs some mountains as a backdrop. 

I head to Charlottesville, Virginia, hook up with TradeMarky Films, shoot for The Martin Agency in Richmond . . . Walmart, Hidden Valley Ranch, BMW, Tyson Chicken, University of Virginia. The Blue Ridge Parkway and the Appalachian Trail are awesome distractions. I work on projects for autism, education and substance abuse programs. I'm definitely not heroic compared to those I filmed, but nice to shine a light on their heroism.

The last two years . . . This is the part of the origin story when the music drops to a low hummmm. Things have been, well, different, for everybody. I started editing and coloring remotely, writing commercials I don’t even shoot. And getting ready for the gates to open.

Which brings us to now. Sarasota and Charlottesville are not galaxies apart, thank God. I write, direct, shoot, edit, color projects in both locations.  I move back and forth with ease through my own Bifrost Bridge. Some day, some day. 

The End - of the beginning. 

Things I love . . .

Cameras & Lenses . . .My grandfather bought an Ansco No. 3 6x9 camera in the early 1920s and went out west by train in 1925. I have that camera and the hundreds of negatives he shot of his friends at Pike’s Peak, Garden of the Gods, the Kansas harvest, and North Dakota scenery. It’s the coolest camera in my arsenal.

The Dog. . . Just go check out all the gazillions of photos of her on this site: Stills -> The Dog. Her grandfather was on a jumbo bag of Purina dog food, so her modeling skills are legit. She’s my best bud.

The Record Collection . . . How many different vinyl versions of Lee Morgan’s Search For the New Land does one person need? How about 11? Which one is the best? The last one that was on the turntable.

The Amish Family . . . That’s right, even though I’m not Amish, I own my Amish peeps. Both my grandparents go back to Switzerland to the founders of the Amish in the late 1600s. I didn’t grow up that way, but much respect, and fun diving into the genealogy and the family story. I even made a documentary about them, with very few photos.