Contact info at the bottom of the page.

My passions are around imagery and technology.  I’ve spent 25 years behind a lens or a computer or a lens on a computer.   I’m CEO of Cinemachine Imagery Ltd., which is a company focused on procedural cinematography, ‘smart’ camera systems and related camera technology for video games, movie pre-visualization and CG cinematography.  We are working on cutting edge procedurally generated cinematic solutions for games and eSports, building on a foundation of camera technology going back 15 years.

I’ve designed the camera system in numerous game engines including Frostbite (used across all of EA) and Unity.  My camera designs have shipped in dozens of titles across millions of units.

In addition to the camera tech, I also work as DP in feature films and documentaries.

Project list

• In Development: eSports virtual cinematography systems   Currently working on some fully AI cinematography technology and eSports broadcaster tools
• Speaker GDC 2016 “Lights Camera Action”  With Domonic Laflamme at Unity technologies
• Completed Cinemachine for Unity a fully procedural unified camera suite for games, cinematics and movie pre-visualization.
• Speaker UNITE 2015  “Filming Giant Virtual Vehicles”   A talk about the Cinemachine in Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
• Editor  marketing videos  Blackbird Interactive  Edited a number of the release videos fro Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak.   Announce trailer,  Dev Diary, SOBAN,
• DOP + Interactive cameras   videogame   Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak     Blackbird Interactive    A giant scale multiplayer online game
• DOP + Photographer  project for Microsoft.   1 week location shoot in Europe.  Can’t discuss further due to NDA.
• DOP + Colorist   feature   “Suburbia”      A comedy about two groups of kids from neighboring towns on their last day of school.  Shot with anamorphic lenses.
• Photo Editor  Magazine  Hayo   Travel, Culture & Curiosity
• Colorist   feature   “Dark Harvest”   A suspenseful thriller
• Colorist   music video   Louise Burns “Heaven”   A stunning video shot anamorphically with interesting color palettes.
• Colorist   short film   “Take Me Home”    A beautiful 18 minute short with an unexpected twist at the end.
• DOP + Colorist  web series  “The Real People of Vancouver”   A web series devoted to interviewing and investigating fascinating people in and around Vancouver.
• DOP + Colorist  music video    “Me and a Moment”  For Titlecard Pictures.   A dark and moody music video about transformation and change.
• Colorist + pickups DOP   feature  “XBUS”   Action thriller, DOP’d two pickup shoot days and am colouring the entire film
• DOP + Colorist   commercial   “Doritos – Crash the Superbowl”  Choreographed 4 helicopters in the air at once, 1 race boat, 6 swimsuit models, helicopter to boat stunts, 14 shots in one day which went incredibly smoothly and ended on time.  Our commercial got into the semi-finals out of tens of thousands of entries.
• Producer + DOP + Colorist    feature  “Hell in a Handbag”  Action / horror / comedy film with combat stunts, zombies, helicopters, cranes, and some scenes with more than 8 cameras rolling. Starring Callum Keith Rennie, Martin Cummins, Amanda Tapping , Christine Wallace and Ian Tracey.
• DOP    TV trailer   Secret project  I’m under an NDA and can’t discuss the project but it was for large house in Vancouver working on a TV pitch to an incredibly large entertainment company
• DOP + Colorist    feature  “Down Here”  Won a Canadian Filmmaking award.  Set in Vancouver’s downtown east side, this is a story about loss and redemption. Shot on location in some of the toughest parts of town.  I designed some special low light camera setups and digital workflows to allow for shooting at night in the downtown east side with extremely minimal lighting
• DOP + Colorist   web series   “CWS”    Shot and graded this web series, which has not yet been released
• DOP + Colorist + Editor   TV trailer  “D3″    Trailer to promote the office drama / comedy “D3″
• DOP   TV trailer  “The Shane Koyzen story”   Shot for the Knoledge Network, this is a trailer for a documentary on the poet Shane Koyzen
• Cinematographer   documentary  “Fractured Land”  Tells the story of a young Dene warrior from northeastern BC, taking on Big Oil and Gas to protect his land and people from the ravages of neocolonialism. Some scenes shot with an incredibly rare infrared FLIR camera
• DOP   Feature 3d technical prototype  “Conan”   Shot on an advanced dual RED epic 3D camera rig with greenscreen and numerous wired stunt combat scenes
• DOP  TV trailer  “The Snowed In Comedy Tour”   Followed 4 comedians over 3 weeks as they crossed BC on a comedy / snowboarding tour
• DOP   commercial  Electronic Arts  “Need for Speed The Run” 1 minute and 30 second TV commercial slots directed by Michael Bay
• Director + DOP   music video  “Let me Beat”  for the band Caniama
• DOP + CG Supervisor   videogame   Electronic Arts: “Need for Speed The Run”  $100M budget AAA videogame.  Responsible for all cinematography, dynamic ingame cameras and motion capture cinematography
• DOP + CG Supervisor   videogame  “Unannounced title” AAA secret title. Responsible for all cinematics, procedural cameras and camera technology
• Director + DOP + Editor    Music video  “Back to the Car” for the band We all Want To.   A unique music video shot in black and white then projected and refilmed from an moving car driving around Brisbane Australia
• DOP + Technical Art Director   videogame  Pandemic studios “Unannounced Title”  Responsible for the technical art direction, cinematic direction and lighting
• Lighter  videogame  Electronic Arts “SSX On Tour”  Helped design the lighting pipeline and lit a number of tracks in the game
• DOP + Technical Art Director   videogame  Electronic arts  “NBA Street 3″   AAA game title. Responsible for all the camera work in this 90+ rated videogame.  Worked with Hype Williams on the presentation

Photographic projects

(Not a complete list, just some of the favourites)

• Photographer  marketing  The Beastie Boys.   Shot the Bboys on the roof of the Capitol records building.
• Photographer  marketing  The 2010 olympics  Photographed Vancouver  with a beautiful layer of snow on the mountains from a helicopter for publicity
• Photographer  marketing   Electronic Arts:  Photographed Christina Hendricks from Mad Men (the redhead) for marketing and internal
• Photographer  client list   Adidas, Nike, The Gov of Canada, City of Vancouver, Knowledge Network, Massive Attack, Elvis Costello, Sarah Mclachlan, many other bands.

 

IMDB       Linkedin

I’ve worked as a DOP or photographer with:  Michael Bay, Electronic Arts, Hype Williams, The Beastie Boys, Christina Hendricks, Alex De Rakoff, Nike, Addidas, the 2010 Olympics, to name some of my favourites.

 

Pre-visualization

A recent process used by many prominent directors is the use of 3D visualization.   I was a CG Supervisor at Electronic Arts for many years and can bring years of 3d CG experience to the project.  We can work out camera angles, animation, lenses and realistically block entire scenes on the computer.  The benefits are enormous both creatively and budget wise.

Pre-vis allows you to block out and experiment effortlessly with any of your scenes.  It can illuminate exactly what needs to be shot for action scenes, or to help with lens and rig decisions in specific environments.   Will a 18mm lens get the top of the roof and the floor in at the Yankee Stadium?  What does a 35mm lens look like on X car with a hood mount?   We can figure that out without getting either the camera or the vehicle, or the stadium.

Not only can you figure out camera / lens / editing decisions beforehand, but it can drastically help reduce set decoration since you know exactly what’s in frame.

 

 

Making pre-vis a part of the creative process can drastically improve the shot quality while also reducing if not eliminating surprises on the day.

The Process: DOP / Cinematography

Shooting a feature or short requires a lot of pre-planning.  I work with the director and others to get an understanding of what the creative center of the project is.  A lot of reference is gathered and we all look at a range of images so we can narrow down the look.

I do a complete script breakdown into scenes to determine the lighting requirements.  Each major scene is represented by a reference image and I put them all in a line so we can see color and contrast wise, how the movie flows, how each scene moves to the next.  It’s a way to look at the entire film’s colors to see how they fit together and can reinforce the story.

Here is a ‘Movie Barcode’ which illustrates a similar idea, but at an individual frame level.  Each vertical row of pixels is taken from each frame of a movie.  The resulting image lets you see how the colors of the movie change over time.  Can you guess this movie?  It’s Avatar.

Below is The Life of Pi