Nike's SNKRS app wanted a season 2 of Blondie Beach House with elevated production. During lockdown they lent us their (empty) new office in Playa to use as a playground / studio to shoot the season. We brought all the tricks we could think of. From green screen goofs to props and set design, we elevated the humor and spontaneous vibe of the show. Viewership rose to over 100k in the final episode of season 2 setting a new record for viewership of live content on the Nike SKNRS app.
Friends and founders of GALS CLUB, a production / design agency here in LA hit me up to create some 3D avatars of themselves for their launch. "Something along the lines of claymation bobbleheads" is I think what they asked for. I did them one better, not only creating their bobbleheads in 3D but adding bodies to turn them into fully playable characters in their own game using Unreal Engine. Tons of fun.
UNINTERRUPTED came to me with a mixtape project - A series wherein NFL athletes and musicians / DJ's would come together and pick their favorites from artists in their respective cities, touching on the history of movements that became well-established genres. From LA hip hop to B-more club music to New York Drill, they covered the gamut of artists and scenes from east to west.
Vans reached out for a promo video for their concert that doesn't exist yet. What they had were photos of past Vans-sponsored events and live shows, and from those they asked us to create something that felt vibrant, kinetic and could build hype for their tour, set to debut in multiple cities around the world. We did the edit & motion in a matter of days, along with custom music.
3M Oral Care hit us up for something informative that kids could watch while in the waiting room at dentist offices that wasn't boring, and we came back with this throwback claymation idea for talking animated teeth. I had my hand on all aspects of this project, including the concepting, writing, animating and performing (via Adobe’s amazing Character Animator).
Nike wanted something funky for the Kyrie 3 Heartbeat and we pitched them a full-on disco music video. I went about writing a disco track and then directed and edited it, doing all the animation as well, and with that, brought the funk.
Amazon Prime hit us up to help them hype their original movie "Sound of Metal" (Produced by Lars Ulrich of Metallica).
We were tasked with doing something with the ubiquitous "Enter Sandman" by Metallica using ASL signer artist Paul Rauci, who appears in the film.
Wanting to put a modern take on the song, we enlisted the talented multi-instrumentalist Elise Truow to come up with an edgy cover.
We got Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker to throw down on the track and I directed this with an amazing crew in an airport hangar in Santa Monica.
I was inspired by the simple nostalgic romance of '80s Japanese series "Heart Cocktail" and wanted a similar vibe for the Toby Glider album promo, so designer friend Jacob Anderson set about making original illustrations that I delightfully animated. This was pure pleasure to make.
Nike wanted some long form content to air exclusively on their site for Air Max Day 2021, end enlisted Dom Roberts as the host. Her sense of humor and vibe lent itself well to the irreverent world we created as her backdrop, a mish-mash of blue screen public access vibes and early VR aesthetics filtered through LA culture, as she interviews Olympic athlete Vashti Cunningham and LA artist Umi.
Nike’s outdoorsy ACG brand wanted something to motivate NYC gen z kids to get outdoors, with a content series that was to be a guided nature journey, narrated by mother earth, through an irreverent series of challenges in the city. They asked us to film it all on 16mm, and we complied. Look at how those mushrooms turned out. This made me fall in love with film again.
UNINTERRUPTED approached me with "elevated Japanese Game Show" as the creative spec for their content piece for their partner CashApp, starring two NIL Athletes and hosted by Richard Jefferson. The show's theme centered around fiscal responsibility -a topic that could easily glaze eyes, so to curb this, we kept the pace snappy and overlaid plenty of 2D & 3D visuals and sound effects, which allowed room for some comedy alongside the games.
The LA Dodgers wanted a video booth for Centerfield Plaza -thus was born the “virtual dugout” -a combo of practical props and tech wizardry using Unreal Engine to superimpose players over fans in a recreated dugout. I directed 20 of the LA Dodgers players, programming their performances to play on live footage of fans in the dugout, creating a take-home asset texted directly to fans phones. The experience was packed from opening day averaging one fan per minute.
Press: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2021/08/03/Technology/mlb-los-angeles-dodgers-fan-experience-dugout.aspx
Red Wing Shoes needed something authentic for their campaign highlighting boot care, so we took an authentically vintage approach centered around the idea of 'Tough Love' to add some stylistic gravitas to the idea. We opted for handheld intimate camerawork to match the grit of the world these boots live in while keeping the notion of care intact.
Nike wanted something that evoked Kyrie Irving's spiritual perspective on the world and his obsession with third eyes and numerology, specifically the number 11. So we came up with the idea of 'Kyrie-Vision', seeing through the lens of Kyrie, while showing off the eleven color ways of the Kyrie 6 shoe through different boroughs of New York that each evoke their own vibe and inspired shoe. It aired on 11/11/19.
After hearing about TravisBott, the AI song we made at space150, Fox approached us wanting to use AI to make a trailer for their new series "NeXt" which debuted in October 2020. I worked with an engineer and a composer to help bring this trailer to life. With a little coaxing, the AI gave us creepy fun results that fit the tech-dystopian vibe of the show.
Using the AI tools available in 2019 I created (along with an engineer) an AI-generated song & video at my old agency space150. It was in the style of Travis Scott.
Full Project here:
Featured: Travisbot - “Jack Park Canny Dope Man”
Articles here:
ID / Vice
3M VHB wanted a video to show how cool their tape was, and our team came up with the idea of a scooter held together completely by tape, no hardware. Given the dry character of our subjects, it took a mix of comic timing and dorky music to pull this one off.
Nike wanted us to make something fun out of a very cryptic secretive brief for national Air Max Day 2019. We whipped up a total of seven treatments and shot them at the Nike Soho store, editing and doing VFX / sounds the following week at a rate of one video per day. They loved it.
