FEATURED

A FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

Take a peek at the trailer for the coming release of the feature documentary “Selling Superman”

Selling Superman is a story of redemption, family and legacy. One that will have you questioning the meaning of what is truly valuable in this world and in your own life. Follow the journey of Daren Watts as he grapples with his own internal struggle to honor his father’s legacy of comic collecting. Now having acquired one of the worlds greatest comic book collections of all time, Daren now must figure out what to do with it’s near priceless treasures as he is consumed by the weight of his decision and of the enormous collection’s breathtaking depth.

We are still fundraising to get this film through final production and post production before a hopeful 2024 release. Please visit the website and watch the trailer.

https://www.sellingsuperman.com/

RECENT WORKS

Greetings and welcome to my online portfolio. This space exists as an archive of my published work as either creator or collaborator. Please take a look around and enjoy.

Pioneer DJ Mixer & Controller

This collaboration with Pioneer mixers allowed me to flex some lighting & motion control muscles and get a bit dark and moody. This promo for the XDJ-XZ all-in-one mixer & controller covers some of its most unique features. Drawing from the inspirations of night club culture, I wanted this piece to feel both sexy and energetic. Using motion control to move the camera across such small distances is typically not that interesting. That is, until you add a Laowa probe lens to the “mix”. The lenses powerful magnification gives you a truly larger than life feel.

Ziyah Holman

Produced for the “You’re gonna need milk for that” campaign, this profile piece gets to know Ziyah holman and what makes her tick. She became a viral sensation in her freshman year at the University of Michigan with a come from behind win to propel her to victory in her first collegiate meet. This performance solidified her as the athlete to beat in college track & field. Not only is Ziyah an all star athlete in the making, she’s a pretty wonderful person too. She talks to us about mindset, expectations, and sudden fame.

House Hunters (Seasons 203-210)

Over the past couple of years I have had the pleasure of working on the original HGTV smash hit House Hunters. Currently serving as one of the DP’s for the Midwest / Great Lakes region. From pricey properties to Humble abodes, House Hunters covers the gamut of modern dwellings.

With over 20M weekly viewers this is the home show that started it all and made HGTV a household name.

STUDIO WORK

This area is dedicated to my work in Food, Beverage & Product cinematography

Food & product showreel

This reel highlights my work with major food-retailer, marketing juggernaut, Vimax Media. Working in their studios during the pandemic I was creating over 600+ pieces of original content a year. With 2 live actions “kitchen environment” studios, 2 dedicated photo stages, a cyclorama and green screen tabletop video stage I had many opportunities to hone my lighting techniques and build my reps. In this time I became the lead cinematographer in house. I wrote, directed & shot hundreds of stylized recipe videos, branded commercials, digital banners, social media videos and live, chef driven, step-by-step cooking videos.

National CEREAL day:

This piece was just plain fun. We were asked to come up with a video for national cereal day by a major retailer for their “O” shaped cereal. Utilizing the studios Chronos 2.0 camera that captures images at 1,000fps it gave me the ability to almost stop time so we can witness each individual O get soaked in a silky smooth milk pour.

The best part of shooting hi-spped is letting the natural physics of something like pouring cereal, which is basically controlled chaos, be the drama for your product.

SERVED

Final Prep, presentation and beauty shots of the amazing dishes I saw over my time shooting in the Vimax studios. Working with a team of chefs, producers, food stylist, editors, VFX compositors and clients to get these images produced was a real treat, literally. There is no better talent to work with than one you can snack on after you wrap.

Extra special thanks to Chef’s: Nate, Nikki, Abby and Jill for their amazing work and use of their lovely hands.

DETROIT LIVES!

[2014 - 2017]

dodge: drAgstRip & m1 cruising documentary

In 2016 Dodge teamed up with Roadkill NIghts to present a full weekend of cruising, drifting, demos and of…course drag racing on the legendary Woodward Ave (M1), harkening back to Dodge’s muscle car days, and a big part of its legacy. In conjunction with the world’s largest classic car event, The Woodward Dream Cruise, the dragstrip competition pitted amature drivers against each other for prizes and of course street cred.

The mission; capture the events 3 days of set up & thrills and producer 3 separate videos for social. Beginning with a documentary on cruising culture and the history of Woodward Ave, better known here as M1. The other 2 videos focused on capturing the drag race & event respectively to make a high-energy sizzle reel to promote future editions of the event as well generate engagement between competitors & Dodge fans online.

WOLVERINE Packing co: Celebrating 80 Years

Now, you might think to yourself there is nothing sexy or special about a meat packing company; well you would be wrong. Since 1937 Wolverine Packing Company has been serving the USA with quality meat products. What makes them sexy; well it has to be their high efficiency facility, attention cleanness and technology like X-ray scanners that keep your foods safe from contaminants and the portions exact.

Detroit Lives was challenged with the task of making this usually un-inspiring industry look attractive for recruiting, no easy task. So after meeting with Wolverine we knew the story was about the generations of families involved with making this place what it is. By centering all aspects of the video around the people first, we see the product through their eyes changing the narrative on how people view meat production.

AICP Awards intro: The ABC’s of producing

When the Association of Independent Commercial Producers. or AICP for short, came to us and said; Hey, we want something “fun” for this years awards intro, we said “okay!”

I’m not sure what else to say about the intro we put together, other than we tried really hard to poke fun at the extremely challenging work that producers often do in the commercial production industry. We took some known tropes and cliches about producers, some insider knowledge of the industry and then we collected our stars; Barbie and Ken and put those divas to work on our commercial set. In an A to Z rendition they battle the world (and their own vices, lol) to get the job done, get paid and work another day.

FIAT: Fan mail

In 2015 Chrysler FIAT was tasked with explaining the to an American audience the relevancy of a car that was mainly seen only across the pond on narrow Europe streets; not here in the SUV dominated Americas. Seeing a FIAT 500 would often induce reactions ranging from; intrigue to skepticism to down right disgust. However these little cars had huge value and with the right campaign FIAT figured they could create a cult following of US buyers. If you’ve ever met a FIAT owner you know how loyal they are.

By far our biggest production to date; with a six figure budget, a cast and crew of nineteen plus dozens of special & practical FX’s, we set out to make a “world” in which Andy and Sam answered your FIAT questions in a luxury garage… via…snail mail? hum…okay? With our sound stage rented, our set designed and built we assembled our crew for 5 days of shooting on one of the most ambitious projects we had ever attempted. The result; a family of fun, info-taining product videos. Also, magical realism.

Chrysler: PORTRAITS of proud - Behind the scenes (edit)

In 2015 Wieden + Kennedy was shooting a campaign to highlight entrepreneurs in America. As the economic recovery in the USA was in full swing so was Detroit Lives! So when we were approached to edit a package of behind the scenes videos profiling each of the participants in the campaign we said, “hell yeah, let’s do this”. The campaign covered entrepreneurs from cost to cost and across the spectrum of American business and culture. Oh and did I mention the campaign was being voiced over by Peter Dinklish? Now that’s freaking wild.

Having started my career as an editor it was nice to get back into the edit suite. Together with Director Steven Oliver and Producer Philip Lauri we crafted a family of polished BTS videos that we are really proud of. We also had the opportunity to film a few of them too, including a pair here in our own backyard, the city we call home, Detroit.

McClure’s Pickles: the grunter

Honestly, I’m not sure how well you can relate to this guy unless you’ve actually had a McClure’s pickle. They are, how do you say….”deliciously naughty” and so is “The Grunter”. Trapped in his lonely cubicle with only one release for his pent up “hanger” Milton (aka The Grunter) whips out his pickle and gets downright lewd.

This slapstick comedic commercial pays homage to both the “Pickle” an American classic, but also another classic…Office Space. Yes, that Office Space. One of our absolute favorite cult classic movies ever, and I’m sure yours too, we wanted to know what Milton would do uncensored with a McClure’s pickle. What Milton did would make you blush, I’m not even kidding. Our actor, Clyde Brown had all of us including cast, crew and extras dying with gut splitting laughter as we had him molest this pickle spear over and over again. Oh the things you’ll do for a pickle..or fame.

“The WORK…is not the work!”

The real work is making the 4am call times. The real work is transporting 15 pelican cases full of gear across the country. It’s the endless hours of research you do to make sure that you squeeze every ounce of out of your production. It’s figuring out how to make your paycheck last until your next big project. No, the real work is never the final product. The real work is the struggle we go through, to make the art we know we have inside us, to make the work real.

The Archives

[2010 - 2020]

LAnd Grab

In the midst of the worst municipal bankruptcy in history, Detroit billionaire John Hantz was buying up huge swaths of Land on Detroit’s East side. Eventually he would own more than 1 square mile of neighborhood homes and empty lots. His plan? To build a farm. No, not one of those neighborhood produce farms that might serve a block or two. Nope his vision for the city was to create a working hardwood lumber forest that would provide jobs, clean up a neighborhood and produce millions of dollars worth of lumber over 20+ years. The plan would also stabilize home prices in one of the countries hardest hit economic zones.

Produced by Atlas Industries; this film documents the struggle this powerful billionaire went through to bring his vision to life including; attacks by citizens, media outlets and politicians. The results are an eye opening look into a city in transition.

VICE: Apocalypse, man

Produced by VICE this 6 part mini series was one of the most interesting jobs I’ve ever had. Asked to drive out to the middle of the high plains desert in Colorado and make contact with Michael C. Ruppert, the reclusive CIA whistleblower and world prophet. Having blown the sirens on CIA involvement in smuggling crack cocaine into the US, particularly into America’s inner cities in the 1980’s; Michael had become a poria in his career in law enforcement. In the years of turmoil that followed being run out of his job, Michael became something of a star in the “conspiracy theory” world and finally achieved total stardom when he was the main (well only) character in the hit documentary “Collapse”.

Exploring the theories of “peak oil”, American exceptionalism, government corruption and much much more, the week I spent with Mr. Ruppert was unlike anything I' have ever experienced…or ever will again.

R.I.P. Michael C. Ruppert

BURN: 1-year on the front lines of the battle to save Detroit

BURN is an action-packed, character-driven film about Detroit, told through the eyes of Detroit firefighters.  Filmed from late 2009-2012 this epic saga of redemption and rebirth in face of utter tragedy and despair will shock you. The challenges faced by the firefighters of Detroit is like nothing else seen in this country.

Go on an intimate, 85-min journey into the lives of some of the bravest men and women on earth. Winner of Best Documentary at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, where it premiered, the film has enjoyed critical acclaim and a huge grass roots following. Proceeds from the film have helped local firehouses in both Detroit and NYC purchase desperately needed equipment. Watch the film, support a firemen please.

GM: Av1 “the making of”

In 2017 when General Motors knew it was about to integrate the very first fully autonomous vehicle into a running production assembly line, they knew that had only one shot at capturing “the moment”. The moment, that the very first Autonomous Vehicle would roll off an assembly line the world would never be the same.

I was honored to be the cinematographer tapped to capture this once in a lifetime historic moment. As the “brains” were lifted into place a team of dedicated AV engineers worked feverishly to get all the wires connected and the dash mounted before it rolled off to the next station. Watching all of this happen was a global team of GM executives, engineering heads and of course our documentary film crew. We followed the AV1 through its journey. Hopefully this video will roll out soon as we await the news of the launch of the AV1.

kung fu justice: protectors of the youmacon

Kung Fu Justice is a true life look inside the annual anime and cosplay festival knows as Youmacon. Told through the lens of the events all volunteer kung-fu security force, tasked with keeping peace over this 20,000 person, 72 hour event. Using social media and the powers of zen Owen Matson and his ragtag tech-savvy martial arts posse keep the party going and everyone safe in this bizarre and funny documentary.

Shot in 2016, this 35 min. short doc will open your eyes to the world of online culture and community that is Cosplay. Even in this happy place their lurks dark characters; like any great hero’s journey you’ll witness Owen’s pairaless voyage into the Cosplay underworld or drugs, drinking, sex and oh yeah…Creepers, as he battles the forces of good and evil to protect the Youmacon and save the people of the Con.

Just breathe

According to her teammates, friends and coaches, Beth was the model student, friend and athlete. But that was only the Beth she wanted them to know. Like millions of people, Beth suffers from bouts of depression and like many, her’s was deepened further after a traumatic encounter.

As the captain of the U of M women’s Water Polo team, Beth was in a position to mentor other young women. However it wasn’t until seeing a therapist and tackling her fears and anxiety head on was she able to be the role model she needed to be. Filmed for the mental health channel this doc-u-series profiles different people around the country and their struggles with mental health.

Bits & bytes: culinary show reel

The thing I love best about shooting food is that it is universally relatable. Everyone eats food, therefore everyone has some sort of an emotional connection to it. That's pretty rare in this world.

I began shooting food in 2017 when I got the opportunity to work for the Cooking Channel on a little show called “Cheap Eats”. Now it may not be “Chef’s Table”… but we always had a blast, met really interesting people and that experience jump started my love for shooting food and culinary cinema. Now equipmed with some fancy robotics, a lens that looks more like a gun barrel and some fun diopers, I’ve been able to take this passion of mine to a new level.

MArvin Gaye “WHAT'S Going On” Music Video BTS

In 2019 I had the pleasure of working with Capitol records to document and archive the filming of a music video for their catalog. Director Savanna Leaf was tapped to create a music video for the iconic song “What’s Going On” interpreted with modern story lines, all while still using the technology of that era.

Filming in both Flint Michigan and in the city of Detroit, the production was a massive undertaking not just from a locations and talent standpoint but also a technical one as well. The crew used 35mm color film and shot scenes in sub zero weather.

BTS video is to be-released soon

Chevy: Tested for the real world

Chevy has a reputation for going above and beyond in their testing of new vehicles and when they wanted to open the doors to their laboratories and the legendary GM proving grounds, I was honored to be on the team shooting the “Tested for the Real World” campaign. Working with DP, Geoff Docherty, we were tasked with filming 9 separate comparisons of their exhaustive testing methods with real world scenarios.

Using clever cut points and similar movements between “lab” and “real world” scenarios we were able to carry the kinetic motions of the car or camera movements from one scene to the other. The effect is a visually appealing and very fun way to demonstrate a comparison campaign.

PARTS UNKNOWN: ANTHONY BOURDAIN “DETROIT”

Still to this day one of the great highlights of my career was the week I spent with Anthony Bourdain and the great folks at Zero Point Zero who produced his emmy award winning show. He is (was) as wonderful of a person as you might imagine watching him on TV. A deep thinker and complex man; someone who appreciated solitude as much as he did meeting new people and taking in their lives and culture. Tony always had a way of making you feel as though he was fully invested in your conversations with him. In the years since, I have made it my own personal goal to be more like Tony in this way.

The week I spent shooting and helping produce the Detroit episode of Parts Unknown was an experience that can never be taken away and I will cherish it as a filmmaker and human being the rest of my life.

R.I.P. Tony

Jessica HERNANDEZ: First Look EPK

When Capitol records’ head of video came to me and said he had a fantastic new rock & roll artist from Detroit that they wanted to profile; I was of course intrigued. If you haven’t hear Jessica Hernandez and her band, The Deltas, you could call their sound “voodoo rock” or possibly grunge meets the new rockabilly blues. But, whatever you call it you will not forget the vocals belted out by this dynamic front woman. Don’t let her petite size fool you, her command of a room with just her voice will put chills down your spine and a stomp in your boot. Add the backing of a really great band and It’s no wonder Capitol was betting on her.

We began with meeting up with Jessica to get to know her, the band and check out a rehearsal leading up to their biggest, major label, debut show yet. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Jessica a couple more times since this first project and I’m always impressed with how much she continues to grow as both an artist and musician, but also as a person.

EMINEM: The recovery tour “documentary”

In 2010 Eminem was in the middle of a career comeback few ever expected. Exiting rehab and conquering his addictions a newly focused and more determined Marshall Mathers was aminging his sights on the biggest set of shows in his rap career; a two night back-to-back stand in Detroit followed by two more shows in NYC. The scale of these shows is hard to put into perspective so we did it with a film documenting the event. We spent more than week traversing Detroit with Marshall as the crew chronicled his hangouts and the people who made him who he is.

I was lucky to get this break so early in my career; since then I have had the pleasure of working on many more projects with Marshall including music video “Behind the Scenes”, concert performances and an unbelievable 8 days spent traveling Europe performing at festivals across the UK.