Joel Lava

What a thrill to direct legend Mike Tyson for the promo of Tyson v Jake Paul fight on Netflix! This shoot had everything: volumetric stage, bolt arm camera, and entourages as far as the eye can see. It was a great shoot in NYC, really fun - directing with Michael Vamosy and Vivid Zero. This is the director's cut, so all edit and and post/vfx are done by us internally. CREDITS Produced at @vividzero_sg DIRECTOR: Joel Lava, Michael Vamosy EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Diana Horowitz @akamrskay PRODUCER: Jon Sheflin, Daniel Marracino CINEMATOGRAPHER: Joe Labisi joelabisi_asc AD: Marco Ajello PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Kai Lee CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Gilbert Avila ART DIRECTOR: Henry Jamin VFX: Juan Delcan, Miguel Delcan #boxing #tysonpaul #tysonversuspaul #netflix #netflixboxing #tyson #miketyson

Excited to show my new spot for #MissionImpossibleFallout. Starring newly minted NBA MVP James Harden @jamesharden13 , it’s a cross-promotion between Paramount and ESPN. We placed Harden into the HALO jump scene by painting out Henry Cavill. So it’s just Tom Cruise & James! We worked with the studio to match all the camera lenses, heights, and angles. It was a fun shoot and fun to do the vfx. Made at @stuncreative Thanks to our team: @thebradfox @jameschristianperez @mobsterstudio @forrestbro @joelilli @haasemonkey #NBA #NBAMVP #Harden #basketball #vfx #missionimpossible #mi6 #ethanhunt #TomCruise #JamesHarden @bballbreakdown #HALO #HALOjump #action #bluescreen #redcamera #RED

Howdy! I’m thrilled to share this director’s cut of a project I directed for Teton Ridge. @tetonridge is a a multi-platform media company, devoted to American West branding and western performance sports. It’s owned by Taylor Sheridan and Thomas Tull. We spent 2 weeks shooting In Oregon and Arizona - capturing all kinds of footage - RED, Phantom, drones, GoPros - of champion riders Andrea Fappani @alongfortheridewithandrea , Corey Cushing @coreycushingperformancehorses and Todd Bergen @toddbergenperformancehorses I’m proud to say the drone footage is mine, as is the final shot of the horse stomping on my… GoPro! Produced at Known ECD: @tgundred , Neville Burtis CD/DIRECTOR: Joel Lava PRODUCER: @petesestina DP: @jayarcansalin AC: Han Yang EDITOR: Chad Early @blakestonesoup

Over 2 years ago I saw the commercial “Governance” for IBM Watson, and thought “this seems like a lot of slick stock footage, could this be the first domino to fall in the AI takeover of film production and VFX?” My Mission Statement: The client should have same control on location, casting, lighting, performance and blocking. Therefore for this experiment, everything had to start from scratch, as if the final commercial never existed… [I wasn’t concerned about resolution, and I didn’t kill myself to make every image perfect - that wasn’t the point. I know with a little more time (and therefore money), the quality could be lifted.] The overall lesson I quickly learned: the most important step is the starting image. This is where the immediate future of AI rests. And this is where there are still many methods to get there. Process: Create many Midjourney stills, then spend copious amounts of time in Photoshop (apparently, the best current process is to make the base image in Midjourney, then alter it with Nano Banana). I did most of my motion with Runway, but moved to Veo towards the end. Veo is astounding for camera moves and lighting. Sometimes, Runway just handles prompts better. I used Midjourney motion to do the screen motion graphics. But obviously this would be generated UI by the client. IN CLOSING This entire re-recreation experiment is only possible because it doesn’t involve unique acting performances. While there were basic emotions and blocking, it fell more into “stock footage” realm. But the actor tools are getting better and better, especially the ones that remap performances. This was a very tedious project - BECAUSE - it required detail control. I could have quickly made a similar commercial with similar-ish shots. But this wouldn’t please a client. However, I believe 80% of client brands will be fine with this loss of control, for 80% of commercials. #ai #aifilm #midjourney #veo #runwayml

For the WICKED - FOR GOOD marketing, I teamed up with @vienna.pitts to “Oz-ify” locations around the world. London, São Paulo, Paris, Singapore, and New York - all got the special treatment. The actual postings were the fully formed OZ, but here I show the BTS of it all 🙂 #wicked #wickedforgood #oz #arianagrande #cynthiaerivo #takeover

For the 3rd year in a row I had the opportunity to work with Covenant House and About Films to design & animate content for their big November Times Square fundraising. We made content for several giant screens in Times Square - for this post I'm sharing the behind-the-scenes for the "TSX Video Billboard". This was fun to make because I used beeble.ai to generate 3D versions of the talent stills, which allowed us to do do realistic lighting effects as part of the motion graphics reveal. The times are a changin'! This is a really great cause, it's impact is immediate and powerful. @covenant_house @aboutfilms_tv #homeless #teenhomelessness #ai #motiongraphics #timessquare #timessquarebillboard #aiart #thanksgiving

NO TRILLIONAIRES - Stop Musk & Boycott Tesla Elon Musk, through all of his ventures and words and actions is a blight on humanity and the American experiment. #teslatakedown #indivisible #musk #doge #coup #tesla Timelapse photos by @storytellerf8 @gregory_michael_photography

BEES I set out trying to make something else, but as midjourney does what midjourney wants, I went down this path/wormhole. I decided to post it, even though it's not an AI talking sasquatch or AI kids telling me how great the 80's were. #ai #midjourney #aivideo #bees

Austin Hyperlapse 02 #austin #hyperlapse #bartonsprings #longcenter #longcenteraustin @austinblonde

Music: Panama Cardoon "Oye" #Barcelona #hyperlapse #timelapse #shotoniphone #lasagrada

Congrats to our partners at @abcnews and our team at @defiant.la for their EMMY NOMINATION on our ABC News Election Night Promo campaign. See the full :30 spot along with the case study live on our site.

SAFE STORAGE of G*NS I designed and animated this piece for Hope & Heal to create more awareness about safe fire*rm storage in homes! /