Proud to present my friend Molly’s submission for the NPR Tiny Desk Competition this year. Had lots of fun filming this with the help of Natalie and Andrew. Molly and the rest of her band are fantastic and I hope you enjoy watching/listening as much as I did.
“New Optometrist” by Molly Schwall
Songwriter/Vocals/Acoustic Guitar: Molly Schwall @8molly88
Guitar/Vocals: Ryan Linke @ryan.linke
Cello/Vocals: Erica Kremer @er.cakremer
Bass/Vocals: Ben Powell @ben_powell_313
Drums/Vocals: Benny Woodard @benny_woodard
Percussion/Vocals: Maia Greco @maiiagreco
Student: Lara Zammit @lara.zammit
Director/Editor: 😉
B Cam Op/Lighting: Natalie Thibodeau @nat_thibs
Lighting/Camera Assistant: Andrew Logue @andrewl.mp4
Recording/Mixing Engineer: Ryan Potts @ryancartermartin
Set Designer: Caroline Batzdorf @cbatwoman
So Much Better Than FaceTime by @navadrops
Excited to share a music video that I not only shot but directed and edited as well. Shoutout Nava for the opportunity, I haven’t directed a project like this in years and it was really exciting to come up with a concept and see it through. Super thankful for the crew on this one, especially Katherine and Andrew for helping me approach the video from a director’s point of view. Andrew gets a double shoutout for the late nights and trial and error that came with making custom FaceTime vfx assets and animation, I could not have done it without him by a long shot. Final big thank you to the legend Safier who I met scouting and who was down to help me out for the day. You can watch the whole video from the link in @navadrops bio.
Director/DP/Edit: 🙋♂️
Producer/1st AC/GFX: Andrew Logue @andrewl.mp4
“Nava Drops”: Himself
“Rachel”: Capri Marandola @capri.marandola
Assistant Director: Katherine Gotard @katherinegotard
1st AC: Safier Elzinga @safierelzinga
Special Thanks to @negativelandfilm@kodak_shootfilm and @andurukim for giving me some super 8 on the low 😉
Free Venezuela by Alejandro Preschel @alejandropreschel
What a privilege it is to tell this story of the immigrant experience and the deeper, complex story of those who left their homelands in the search of better opportunities but who hope to one day return when they and future generations can prosper. This is not a story I can personally relate to, but I am honored to have the trust of Andres and Alejandro in helping them bring their vision to life.
Director: Andres Gedaly @andresgedaly
Line Producer: Andrew Logue @andrewl.mp4
1st AD: Sannette Gaia @sannetteg
Songwriter/Cast: Alejandro Preschel
Cast: Richard Perez Jr @savagethepoet
DoP: Me!
Production Designer: Jake Abroamowitz @_jake_abrams
1st AC: Natalie Thibodeau @nat_thibs
Gaffer: Mallory Holst @malloryholst
Grip: Raphaël Edwards @raphael_edwards
Grip: Maxfield Mascarin @fieldmasc
Editor: Andres Gedaly
Colorist: Me again!
Special thanks to our wonderful location in Crown Heights: JC Mar
Einstein gets a world changing idea but can’t find his trusty Lamy Safari to write it down.
I’m very excited to show this one off. I wanted to push the candlelit look as much as possible, with a lot of inspiration being drawn from Barry Lyndon. While I didn’t have lenses that opened up to f/.07 I did get shoot one Cooke SP3’s which really helped to add warmth to the scene. Hope you guys enjoy these stills from a very silly shoot for a very cool pen brand. @lamypens
Director: Andrew Logue @andrewl.mp4
Line Producer/Producer: Sannette Gaia @sannetteg
1st AD/Producer: Maxfield Mascarin @fieldmasc
Einstein played by: Sage Kalmus @sage.kalmus
DoP: ✌️
PD: Madeleine Kotary @madaleine.kotary
Gaffer/1st AC: Raphaël Edwards @raphael_edwards
Key Grip: Dylan Blake @dblake221
HMU: Mackenna Anderson @kxnna
Music Composer: Peter DiMaggio @peterdimaggio
Editor: Andrew Logue
Colorist: 👋
Back in February, @andrewl.mp4 and I wanted to make a spec ad for the pen brand Lamy. We didn’t really have any money to put towards it but we wanted to
test the limits of what we could achieve with as little money as possible.
Cinematography wise, the big idea was tracking shot showing a baseball being thrown up in the air. After lots of sketching on napkins, and a few physics lessons. I decided the best way to achieve this was by making a pulley rig that would be attached to my ceiling, suspended above the talent.
We went back and forth on the idea of rigging the baseball to the camera with a power drill to get the spinning effect, but I didn’t like the idea of the camera moving with the ball. Instead I felt it would be better to have the actor throw the ball himself and for us to try to pull the rig in sync with the ball. That meant lots of takes. After maybe half an hour, we got it. The credit for the shot and the heroes of the shoot go to @dblake221 and @raphael_edwards . Dylan had to pull the pulley take after take. It was not easy and took a lot of skill to@nail the timing time and time again. Rapha had to pull off one of the most difficult focus pulls I can imagine while wide open. The spec would not be what it is without them.
I’m very excited for you guys to see some work from the finished project soon. Enjoy the totally real and not staged video of getting “the shot” on slide 5.
Introducing our Director of Photography: Max Tanzer! Max Tanzer is a NYC based independent cinematographer and filmmaker. Originally from New Hampshire, Max developed a love for storytelling and the art of filmmaking while making shorts in high school. Since then, Max has been perfecting his craft: to create memorable and honest images, whether it be for narrative, doc or music related projects and films. He has worked on several short and commercial projects.
Max is excited to create the visual world this human, heartfelt story is told in.
