Film Direction and Editing
I love editing, it’s the opportunity to frame and manipulate each shot into perfection, as well as the ability to evoke additional emotions by stringing shots together in a certain way, by color or by movement or camera angle in order to create art within art. It’s where my background in photography and photo journalism shines through, being able to catch those magic moments inside hours of footage and knowing what needs to be captured on the final reel.
I learned how to edit because I was unsatisfied with the editing on the first shoots I was involved in, which then gave me the confidence to direct as I knew how I wanted the finished product to look in the end.
4Ever Brand Portfolio
This clip showcases all the 4Ever brand projects I have helped build in Orvieto, Sicily and Florence. Every single thing you see here from the concerts, to the LED billboards in the soccer stadium to the Dream Loud and Florence 4Ever writing on the soccer jerseys was done in house by myself and Dream Loud, and that covers all aspects from creation, to contracts to logistics. In short, if you see it here, we didn’t just film it, we created it.
Commercial Reel.
With the exception of the soccer commercial which I co-directed and produced, I produced, directed and edited the commercials featured here, in addition to editing the reel.
John Legend, Taormina 4Ever
Hugo Centento Promo
The goal of this shoot was to shoot something that would let people connect to Hugo’s personality as well as showcase his world class skills as an upcoming Middleweight. I also set out to shoot this in a way that people are not used to seeing boxing, through fixed focus prime lenses as well as off center and static camera movement to force the viewers eye to follow the action as opposed to having the camera do the work for them. To read more about this project, go to the Hugo Centeno page of this site.
Dream Loud/ACF 4Ever broadcast TV spot
In announcing the partnership with Dream Loud and ACF Fiorentina, Dream Loud created/produced/directed a television commercial which aired on SKY sport in Italy during all Fiorentina Games. Featuring a mix of high creative concept, experiential documentary and scripted photography shot both in the US and Italy, this commerical is a good example of how many different mediums can be woven together within one piece.
Orvieto 4Ever highlights
This was actually the first thing I ever edited myself (as opposed to overseeing another editor). I didn’t know anything about video resolutions, and didn’t understand until later why I couldn’t just use downloaded clips mixed with pro-res clips until I watched this back and said “why is the quality so bad?” Nevertheless, my creative director suggested to use Ed Sheeren’s song “Photograph” as the soundtrack and it inspired me to create something really emotionally powerful in spite of the technical issues which is why I’m including it here.
Sometimes you find a song that fits your project and sometimes you fit your project to the song which is what I did here. The lyrics of the song jogged my memory to go and find the clips of Kevin Costner and Kacey Musgraves taking their own photographs of our production process, and then finding all of the human moments and connections that we didn’t end up using in other films of the concerts.
Fiorentina Historic highlights
In the first days of working with the Fiorentina soccer team, our creative director asked if they had any historic footage they could send us for inclusion in the team’s official commercial we were producing. We ended up going in a different direction and not using any of it, but I found use for some of the footage to put together a kind of “hype” piece to preview the matchup against their arch rivals Juventus which was used on Fiorentina’s social media. Fiorentina hardly ever beats them, but there was a milestone 4-2 victory at home for Fiorentina in 2013 which is what I based this film on.
This was fun as a sports fan, to see the old footage, and also to have access to the multiple camera angles showing the big goal at the end, so I really wanted to use all of them to showcase that moment which was made even better by the commentary of the match that I found on youtube
Kevin Costner Commentary
The September after performing in Orvieto, Kevin Cost was in Rome to promote his film “Black and White” The very first question he was asked wasn’t about the movie, but about his experience performing at our show so I threw this clip together with images from the show that reflect his experience.
Bottega Contecelli Victory Promo
As part of Orvieto 4Ever, we oversaw a brand partnership with Bottega Contecill, a boutique leather goods and craft company. Dream Loud’s creative director and Contecelli collaborated on a line called “Victory” which saw custom tags and branding on different Contecelli products, as well as the creation of a few products specifically for the show, including the design of the Victory logo which was featured on the stage at the concert as well which can be seen on the Orvieto4Ever page.
I took one cameraman and we filmed this over the course of a couple of days. Looking back, I’m still frustrated at the inability to properly light the product shots, but I’m including this over other more “technically correct” projects just due to the extraordinary artistic ability and craftsmanship of Stefano Contecelli and the fantastic song that accompanies this piece by Kevin Costner featuring original orchestration by the music department at Dream Loud which was performed live at the show.
Kacey Musgraves-Merry Go ‘Round
“You can’t film a concert with RED cameras” they said. They were the typical production company we first spoke to , and after getting to the bottom of it, essentially because it would have been too much work for THEM. Red cameras are used to film movies, and the files are larger and this was my first lesson in taking charge of production and pushing for what we knew needed to be done for the best interest of the business. As far as I know, no one has ever filmed concerts in Red, and I didn’t care. One thing I was very adamant about was that these concerts not look like typical concerts because they were anything but typical. Live concert films don’t work because there is no connection to the audience watching the film. There is no effort put into shooting them so the only connection the viewer sees is that between the artist and the audience of a show they aren’t at. Who wants to watch a party they aren’t invited to. In order for the content to be compelling, we had to make it connect with the viewer and I think we did
This is Lacey Musgrave’s Grammy winning song, “Merry Go ‘Round” with an original score by Marco Bosco and Paolo Vivaldi of Dream Loud.
“Photograph”, Orvieto4Ever memories
This was the first clip I edited, before I knew anything about video resolution which is why some parts look better than others; however I love this piece. When I wanted to put this together for our b2b marketing efforts, Our creative director came to me with a suggestion of a song to use, which was “Photograph” by Ed Sheeren. I should note that we have a lot of people filming our events from various media outlets all over the world and I always try to see as much footage as I can but have never used any of it until now. “Photograph” jogged my memory about seeing a clip from one reporter showing Kevin Costner filming rehearsal on his phone and I scoured all my contacts until I found the clip which opens the video. It really set the tone for what I wanted to make, something that didn’t focus on the performances of the show, but on the emotions that this event evokes in the performers and I think that comes through in the piece. I also like weaving together both the informal iPhone videos and images from the RED camera on the same settings to be indicative of how different perspectives capture the same moment.
