Tag Archives: film

Piece

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As a sort of an honor for Saul I decided to bring this lounge chair to life, birthed from paper towel sketches, maturing to conceptual mixed media renderings on 11×17 marker paper, then finally becoming a ½ scale cardboard prototype.  This is just the way he would have wanted it – not an actual full scale working piece of furniture that would be used for actual lounging, no.  Knowing him, it would’ve just been cornered in his humble apartment to be used occasionally, prisoned in between mounds of his dirty laundry and boxes filled with kitchen appliances and photo albums he failed to unpack since his move into that place near two years ago.  I mean, Saul owns furniture and finds them useful.  His appreciation for them, however, was on a different level when they were displayed as downscaled models.

“They’re fucking adorable man,” Saul said about my furniture prototypes.  This was always an honor for me to hear from him, no matter how many times he said it, and he said it a lot.  He never even used the word “adorable” to describe playful newborn babies.”
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This is from an unfinished project (a novel, yes you read that right) I started several years ago that I need to really be more serious about completing.  Even with the amount of work I do, there’s too much time in a day for me to ignore things like this – things that make me, me.

As a sort of jump start for myself I dug into my other sides of design and film and provided a short visual for this segment in my chapter one, titled ‘The Lounge Chair.’  The video features the song “Misty Mountain Hop” from one of my all-time favorite bands, Led Zeppelin (and I might have a problem with you if you just asked yourself who Led Zeppelin is).

Piece by piece.  That usually gets it done.

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F&S

‘Father and Son’ by Cat Stevens is a very important song for me.  If you asked me to put together the soundtrack of my life, this song would make the album.  Might even be the first track.

On a creative level I’ve always wanted to be able to tell this song visually while being able to tell my own connection to this song as well.

Since day one through a good chunk of my childhood, I did not have a dad.  I had the best mom in history, amazing grandparents, and lots of aunts and uncles.  But that father figure was never there.  While I do have a step-dad (he too, is the greatest), there’s a certain level of egg shells that the relationship walks through, and the gloves aren’t put on and duked out between a step-dad/son relationship the way it would if it were a biological connection.

And it was actually my step-dad that introduced me to this song back when I was in college.  On first listen, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  The lyrics, the emotion, the performance, everything about it.  Even if the song is packed with resent and expresses revolution (from the verses from the son), that’s what makes it beautiful.  Opposition is large part of a father/son relationship.  In fact, I saw it unfold so clearly during this time, seeing my step-dad and my half-brother duke it out the way I never did.

They fought often, but even so I was envious.  I knew, I knew I would never play that part of the son.  That time and opportunity for me went out the window on my first day.

But I do have plans on playing the father.  That chance will not pass me by.

PS. How about them acting skills of mine on this though?!  #bomchickawahwah

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Untitled

I am often known to do and be many different things.  Busy-minded tends to be the best description.  As my “9-5” (as it tends to reach a lot farther than eight hours/day) I am a manager of a department.  The other side of that coin is that I am a taxpayer, too.  And a payer of many other things.  It’s always a good feeling to be able to pay the rent, the bills, all the coffees, and tip the Eat 24 delivery guys all at the same time.

The other side of what I do resides in freelancing the creative field, a field that is a true love and passion in my life.  I have worked plenty in industrial design – mainly furniture and packaging – as well as visual communication and graphic user interface.  In filmmaking, I have worked the entire process, from pre-production, principal photography, then finishing off in post in the editing room.

I have garnered success in all these fields and titles, and while in technicalities I am all of it, I don’t know if that is what I would truly refer myself as.  Am I a manager?  A designer?  A filmmaker?  Batman?

What I do know, however, is that when I write, I am me.  More than anything else.  I am both lost and found in my own little world and you all just live in it.  Everything feels… right.  And even if something goes left, it feels fine.  Because there’s a belief that it was meant to go that way, and everything will be all right in the end.

So do I call myself a writer?

How about I just keep on writing, and see what happens next.

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100

“Oh, I still don’t think you’re the god of thunder. But you ought to be!” || Issue #100

Today is a landmark photo – post number 100. When I started this feed last year in November, I honestly did not think it would get this far. At first it seemed silly, especially having to “play” this character myself, but the concept was definitely there. And as far as @Instagram goes, I have searched high and low to find a similar account. And so far, at least as far as public accounts go, one seems to be the loneliest number here. So at very least I win points in originality; all there was left was miles and miles of execution.

I’ve had a blast so far, and it’s a vision and project I have believed in since its inception. Do I have another 100 photos in me with the hammer? Maybe, maybe not. I still have a lot of ideas on the queue, and at this point I’m just going to shoot first and ask questions later.

Speaking of questions, I asked several folks to round up a series of questions that would tell my story a little bit. The camera behind the camera type of thing. So, without further ado –

1. What the hell is Mjolnir and how do you pronounce it?
– Mjolnir (mee-yole-near) is the name of the hammer. Not my choice, this is based out of the Norse Mythology that Marvel Comics also follow. If it was my choice to name the hammer, it would be Sex Panther.

2. Where does McFly come from?
– I am a big Back to the Future fan, and it is a simple nod to the McFly family. My previous Instagram account was mikey_mcfly, so I just dumped Mikey for Mjolnir for this IG reboot.

3. Your history with cameras?
– Started with handheld camcorders filming for projects in high school. More film projects came out of college when I was a film major before I switched to product design and industry. Several months after graduating college, I picked up the camera again in March of 2008 and filmed a weekend road trip I went on alone. That ended up birthing two things – an early idea for a company called Spiral Notebook Films and a 45-minute film titled “Understanding Michael.” Other short films came out of it such as “The Orientation Segment” and a large filming gig for Hula, Polynesian, and Tahitian dancing for the Hula Halau ‘O Makalapua school in San Bruno, California.

Several months prior, one of my closest friends Mark Penacerrada (IG @mark_onetimeinc) and I started ‘Mike and Mark – The Photo Guys!’ We had one gig for a graduation shoot at a community college before we started One Time with other friends and crime-fighting partners (IG @mattmaniego and @instafred_) From there, as an integrated marketing company, we’ve worked and partnered up with many clients and companies and put together an impactful portfolio.

4. What do you shoot with?
– Canons, all but one project where we used a Nikon. 7D, 60D, 5D Mark II, several Rebels and the Ti series. My Instagram photos are all shot with an iPhone camera.

5. Do you do this full time?
– I live in San Francisco, land of bat-shit high rent. So I do have a job in Palo Alto as an Administrator and Reports Analyst. Basically PC by day, and Mac the rest of the way.

6. You seem to be all over the place in what you do and can do. What do you consider yourself as?
– The God of Thunder you dumb motherf — no I’m kidding. If I ever push forth a title over anything else, it would be a writer. Second would be coffee junkie. The very last would be ice skater. Zero emphasis on skater.

7. Is Thor your favorite comic character?
– One of, but not my favorite. Daredevil is actually my favorite Marvel character, second only to Batman who tops the overall list.

8. How much does the hammer really weigh?
– For those of you who have ran into me during my shoots and were able to lift Mjolnir, well hot damn – you must be worthy!

9. Creative inspirations?
– Marty Linder, a brilliant designer and my college mentor. In film – Chris Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Orson Welles, Robert Zemeckis, Jackie Chan, Charlie Chaplin, Mike Nichols, Chan-wook Park, Kevin Smith and Joss Whedon. I always wanted to be “Michael J. Fox” cool because I think no one tops him in that department. Writers like Jonathan Nolan, Brian Bendis, Ed Brubaker, and Stan Lee. I hope one day, Stan Lee gets full recognition as one of the greatest American writers in history, regardless of his genre. This man is responsible for some of the most amazing stories.

10. What takes up your spare time?
– I have a love/hate relationship with working out and training. I love it when I do it, I hate it when I don’t. During baseball season I’m following my Giants, and if your at the ballpark for a day game and you see someone running the upper reserve stairs from beginning to end, that would be me. Catch me after that pre-game workout, say hello, and let’s go have some beers and baseball.

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