The Audition - a short film for Nikon to showcase the Z6III

Blummer Productions was contracted to create a short film to stress test the raw recording capabilities of Nikon’s Z6III. I collaborated with Victoria DeMartin who wrote and directed a tight 5 minute piece which depicts her lived experience of a competitive ballet audition.
Starring Ayaka Kamei, we had an an ensemble cast of 24 on our primary day of shooting including 20 of NYC’s top ballet talent from a variety of prestigious companies.

Here is the film on Nikon’s Youtbe

The short film was just the top of the list for deliverables on this project. We also produced a BTS film (shot by Khyber Jones) that documented our experience on set working with the camera which involved a variety of social cutdowns as well. I sound like a silly DP waxing philosophical on the “psychology of the lens.” (I should be behind the camera for a reason)

Here’s the main BTS film

Nikon has also released a video of me at a very basic level speaking about the way I utilized N-Raw on this project which we calso handled for them.

We also delivered a set of BTS still images shot by Jack Belisle and Khyber Jones, here are a few favorites from those.

Ayaka and I seem to have become the face of this camera in certain ways. Nikon is putting our work to good use. I hope to continue my collaboration with them as they delve deeper into the digital cinematography space, especially after their recent acquisition. Exciting things to come!

FAILED STATE - Feature Film co-directed by Mitch Blummer and Christopher Jason Bell

Chris Bell and I worked on a feature over the course of three years. In November of 2023 it premiered at the Torino Film Festival in Italy. I am immensly proud of the work.

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You can also check out the trailer here:

The Film Stage also did a write up on the premiere.

FAILED STATE ON THE FILM STAGE

Most Recently - We won Best Director(s) at the Lindsey Film Festival in 2024

heres a video of my goofy self accepting the award.

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lululemon Studio Archetypes - Director's Cuts

I got a great opportunity at the beginning of 2023 to shoot and direct a series of 4 videos for lululemon studios profiling a handful of their users. I took the opportunity to make mini docs emphasizing their humanity and personalities in relation to their fitness life. Of course the edits ended up being more commercial and geared towards sales for lululemon’s use but I finished my director’s cuts to share here.

More work for lululemon studio incoming!!!

Change from Every Angle

I have been involved in a project with Resonant Pictures and Droga 5 for Accenture doing a high end corporate interview series to illustrate some of the partnerships the digital solutions arm of Accenture has achieved. It’s brought me to Switzerland, the UK and Germany so far and the first piece we did for them just went live on their marvelous website that I am oh so impressed with.

The first piece was a collaboration with Climeworks which is a Zurich based climate technology company which is scrubbing the atmosphere for CO2 and converting it into a solid which is then deposited into the earth permanently. It’s a beautifully inspiring story and as time goes on I believe Accenture will populate this site with the other projects we’ve shot for them.

I think it’s some of my best interview work.

FITNESS

In the last couple years, Fitness Content has become one of my specialties. I’ve been participating in athletics since before I can remember across disciplines and I think I have a bodily knowledge of many different methods of fitness, this allows me to work with trainers, influencers and athletes who’s specialty that is to create inspiring workouts.

The latest series I Directed and DPed is for Healthline called Fit It In. Production was handled by Narratively Inc. We created (16) 22 minute workouts with 4 trainers in two days - it was a busy one!

Healthline: Fit It In

Christmas Content

It’s been a while since I shared anything on here. At a certain point towards the end of 2020 some work started coming back. I was one of many DPs shooting the newest season of Modern Marvels for History Channel, I’ve done a ton of branded and corporate shoots and been working on a variety of passion projects.

One thing I wanted to share here was this Interactive video I shot for O-Magazine and Pandora, I can’t embed it because it seems to be proprietarily hosted due to it’s interactive nature, but we made some lovely macro images with the Raptor Macros by IBE-Optics. I have been really liking these lenses for macro work!

https://www.oprahmag.com/style/a31190872/the-perfect-way-to-add-sparkle-to-the-holidays/

I had jobs, but that was the past

I put together a pretty extensive 5 minute B-roll package of how the Covid-19 virus is visually affecting Manhattan. mostly it’s empty streets/public spaces. It’s available for licensing seeing as all the work in the industry has dried up for the time being.

Here’s the film I cut out of the footage.

Harpers Bazar X Audemars Piguet cobranded campaign

I was lucky to travel to the Swiss mountain town of Le Brassus to shoot the motion for a cobranded digital campaign for Audemars Piguet’s Millenary Frosted Gold PHilosophique watch. The stills were shot by Agata Pospieszynska.

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/a29212567/a-day-in-the-life-of-the-perfect-accessory/

Here’s a version of the video with no text.

Produced by Annalisa Gesterkamp and Colin Olsen

Swarovski X Hearst Digital Media

One of the more decent budgets I’ve gotten this year was for a Swarovski Mothers Day 2019 Campaign. It consists of 2 main deliverables across Hearst’s platforms including Elle Magazine, Marie Claire, Cosmo, etc as well as 1 deliverable for Men’s Health and additional vertical cutdowns. I’ve become very adept at framing for different aspect ratios on set and this campaign is a perfect example of that!

Film Festival Action early 2019

I’ve been pleased to see some recent projects finishing up and doing well out in the world, so here are a few updates.

SPACE - Dir. Jesse Thurston has played at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Maryland International Film Festival among others and has recently had it’s online premiere on No Budge.

http://nobudge.com/main/space

Getting To Carnegie has been screening internationally from Berlin to NYC at the New York Independent Film Festival in May. It has also won “Excellence in Filmmaking” at the Sedona International Film Festival and is set to be distributed via PBS’s new streaming service later this year.

Aviva Neuman’s latest film will soon be hitting the festival circuit, secret news on that coming soon.

much more indie filmmaking news to come.

Weird Puppet Videos

I shot these weird puppet videos for Buzzfeed a while back... they came out a few months ago and noone told me. Seems like they've gotten a bunch of views, not matter how basic they are. It's always a fun challenge for me to work on this scale and i think there are some fun moments here. 

New Short Film available online

A year or so ago I hiked my camera backwards up a mountain shooting this very intimate short film with director, David Lombrosso

This project was intended to be a personal narrative and the content of it is very near to me. Its a great privilege to collab on projects that I feel personally connected to and I think the piece turned out beautifully between the sound design and the way Dave used the footage. 

DIY anamorphic

I have been experimenting recently with DIY anamorphic solutions for my personal videos. It's another tool in the tool kit and good practice for a few larger scale projects I have in the works where we'll be using legit anamorphic cinema primes and zooms. I'm enjoying the qualities I'm getting out of the Century Precision Optics 16:9 ratio converter on my A7sii which is what both of the below videos are shot on. Soon to come will be more content shot on my new/old Iscorama 54 SC... very exciting. 

INTRODUCING THE SMARTPHONE

This was one of my favorite projects this year. I collaborated with Joe Hollier and Dan Fox and a group of other awesome creatives to create a series of videos for The Light Phone.

https://www.thelightphone.com/smartphonetm

Film Festival Action

There have been a handful of films which I have collaborated on at various film festivals all over the world recently. These are the types of projects that fill my soul. Independently spirited filmmakers who really bring their project from concept to completion to actually actively getting them out in the world and in front of live audiences. This process is so special to me. I love doing commercial and television work as well, it flexes a certain muscle... but these flex my heart. Congrats to Jo and Cameron and Jimmy and Aviva.  Here's some trailers/images

GETTING NAKED A BURLESQUE STORY - Venice Days Film Festival, DOCNYC

THE GATEWAY BUG - SANTA BARBARA FILM FESTIVAL, NASHVILLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, VAIL FILM FESTIVAL, MANY OTHERS. thegatewaybug.com

AARON - New York Short Film Festival 

IDIOTAROD LIVE ON BRICTV

My short doc, IDIOTAROD, my first directorial project that I have officially sold has aired on BRICTV'S cable channel as well as on it's digital channel under BK Stories. check it out here

contact me if you want to see a  private directors cut version ;)

in a world of high tech camera tests

Sometimes one must look backwards.

Joe and I have been working on an aesthetic for a new series of videos and wanted to compare a semi-modern 1080 to SD video on the first video camera I ever owned, the trusty ol' GL2. The results of this test may surprise you! 

More Beauty

I've shot many many makeup/beauty videos in the past few months, Hearst Digital Media has been keeping me busy. Here are a couple with many many more in the works. 

Vice News Tonight

I've been much enjoying shooting for VNT on HBO - in most of the pieces I've worked on for them in the last four months I feel as if I'm telling an essential story which needs to be shared. I feel in other ways as well, like I'm operating 1-3 cameras, a drone, monitoring and recording four channels of audio with the new FS7 firmware and occasionally shooting with Movi rigged to a vehicle going full speed on the highway. They certainly make me work for it, but I'm proud of the  work on these three pieces. 

NEW DOC REEL

I'm pleased to share my new documentary reel, rather than a traditional reel with images set to music I've tried to make this more about the scene work and include content to give context to the images. CHECK IT OUT.