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Lucha Underground

This is a new TV show I’ve been camera operating on. It’s very different from the documentary style of work I usually do but it’s been fun. I’m one of the handheld cameras near the ring, you can see me a few times in the edit. The wrestlers rarely stay in the ring, they come flying out and fight on the floor a lot, barely missing me. They move fast and the moves they do are pretty impressive.

The camera they give me is a Sony HDC1500 which has no internal recording mechanism and a tiny black and white view finder. It’s a 2/3″ CCD but keeping my focus sharp is the hardest part of the job even with peaking cranked up. We are shooting in an old warehouse in downtown LA and it gets really hot when they turn on the show lights. I invested in sweat bands after the first day and they help. Eight cameras are tethered to the control room and we are all on PL headsets with our director calling the shots.

From Executive Producer Mark Burnett and Robert Rodriguez, This is Lucha Underground. Premieres Wed 10/29 at 8pm ET/PT, on El Rey Network.

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Lone Survivor – Featurette

abq-crew1Almost 1 year ago I traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico to cover pre-production of Pete Berg’s latest film “Lone Survivor” for Herzog & Company. I got to work with some of my crew from “On Freddie Roach” again too, Brandon Carroll was our producer, Sean McElwee was camera operating, and Travis Franklin was running sound. Here is a description of the film:

Based on The New York Times bestselling true story of heroism, courage and survival, Lone Survivor tells the incredible tale of four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level al-Qaeda operative who are ambushed by the enemy in the mountains of Afghanistan. Faced with an impossible moral decision, the small band is isolated from help and surrounded by a much larger force of Taliban ready for war. As they confront unthinkable odds together, the four men find reserves of strength and resilience as they stay in the fight to the finish.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Marcus Luttrell, the author of the first-person memoir “Lone Survivor,” whose book has become a motivational resource for its lessons on how the power of the human spirit is tested when we are pushed beyond our mental and physical limits. Starring alongside Wahlberg as the other members of the SEAL team are Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster.

Tobias A. Schliessler was the cinematographer for the film, we shot the interviews and behind the scenes shots in this featurette below. Lone Survivor will be in theaters January 10.