WEB OF DECEIT - DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY'S STATEMENT

When it comes to cinematography, I strive to highlight the best possible details of each scene as a compliment to the themes of the story. The question I ask of each frame is “How can we capture the director’s vision while highlighting the intended expressions of the actors while best utilizing scene elements?” These three focuses, along with my camera and lighting practice, are born of my time in advanced cinematography and documentary classes, observing multiple DP’s, and the principles shared with me by my mentors. In addition to calibrating oneself for the myriad of challenges that arise in photography, I aim to take the time to allow a location, actor, or script to reveal to me how best to execute a scene’s look. To these means I also seek to join projects that hold inspiring elements. When Kelly Needleman presented me with the opportunity to become his Director of Photography I was immediately inspired by both the compelling theme and Kelly’s initial visions of how to present these in a riveting story. I also knew that time would work against us, given that it is a student production, yet I took this as a challenge for me to execute the look of the film in the best possible way.

 

The story that Kelly wrote was thrilling from the very first read. His story was not only something that I had always wanted to try to film on a technical side, it also highlighted important themes that are a reality in academia today. The explosive emergence of AI, along with the ensuing access to shortcutting and cheating, is bringing a paradigm shift to the academic world that colleges and professors have only begun to contend with. To these exact concerns, we even had Pepperdine faculty relate to us that they’ve been having the exact same confounding discussions, about AI and academic cheating, that our characters in Web of Deceit engage in. Furthering the riveting zeitgeist relevant theme, Web of Deceit pulls us into a story of mystery and intrigue, revealing the layers of potential empire changing use of AI as a means to mass deceit and control.

 

Working on Web of Deceit was nothing short of a continuous learning experience for me. Our main cinematic inspirations were films such as Wolf of Wall Street, Ferris Bueller, and 21 - with a nod to Fight Club and the wonders of dinginess found in the frat house basement scenes. While in comparison to these some of my most loved films, we had budget and time constraints, I believe we executed a wonderful production that has given justice to both the script and the great acting talent who joined us. I would hope the audience is surprised by our short piece that came together so well under the amazing leadership of Kelly’s directing and through the efforts of our extremely efficient team.

 

The classic films that we referenced served a great purpose in inspiring our blocking and lighting as well as our editing choices that I believe truly made the script come alive on screen. Above all, this project presented many learning experiences on the technical side. To start off, I have to say that the key to my own learning on set was being able to work with an amazing camera team and steadicam operator. When I read the script, I immediately knew how much movement the movie needed. Stillness, especially in the opening act, was not something that would drive the story forward and keep the audience on the edge of their seats. The choices for movement, including the very difficult tasks of blocking and lighting complicated one shots, were essential to connecting the frame to the main character when he breaks his fourth wall and invites the audience into his world “real time”. Planning became my savior as our production mapping saved us from so many of the pitfalls that could have tripped up our production when principal photography had to roll. On the lighting note, Kelly and I decided that the drive brought by the characters to his script called for motivated lighting, with a few complimentary scenes of our actors framed with intentional and more creative lighting. We always aimed to make our lighting dramatic, as in the frat house scenes, in a way that adds to and doesn't distract from the “reality” at play. 

 

My overall experience with this crew was more professional, humorous, and inspiring than I ever could have imagined it to be. Everyday throughout our 4-day (seemed like 24 hours each day) continuous shoot everyone was up and on the line with a smile and a sharp eye for what would make Web of Deceit as good as possible. I have to highlight how both our director and producer utilized their lead positions to outpace the guidelines set for our team during pre-production, always keeping the team on the same page with a vision towards how best to realize each scene. Then on set both Kelly and Jacky Ma created the type of talent drawing, inclusive, open minded space that allowed for the best ideas from every department to inform our production. The actors were beyond professional and showed up every day not missing a single line. I will always be grateful to our talent on screen, of every sized role, who arrived fully committed to their character with the director’s vision.

 

At the moment we called a wrap on set, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I believe will be conveyed to what the audience sees on screen. We presented a story that is hyper-relevant and were blessed to have a talented group to bring Web of Deceit to life. Given my own youth and experience, I could not say I was the best DP this production could have had, while I can say that I certainly gave it my best. If any of the audience does discover a shot worth caching to memory, this would be due to those frames where I did adhere to the key guidance of my film mentors, the lessons of my professors, and due to my love of this project. At the least I think an audience will find Web of Deceit to be fun and at the most a story that is worth developing into a feature film.