Microsoft · 2017
Two Artists, Two Continents, One Canvas
Director of Photography / Producer
Scope of Work
Two roles, one person: I was both the Director of Photography and the on-site producer. Leading a four-person crew in Lafayette, Louisiana, I owned every camera, lighting, and framing decision on set, ran the production and the shoot schedule, and was solely accountable for delivering keynote-ready footage on the first submission, with no second trip and no safety net.
The Challenge
Microsoft needed footage of something genuinely new: Lafayette artist Cayla Zeek and Norwegian muralist Hans Hammonds co-creating a mural across continents using HoloLens. The technology was the story, but the footage had to make the human collaboration feel as real as the innovation, and it was built for keynote use. I was deployed to Lafayette, Louisiana as DP and on-site producer, leading a crew of four, responsible for running the shoot and delivering the footage. Keynote production at Microsoft runs on first-submission expectations. There's no soft deadline.
My Approach
With a lean crew and no margin for a second trip, I had to produce and shoot at the same time, managing the timeline and the frame at once. The hard part of shooting HoloLens isn't the hardware; it's that mixed reality doesn't translate through a lens. What the wearer experiences and what the camera captures are two different things, and what actually makes the moment land is the human connection the technology enables. Every lighting and framing decision had to serve both the physical space and that invisible collaboration, capturing two artists genuinely making something together while thousands of miles apart, and making a keynote audience feel the weight of it. We delivered on schedule. The footage cleared stakeholder review on the first submission.
Scale
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