Cinematography

Day For Night shooting

Still from original footage

Day For Night shooting from Jeff Gatesman on Vimeo. Day for night is a classic way of shooting a night scene without expensive and huge lighting setups. Instead you shoot during the day and use various techniques to create night in post. I made this image as a test for a short film I am [...]


Baby Shower – The Doritos Spot

Baby Shower from Jeff Gatesman on Vimeo. This is the 30-second spot I made for Doritos’ Crash The Super Bowl competition. It did not make it into the top 5. Now, I’m not going to say that whoever makes the choices over at Doritos has no sense of humor, or that they lack taste or [...]


Forced Perspective in Motion Photography

forced perspective

an you teach new dogs, old tricks? It seems these days if you want to show something out of the ordinary in your film or video project, the default option is to composite, green screen, photoshop, or fix and create images in post, on a computer, in a digital realm. But before the days of [...]


Tulum ruins in the Yucatan

Tulum_3

The ruins of Tulum, an ancient Mayan city outside of Cancun.


Carroll Shelby’s Wife drives a mini van

Shelby Cobra

Last week I was working on a project being produced by 21st Century 3D which will ultimately be a 3D Imax film about legendary car builder Carroll Shelby. As much an American Icon as his cars are, Shelby is a true original who, over the course of the past nine decades has been everything from [...]


Culver City Car Show 3D!

21st Century 3D rig on Techno Crane

The George Barris Car Show came to Culver City this past weekend and I worked with the 21st Century 3D team to capture all of the fuel injected fun in 3D video.


Director of Photography reel

I have recently updated my DP reel and made it available here. There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept. ⎯ Ansel Adams I have been working behind the lens for almost 20 years, as Director of Photography, Photographer, and as a Studio Chief Lighting Technician. I believe that the language [...]


See What I’m Saying music video shot on Canon 5D MkII

Poster frame from See What I'm Saying music video

I just cannot stop marveling over this camera. We recently shot this music video with 3- 5D’s and a variety of Canon L series lenses. The video is for the title song of the documentary of the same name. See What I’m Saying, the Deaf Entertainers Documentary is just that: a film about 4 deaf [...]


See What I’m Saying wins best Feature Doc

See What I’m Saying, on which I was Director of Photography, won the best feature documentary prize at the Philadelphia Film Festival last week. The film was directed and produced by Hilari Scarl and is a look into the lives of 4 entertainers who all happen to be deaf.


Dominican Republic

While shooting a project in the Dominican Republic for Microsoft I spent a little time walking through a barrio just outside of Santo Domingo. At first there weren’t many people around, but an old woman invited me into her home to show me photos of her son who was serving with the U.S. Army. By [...]