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 of visual storytelling is a complex one that invollves composition, optics, light and movement. This is the first reel I’ve put together in awhile, but it won’t be the last. Consider it a work in progress and feel free to comment.

My experience includes working with 35mm and 16mm film cameras, broadcast video, High Definition, and all of the latest digital cameras.

View the reel in High Def here, and see more of my films on Vimeo.

I rode my bike down to Venice Beach on Sunday, as I usually do, but this particular Sunday was unusually overcast and dreary for Southern California. None-the-less there were plenty of skaters at the skate park and I managed to get a couple of shots. I used a polarizing filter to cut the light down even more so I could make the skaters blurry, to give them a sense of faster motion.

Last week I was working on a pilot for a television show and our location was a strip mine. The mine is still working, in fact they have plans to completely decapitate some of the large hills in the area. It’s gorgeous country and kind of sad to think it will all be leveled in a few years. But I wanted to get some shots of the huge machinery that is used for this kind of task, but I got to location a little later than I had hoped and only had time to get this one shot.

Blue Sky Mining

A Huge earth shredder rips into the hills and grinds them into sand.

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 entertainers and is the first of it’s kind as it is open captioned to be accessible to a hearing impaired audience. The music video is open captioned as well, and as far as I know, is also the first of it’s kind. The video was directed by Hilari Scarl and the music is written and performed by the Los Angeles based group Powder.

The video was shot using a total of 3-5D MkII cameras and a variety of support devices. Post production was done in Final Cut Pro and After Effects while the look was created in Color and using the Magic Bullet Looks Suite filters. The workflow included downloading CF cards to external hard drives on location and then transcoding the h.264 footage to Apple Pro Res 422 HQ for editing in Final Cut.

The Camera Crew

Jeff Gatesman – Director of Photography
Barry Berona – Additional Camera Operator
David Farkas – Addditional Camera Operator
Pedro Guimares – DIT and 1st camera assitant
Tiffany Aug – Additional 1st camera assitant
Alexander Brennan – 2nd Camera Assistant

Stories of what a film crew can do when left unsupervised, with several days off, on a distant location are legendary. This is not one of those stories. Recently I was working on a film in Shreveport, La., and with 4 days off due to circumstances beyond my control, got together with some of the other crew members and made a short film of our own.

I shot this film entirely with a canon 5D Mark II and grip and lighting equipment purchased from Home Depot. Our one prop was purchased at a swap meet for $7. Of course the film could not have been made without the great talents of our cast and crew, and a ready-made set.

The film was conceived and written by Nancy Breaux and myself, and we borrowed the strengths of our stunt coordinator, Gregory Brazzel, electric best boy, Ken Ballantine, key grip, Scott “Scooter” Hillman, set decorator, Mary Beth O’Connor, and location manager Kendrick Hudson. Our three actors were the stunt crew from the feature: Jennifer H. Cobb, Gregory Brazzel (stunt coordinator) and Tracy Thomas, who also wrote and recorded all the music for Full Contact Scrabble.

Sound for the film was recorded on the 5D using the built-in mic, which is less than desirable. Fortunately during post, 2-time Emmy-award winning sound designer Adam Johnston stepped in and trashed all of the location sound and replaced it with a mighty soundtrack complete with cicada’s, buzzing flies and the snapping gum that helps define Jennifer’s character.

If you liked the film, leave a comment for us. If you didn’t like it: what the heck is wrong with you?

Nancy Breaux: writer/producer
Gregory Brazzel: stunt coordinator
Ken Ballantine: gaffer
Scott, “Scooter” Hillman: Key Grip
Mary Beth O’Connor: set decorator
Kendrick Hudson: location coordinator
Ron King: location re-recording

Tracy Thomas: original music
Adam Johnston: sound design

cast: Jennifer H. Cobb, Gregory Brazzel and Tracy Thomas.
co-written, directed, shot and edited by Jeff Gatesman.
Watch it again in High Def:

It used to be a writers town and it’s always been a fighter’s town. For writers and fighters and furtive torpedoes, cat-bandit, baggage thieves, hallway headlockers on the prowl, baby photographers and stylish coneroos, this is the spot that is always most convenient, being centrally located, for settling ancestral grudges. Whether the power is in a .38, a typewriter ribbon or a pair of six-ouncers, the place has grown great on bone-deep grudges: of writers and fighters and furtive torpedoes.

—Nelson Algren
Chicago: City On The Make

On a blue moon New Years eve Night in Chicago I wanted to get some more images of my hometown, so before going to the year end celebrations I wandered around the downtown river front until it got too cold. And at 17 degrees, that was a very short time and made the long exposures seem much longer.

The thing I like most about making images in a city at night are the colors, and in Chicago that generally means a golden straw colored hue juxtaposed with cooler tones in the buildings and sky.

Click on the images to see a lightbox of larger images.

Driving around the Chicago suburbs at night, checking out the Christmas decorations.

A Beautiful little Christmas Tree

I’m told it’s a four-hour drive from Shreveport to Baton Rouge, but my recent run-in with Louisiana Highway Patrol has me setting the cruise control to keep me traveling at a safely under-the-radar ramble through the forests and over the bayou’s of this lovely state, and it actually takes me slightly closer to five hours to get to my destination, which is a lighting rental house where we will load a 40′ trailer with the the tools of our trade.

Baton Rouge is the state capitol of Louisiana, sits along the banks of the Mississippi River, and it is quite apparent that most of the activity here centers around the campus of the Louisiana State University, and, at least this week, that means football. It’s a big game weekend where the LSU Tigers are hosting their mortal enemy, the Florida Gators and the town seems just on the verge of going crazy. Frat houses are being completely wrapped with thick black plastic sheeting either to hold out, or hold in the enthusiastic revelers (I haven’t figured that one out yet), little tent villages are springing up on every available lawn, and there is a total ban on parking anywhere near the campus, so in my spare few minutes of time for exploring, I head toward the city center.

The former state Capitol building in downtown Baton Rouge

This beautiful building which resembles a castle, is the former state Capitol building and now functions as a History museum. Directly across the street from it is an old railroad terminal that also serves as a museum, and the Mississippi River.

Mississippi River from Baton Rouge

No Swimming in Baton Rouge

University Lake, Baton Rouge, LA

I had to stop and get one photo of University Lake, which sits on the eastern edge of the campus of LSU before heading back toward Shreveport.

You can barely see the remnants of a double rainbow outside of Lafayette

For the three days we were in Baton Rouge it was very hot and humid with big billowy cumulus clouds hanging lazily in the sky, but as we crossed over the Mississippi River on our way back to Shreveport, the skies clouded over and we found ourselves in a driving rain with hellbent wind that kept tossing our car around the freeway. This went on for about 45 minutes until we stopped outside Lafayette for gas and the rain stopped and this gorgeous double rainbow appeared.

Pre-production for the latest feature film I am working on has begun in and around Shreveport, LA, a city built on oil money which seems to be fairly wet, with lush green landscapes and some of the prettiest sunsets I have seen in awhile. Hopefully I will find an interesting point of view of this place over the next 2 months and, through my lens, bring it to you.

Scott "Scooter" Hillman, Key Grip and former trapeze artist

A lot of the buildings seem to be crumbling well before their time in this part of the country, as if they get saturated with all the humidity and rain, and then the real storms come through and just tear open the already weakened structures.

The last curtain has fallen on this theater

Ken Ballantine, Lighting Best Boy, and his mosquito protection

And then there are the mosquitos. This Pump Jack is deep in some woods near Oil City, LA and apparently the center of all things Mosquito. In this photo Ken Ballantine, our Best Boy, models the latest in personal Mosquito attire. They are so thick in this wood that they practically create a haze in the air, in fact they are so dense that you cannot eliminate their bites, you can only minimize them.

More Shreveport to come…