My Experience

well, some of it anyway


2021 - NOW! Freelancing and more

In the fall of 2021, my fiancé and I decided to make our way across the country to beautiful Los Angeles which is where I currently reside and work! Even in the short time living and working here, I’ve been able to meet and work with some incredible people which you can see more of on my portfolio page! If you’d every like to collaborate, or just need an extra set of hands, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

2013 - 2021 Banner

Banner began in early 2013 and I was lucky enough to be one of the first employees.  Banner was what the Chicago Blackhawks video department (Blackhawks TV) had evolved into.  The goal of Banner was to take the storytelling tools we honed from our time directly under the Blackhawks management, and help our new partners’ stories come to life.  The years I worked at Banner, undoubtedly, were some of the best of my career.  While at Banner I was been able to grow my capabilities as a storyteller, shift from a “jack of all trades” employee to having a more focused role in Post-Production, and take on a senior leadership role allowing me to help my team members grow in their own career paths. 

 

  • Director, Producer, Lead Editor

    For those who may not be familiar, e-sports are a huge and growing industry. E-sports is professional video gaming. Typically these sports have their own leagues and are comprised of teams as you would any other traditional sport like basketball, soccer, and so forth. in 2019, banner started working with the Houston Outlaws which was a team that played the game Overwatch in the Overwatch League (OWL). It’s a first-person shooter game akin to counter-strike or Halo. Banner’s experience with the Blackhawks and Cubs was a perfect fit for a budding league of new athletes such as the Outlaws. For their first arena game of the 2020 season, I had the opportunity to shoot a quick roster reveal, showcasing the team for all of the fans. I worked alongside a really talented director (JoVaughn Trammell) and Cinematographer Joey Wang) as a Director/Producer/Lead Editor and am really happy with the weird, silly, piece we came up with!

  • Assistant Director, Lead Editor

    AAA was a client banner was able to work with relatively early in the company’s existence on a variety of really cool projects. My personal favorites were the sketches we would shoot with professional NASCAR driver Joey Logano and Professional NHRA drag racer Robert Hight. Both Joey and Robert have very different personalities, but had great chemistry together. I was lucky enough to lead edit their season campaign videos for 2019 which played at each of their respective races.

  • Cinematographer, Editor, Producer

    In 2017, Wintrust bank sponsored a group of Chicago born Winter Olympians (Aja Evans, Kendall Coyne, Brody Roybal to name a few) and I was a part of the team to help produce bios on each of the Olympians. It was great incredible to meet these people up close and to see the result of how lifetimes of dedication to a craft can pay off. Definitely one of my favorite experiences ever!

  • Cinematographer, Assistant Producer

    After the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010 and 2013, we kept close eyes on the team to make sure we’d be prepared if we saw their momentum build up for another serious push to win again. For the 2014-15 season we began filming extensively, hoping the team would at least make it to the finals. Not only did the make it, they won it all a third time in five years and we had enough incredible footage to make another documentary appropriately titled “Hat Trick”. I was a cinematographer/producer for this documentary, filming the team on the road, at home, and covering special events and interviews.

 

2010 - 2013 The chicago blackhawks

In the late spring of 2010, I started a full-time position at the Chicago Blackhawks in their video department called Blackhawks TV. While working directly for the team, I was given incredible access to the players and helped produce three seasons of the team's broadcast TV series (also named “Blackhawks TV”) which featured a behind the scenes and in depth look at the players and their personalities. In addition to producing other behind the scenes features, day to day video needs for the front office, and the BHTV television series, we also produced two additional long form documentaries showcasing the 2013 Stanley Cup championship and the creation and unveiling of two statues honoring Blackhawks hall of fame players Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita.

 

  • Assistant Producer, Cinematographer, Assistant Editor

    The second long form documentary we produced for the team which we got printed to blu-ray and sold locally around the Chicagoland area (it was VERY exciting at the time to have something we made on blu-ray!). This chronicled the Blackhawks championship run from Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals where the team scored the final two goals seventeen seconds apart, through their Banner Raising ceremony that took place the following season. For this documentary I helped travel with the team to capture some of the content and was actually at the Boston Bruins stadium, TD Garden, when they won it all in Game 6 (my clothes were very soaked with Champaign and beer).

    It also had a special exhibition at the Navy Pier IMAX theatre for it’s premiere which was very special to me. This was a very iconic theatre in downtown Chicago and to see something I worked on being exhibited on a giant IMAX screen was just incredible (for the record we didn’t shoot it for IMAX…but it was still cool).

  • Assistant Producer, Cinematographer

    Our first long form documentary which covered two statues that the Blackhawks commissioned to commemorate Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull. My tasks were to get coverage of the statues during their process of creation, film the interviews with Bobby and Stan, and then finally cover the unveiling ceremony itself.

 

2008 - 2010 freelance a.k.a “the beginning”

Wow, I’m honored you made it this far in my professional life story!
This was the very beginning of my career, so while I’m not showcasing any of this in my portfolio, I’m still proud of the experiences.

 

  • Lead Editor, Camera Operator

    This was the very first comedy performance ever filmed at Zanies in Chicago, IL. Two of my best friends and I produced a DVD that Kevin was able to sell to help promote his stand up act. This project was huge in helping me understand the complexities of Multi-Cam and Multi-Event editing.

  • Offline Editor, On-set PA

    This was a local infomercial for a car dealership on the south side of Chicago. It sure was...interesting to say the least (yes there were puppets involved in production and yes I was there while those sections were filmed). A perfect medium scaled job though for a young and green editor like myself at that time, which gave me a lot of experience in AVID, media management, organization, and working alongside producers.

  • Data Manager

    Super ultra-low budget independent film

    This was my first big job out of college and I was the data wrangler/manager. I would take the P2 cards from camera (wow, remember P2??? No?....that’s ok), copy and back them up the footage, then make logs on set for the online editor so they could hit the ground running once they received the footage.