Below is my latest commercial directing reel, compiling some of my most recent work.

Featuring:

Famous Footwear: Tiny Victories
EA Sports (Tiger Woods PGA 14): Golfaholic
Walk MS: MS Does Not Have Me
Volkswagen: California Adventure
Candlewood Suites: Extreme Cornhole

Hope you enjoy it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to composers Ron McBain (ronmcbainmusic.com/) for the original music for “Tiny Victories” and “Golfaholic” and Peter Tinari for “Extreme Cornhole”

Huge thanks to my clients, Poptent, friends, and family for all their support.

The titular voice in this case coming from the fantastic script by Luiso Berdejo takes the concept of the unreliable narrator to a new place.   I won’t spoil it by saying anymore.

4 different Spanish production companies teamed up to produce this short with many people working for free, because they loved the story and you will too.

Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Below is our take on the assignment,  while we didn’t make the sale or get an editor’s pick this time around, I rather enjoyed the spot, and the making of it and thought I’d share it with all of you.

• Featuring, Dara Cuoco as the wife, Nathaniel Orr as the Golfaholic, and Alexa Pino as the daughter.
• Music composed and mixed by Ron McBain.
• Shot, cut, and directed by Paul Cuoco

The spot that did sell is called “Home on a Sunday” by Tall Tale Productions, and is pretty great.  Congrats, guys well deserved.

Click here to view the embedded video.

About the production

While visiting with my wife’s family over the holidays my father-in-law, Jim Jones asked if I would bring out my camera to take some photos and video of his recently completed 1957 Jaguar Mark 1.  I was happy to oblige, but also took the opportunity to try something I’ve never done before.  Make a documentary.  Jim had been working on that car for as long as I’ve known him.  He’s an interesting, articulate guy, and I knew from the serendipitous stories that I’d heard about the car and his scavenging for parts that this would be an interesting story to tell.

Jim Jones and his 1957 Jaguar Mark 1.

Up until now, with the exception of some corporate marketing videos commissioned in my youth, I’ve made only narrative films and commercials with set scripts, storyboards, and lots of planning.  While Inheritance comes close by utilizing real photos taken by my Grandfather to document the atrocities of the Buchenwald concentration camp, it’s a narrative film with actors playing the parts.  I had never made a true documentary before.  It was uncharted territory and a chance to test my skills as a shooter, editor, and director.  Not only that, I had no crew, no lights, and no tripod.  I had packed for travel and was armed only with my Canon 7D, a GoPro Hero 2, a monopod, and thankfully my Tascam DR100 with an old hard-wired lavalier I always leave in the bag.

I had to do the best I could with what I had and very little preparation.  I knew what I wanted the film to feel like.  I knew what I wanted it to look like, and with that as my guide I followed my instincts.  I knew I had to interview Jim in his garage, but with only natural light, I had no idea how I was to light him.  When we got to Arizona and looked at the space, I decided to open the garage doors to let in as much natural light as possible, and positioned Jim on a stool near his workbench.  Behind the workbench was a window which provided a nice highlight.  I thanked my good fortune.  I used the Canon 7D with a Canon 17-55mm F2.8 IS lens on my monopod for the “A” camera, and the GoPro Hero 2 suction cupped to a tool cart as my “B” camera for cut-a-ways.  I utilized GoPro’s new Protune firmware to lock it into 24 fps, and give it a flat curve to better match the 7D.  I used the hard-wired lav and DR100 to capture his audio, and we spent about 45 minutes chatting about his love of cars, and his trials and tribulations restoring the Jaguar.

After the interview I shot B-Roll in the garage with the plastic fantastic while we waited for the sun to get a bit lower in the sky for the driving shots.  For that, the GoPro was obviously key, but I knew I needed some other shots as well.  My wife graciously volunteered to be my driver while we shadowed Jim and his Jag. I was quite literally hanging out the windows and tailgate of my car, pushing the image stabilization on the 17-55mm to the limit.  While the footage doesn’t compare to a big budget car-mounted crane shot,  I’m pretty happy with the results.

Editing the piece is where I was really challenged.  With no script and no real plan, but a bunch of great anecdotes and a pile of footage, I had to organize, shape, and mold the piece into something interesting, and hopefully worth watching.  It engaged a different part of my film-making brain and I liked it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the true cinema verite process of it all.  Shooting with only what you have  in natural light and finding the story within it. It was freeing.  You’re still telling a story just like narrative pieces, only here instead of crafting something to meet your thematic needs, it’s more like a great photograph, where you’re trying to reveal the essence and emotion of an event or a moment to the audience.

I truly hope you enjoy it, and look forward to your responses.

Music is “Miller’s Crossing” By Carter Burwell

Cutting a trailer for your film can sometimes be a daunting task, especially for the short filmmaker.  Your short is already (or should be) a very tight and streamlined story.  How do you distill to its most essential elements that entice and beguile potential viewers in less than 2 minutes?

Stephen Garret of Jump Cut (formerly Kinetic) breaks down the guidelines and tropes of successful trailer cutting in his article First Impressions for Filmmaker Magazine.  As a filmmaker and editor it’s a great read, and for me pointed out reasons why you may not want to cut the trailer for your own film, especially if like me, you’re also your own editor.

I previously detailed my process in creating a trailer for The Specimen, but can’t help but wonder now, what someone else may have come up with for the film.

EDIT: I came across a new article posted today strangely enough in the New York Times that also uses Stephen Garrett as a source and visually maps out trailers from this years Oscar Contenders.  You definitely need to absorb this. 

Link

What’s your process for cutting a trailer?  What do you think of Stephen Garrett’s advice?  Let me know in the comments.