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I’ve been shooting poker for past 10 years but it’s the first time I’m sharing something from that range of work. This is special. This is the biggest game ever played. More than 50 players gathered in London’s Hilton Hotel and played the game – each paying more than 1 million pounds to play. The entry fee was 1mln + 50k which went straight to charity. 

But to make it even more exclusive, it was invite only event where each businessmen got to invite one poker pro. Obviously such event lured the best players from both of the worlds. So for us it basically ment that anyone we shoot should be considered as celebrity – these guys don’t like wasting time. 

We produced 10 tv episodes for american market with Daniel Negreanu’s (a poker legend) commentary; but here is much shorter and way more intense re-cap of the event. Hope you like it. Watch the film here.

Range Rover was a crazy interesting project, since I got involved in so many different fields – directing, dop’ing, editing and writing the creative. Even though I’ve been shooting commercials for more than 10 years I’ve learnt a lot on this project. Here is one useful trick I wanted to try out.

No one likes long PPM meetings and as we all know discussing the packshot can take forever. I wanted to avoid that and learnt some basic 3D. Since our packshot involved 5 cars there were multiple options of shooting & placing the cars. I prepared all possible variations in 3D and let the client pick among 3 of them. Client quickly picked his favourite composition at PPM and that avoided this discussion during the shoot, when the time is so precious.

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After 2 years in a city I’m super glad to be back living in a van. Will spend whole winter here on Canary islands. Let me know if you are around, will catch a coffee some morning.

I had an amazing experience in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE. I almost always shoot in Dubai when in UAE, but this time we explored another state. Shooting kids is never easy! However this time we managed to get good take just before he got tired. And we were lucky, since the client picked a boy who has a twin brother! We planned the shoot carefully and did all the wide shots with his brother. It helped us to shoot more locations since they were taking turns.

Blast from the past! 2 years ago i had once in a life time opportunity – shoot at holy Angkor Wat. It’s the largest religious monument in the world, located in Cambodia. Temples are so ancient that trees grow on top of them, roots wrapping all around.

It’s also one of the locations where Angelina Jolie’ Tomb Raider was shot. My top 3 most favourite locations for sure! Just point at any direction and it’s awesome.

Even though we had all the permits for a shoot, we couldn’t really block hordes of tourist strolling around. So we had to time it so that no one is in the shot and be able to react quickly. I had to stay light, shot the whole project hand held, not even a gimbal. Proper breathing technique and some ninja-like movements kept the image nice and steady.

Check out the film here.

Thank you for opportunity @pictureperfrect, will never forget this!

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Recently I had an unusual project for Baltic Workboats. It’s a Estonian company who builds ultra modern & high tech boats for governments and private clients around the World. So they built one for Estonian Boarder Control and I stayed overnight on it! I must say it felt like a hotel, they’ve got fully equipped kitchen, hospital room, meeting room, relax room and a sauna! No pool though, for that – man overboard!

Check out the film here.

We shot actually 2 films for them, watch the second one here.

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Recently I had an opportunity to work in Russia again. I must say, hockey is huge there! Almost every one from the crew, client and agency side knew how to ice skate. That helped a lot, since we could be really mobile and move around the set fast. We didn’t use any dollies or cranes or other steady but bulky stuff. DOP just skated around camera handheld.

As I mentioned, hockey is really popular over there and the arena was booked from 7am until late evening. So we had a night shoot, which actually lasted until about 2pm next day. It definitely took a toll on my body. Later I learnt some tricks on “how to prepare for a bad night (no) sleep” and I wish i knew them earlier. Here are some:
– make yourself sleep deprived, already a day before. Then it’s easier to take a nap before the “bad night”.
– take a sauna (easy to find in Russia!)
– don’t eat & fast (keep your blood in brain)

The hardest I found was a mandatory 1 hour lunch brake at around 3am in a morning. You eat and want to fall asleep straight away, coffee doesn’t help! Better don’t eat in first place.

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Check out the ad here.

I’ve been lucky! Almost every project I’m involved creates unforgettable experience and stories to tell, good or bad, I want to share them here with you.