Part III: Lockdown — (Previous part here.) Months in, every day is indistinguishable from the last: the truck arrives, we unload it, we stack the pallets, and then we stock. I am assigned to the infants department, which is perfect for someone who knows nothing about raising babies. Plus, more than half of the…

Part II: Fitting In — (Previous part here) Associates come and go, so it can be difficult to make friends and have it last outside the workplace. The system is this way by design: hire anyone fresh out of high school, they work for a few months for money, then they leave for school, move…

Part I: Throwing the Truck — A few months into the pandemic I started keeping a journal of my experiences working at Walmart. The retail space is bad enough, but when you put a pandemic on top of it, the only thing that shines through is incompetence. This is an account of my time working for…

Make It Like John Wick, but Funny — The newest film starring the ever versatile Bob Odenkirk has him breaking bad-ass in a new action-comedy from Ilya Naishuller. It’s a story that starts off like any other in suburban America: a white-collar man goes to a menial, low-key job, is estranged from his wife and kids, follows the…

Lighting Breakdown for “360 Seconds” — I wanted to break down a little short I DP’d last December. It’s a simple setup, but it was also the first time I tried to incorporate the “light the space, not the face” philosophy. Below is the lighting scheme: And the finished product:

Elia Suleiman, Paradise Now, and occupying cinema — One of my favorite films, Spirit of the Beehive (1973) by Victor Erice, criticized the Fascist Franco regime in Spain in the form of a meditative and poetic piece about the loss of childhood innocence. Another favorite of mine, The Extras (1993) by Nabil Maleh, revealed a tragicomedy life under…

Déjà Vu, a Travis Scott/Christopher Nolan collab, and a surprise performance from our new Batman, Robert Pattinson — Christopher Nolan’s newest film TENET was released on HBO Max this past weekend. The tentpole blockbuster entrusted with saving theaters nationwide during the pandemic can finally be watched the way Nolan did not intend. …

Cassandra Thomas, Nina Fischer, and Kristin Smart, the girl whose presence has shadowed a small community for decades — Trigger warning: much of this content will focus on sexual assault, as the film’s plot revolves around that topic. If it makes any of this readership uncomfortable, you are more than welcome to skip the article. Promising…

Lighting Breakdown #1: Spaces vs. Faces — “Through the Lens and Back Again” will be a column in which I share my journey to become a cinematographer. I am by no means an expert, but I think it’s important to show an artist’s creative process. Cinematographers will often post tips, tricks, lighting diagrams, BTS, etc., but I…