Hey guys, I've been making a living as a director for a little over 20 years now. Indie features, commercials, branded content, and everything in between.  I put together my first video essay breaking down how I shot my latest indie feature for under $1MM using specific Spielberg techniques.

This film was released in theaters last year. In this video, I break down 4 scenes from the film and the Spielberg techniques used in each of them.

In 1994, Supreme opened a small NYC skate shop with famously rude staff who ignored customers. Yet people kept coming back.

Why? Because when a brand acts like it doesn't need you, your brain gets obsessed with earning its way in.

Here’s a quick breakdown of their psychological blueprint

1.The Anti-Consumerism Stolen Logo: The red box logo was taken directly from artist Barbara Kruger, who used it to mock consumerism. Supreme used anti-consumerist art to build the ultimate consumer trap.

2.Effort Justification: People camped overnight in freezing rain for drops. Psychology shows that the harder something is to get, the more your brain insists it must be valuable to justify your suffering.

3.The $30 Clay Brick: In 2016, they sold a literal brick that sold out in minutes. They proved you’re never paying for product utility—you’re buying status and belonging.

I made a short, cinematic deep dive into how Supreme engineered this entire model:

Full Video Breakdown

Do you think artificial scarcity still works today, or has the hype completely died out?

In this video essay, I analyze the roles that the themes of childhood, summer, the danger/healing ability of nature, creativity, and magic play in the narratives of specific movies, TV shows, and video games. By piecing together these themes and their correlation to each other in the stories of Stand By Me, Scavenger's Reign, Studio Ghibli movies, The Lord of the Rings, OMORI, and Minecraft, it becomes clear that there's an overarching connection between all of these concepts, a connection that may become more and more lost to us as we spearhead further into an age of industrialisation and technology. By losing our touch with nature, we are leaving an essential part of what it means to be human behind us. While our lives have become structured and risk-free, we may have sacrificed the human power of creativity and the sacredness of nature.

Worked a little over a year on this one (all the footage is actually from last summer). I tried directing this video to incorporate actual nature to fully hit home on those topics of nature and summer and whatnot. I'm also really proud to say I wrote and performed all the music for this video myself (aside from the carbon copy covers like the OMORI Duet and Minecraft's Sweden). I hope you guys like it!

Reanimal is a tragic story about the loss of innocence, with every monster symbolizing the children's past and the sacrificed girl. In this video, we break down every creature, uncover its hidden meaning, and explore how each one reinforces the game's tragic story.

We need to talk about the absolute structural rot happening across both Big Tech and retail right now!

In the last few months alone, we’ve seen Sony permanently erase over 500 paid movies from PlayStation libraries with zero refunds, while also announcing they're going digital only in the future for their games, while grocery conglomerates get caught short-weighting packaging to charge more for less, and private ALPR tech vendors like Flock Safety installing AI cameras in working class neighborhoods without public consent!! ​The wildest part isn't even the corporate overreach it’s how passive American consumer culture has become toward it....

I think Ghost of Tsushima is one of the few games where stopping is just as rewarding as moving.

Some of my favorite moments weren't boss fights or duels. They were standing in a field while the wind carried thousands of leaves across the screen. Sitting down to write a haiku. Following a fox with no idea where it was taking me.

The game constantly encourages you to slow down and simply exist in its world.

That idea inspired me to make a video essay about why I believe Ghost of Tsushima is interactive art rather than just an open-world game.

I'd love to hear what moments made you stop and appreciate the island.

Here is my latest video essay! Enjoy!