I designed and built a website for documentary filmmaker Dinesh Sabu for his terrific new Kartemquin film Unbroken Glass. His film, which deals with a family history of mental illness, is striking and powerful.
How Do U Feel is a Millennial voter outreach website I built which invites young people to upload video selfies of themselves talking about the 2016 presidential election. This project ended up needing a bunch of video related special features.
I had a bunch of fun creating BeyondBlindInteractive.org, a tool to help students learn about blindness and other visual impairments. The site, envisioned by Matt Lauterbach and designed by Holle Andersen features an interactive interview with a visually impaired person, FAQs about blindness, science guides about 6 different visual impairments, an etiquitte game created by […]
I just finished work on the brand new website for 70 Acres in Chicago, a great new documentary film by Ronit Bezalel. One thing I loved about this project was working with all the great photos from her filmmaking journey. I’m excited to see this film in the wild now that it’s released!
I was excited to work on filmmaker Michael Caplan’s website for Montrose Pictures recently. Michael is one of those few filmmakers that makes both documentaries and fictional films so it was fun to build a site that combined both of those elements!
I was proud recently to work on a major site refresh for Protect Our Defenders, a great nonprofit organization dedicated to eradicating rape and sexual assault in the military. In particular they’ve done great work trying to reform the military’s sexual assault justice system. I’m proud to have worked with them since the organization was […]
Recently I’ve been hard at work on my own little project, a quixotic quest to resurrect my great grandfather’s long lost opera and give the show a world premiere, 80 years after it was written. Check out the Kickstarter campaign for Andina I’ve created if you’re at all interested to see what I’ve been up […]
I recently put together a new revamped website for Otus, an educational iPad app company. It has a very long onepage-style vertical scrolling homepage which was fun to build. I also enjoyed working with Robin from Cumulo Creative who designed it.
I recently built a new corporate website for TeleTime Video, a New York-based video services firm. I had previously worked with them on the Experience Salon Success website that I also built.
I’m super excited to launch the new Radical Grace documentary film website that I built for Interchange Productions. I had a lot of fun working to meet our deadline, which was the day that Hot Docs announced this documentary about American nuns staring down a Vatican reprimand was going to screen there. The beautiful art […]
I had a great time recently shooting video for a Texas-based company called Illumitex. They make super efficient LED lights that are used in indoor growing environments for vertical farms. Their light is optimized for a specific part of the color spectrum which is why they’re such a neat purple color. For the video above […]
Josh Lanzet is a hilarious LA-based actor whose work I really enjoy. I had the opportunity to create a new website for him at joshlanzet.com. Check it out!
I built the Experience Salon Success website for a new client, TeleTime Video. It’s an e-commerce website where you can purchase DVDs or pay to unlock streaming video business education series tailored towards salon and span owners. In the past I’ve used PayPal (ugh, it doesn’t even merit a link) and Square Market as payment […]
The Retrofuturist is a small website I built for my fiancé, Tiffany Wilson. It’s a hobby blog where she’s going to post all sorts of
There’s not a huge amount to say about this little website I cooked up recently: I just really love sriracha hot sauce. And thus, Sriracha Heaven was born! I did have a bunch of fun creating the custom WordPress theme though, as well as researching all the different sorts of sriracha products that exist for […]
Last week I had a blast co-producing the official 2014 Chicago Marathon video for my friends over at Storyview with my friend Nick Nummerdor of Little Cabin Films. To see how last year’s video turned out (which I also co-produced), click the image link above to watch it on the Bank of America website. It’s […]
I had a great time shooting and editing this promotional video for some friends’ contemporary classical ensemble, Fonema Consort! If you’ve never heard this type of music before, it’s definitely worth checking out.
This is a short opera put on by a group of friends in Chicago that was performed on September 20, 2014 in an empty lot being used as a garden. I shot and edited this piece for them. It was a ton of fun!
I recently had the pleasure of redesigning and building out the new Ruthless Films website for filmmaker Ruth Leitmann. I had a lot of fun working with her to craft a retro-inspired website that meshes with the style of much of her fantastic work.
Do You Want a Sandwich is a small promotional website I built for the one man show of Josh Lanzet. I enjoyed working with Josh again, as I had previously built the website for Adults Embracing Failure earlier this year.
I built this documentary filmmaking cameras mini-site to showcase camera recommendations for beginning documentary filmmakers who are comparing gear to purchase. It also features a number of documentary filmmaking books, most of which I’ve read and gotten something out of.
Dating: Adults Embracing Failure is a great little show playing in Chicago on Fridays through August 1st. It stars Lindy Voeltner and Josh Lanzet and is really funny. This is a little site a built for it.
Otus is an educational iPad app startup company based in Chicago. I shot and edited this video for them showing some of the features of the app and what students think of it. Additional camera: Sarah Flagg
Prisoner of Her Past is a great documentary by the esteemed team over at Kartemquin Films. This is the second site I’ve built for them (the first being ’63 Boycott), I always enjoying working with the folks over there. The site features an extensive screening history and host-your-own screening materials, as well as updates about […]
This is a small landing page I built in a few hours for an educational iPad app company that’s rebranding. It has some features as well as a lead collecetion mechanism. Turned out nicely for only a few hours of work. Client: Otus / Amdur Spitz & Associates
The Daily Background was a progressive political blog I started in 2005 as a freshman in college, it received more than 1 million hits across 7,450 posts. I stopped regularly posting in 2010 about a year after I graduated and began working full time. I’ve now retired the blog and the domain thedailybackground.com redirects here […]
Radical Grace is a documentary by Rebecca Parrish and Interchange Productions about three irrepressible nuns who find themselves at odds with the Vatican on social issues. I built a new website for the project that matched the branding done by graphic designer Julie Lewis. Client: Interchange Productions
An Incomplete List of Things We Left Behind on the Moon is a short experimental documentary that I made out of old NASA archival footage. The film was shown at a few festivals and was spotlighted on the Washington Post website as well as some others, check it out, and its interactive companion website.
These are some videos I edited and partially shot for Food Patriots. Each was at a school where students had some familiarity with the documentary, and we put cameras and iPads in their hands to tell their own stories. Client: Groundswell Educational Films.
I did this website for Algren The Movie, a documentary about Chicago writer Nelson Algren. This website features information about the film, filmmakers and updates on their progress.
Michelle Renee is a Chicago-area party planner. I built this website for her business, with the design done by Beth Keller Stein. The website features a list of the services she offers and a contact form to get in touch with her. Client: Social Occasions by Michelle Renee Designed by: Beth Keller Stein (Maze Inc)
This is a website I built for Brit Tzedek V’Shalom, a historic Jewish American organization committed to a fair resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. The site features a massive photo gallery, an interactive timeline, a user-submitted reflection database, and more. Client: Interchange Productions/Brit Tzedek V’Shalom
This is a small website I built for a short documentary about two people with different connections to the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago. The site features a booking form and a trailer for the film. Check it out: “The Greens” Documentary. Client: Groundswell Educational Films
I was bored during a recent delay on Southwest Airlines, so I made this video chronicling the experience.
A few years ago, I entered a contest sponsored by the US National Archives. The challenge was to take one of their historic photos and visit the location where the photo was taken (decades ago), and re-contextualize that image within the contemporary environment. In other words, basically just to take a new photo at the […]
The One Hope United Child Development Centers website is another website I built for One Hope United, a foster care and child care nonprofit organization. The design was by Maze Inc’s Beth Keller Stein, programming by myself. Client: Amdur Spitz & Associates / One Hope United.
I recently built a website for Kartemquin Films, the prominent Chicago documentary nonprofit organization. ’63 Boycott is a documentary in progress about the largest demonstration in Chicago history; the 1963 Chicago Public Schools boycott over segregated classrooms. One of the neat features on this site is the ability for visitors who participated in the boycott […]
This is the fundraising microsite I built for Rebecca Parrish of Interchange Productions documentary film “Sister” (working title) was about to begin production in Rome. Their trip was pre-planned but it just happened to co-incide with the announcement of the new pope. Crazy timing! Impressively, Rebecca’s goal of $25,000 has almost been met! The film […]
The Robben Island Singers are a trio of South African anti-apartheid freedom fighters turned singers. I built this website for the project which showcases videos of their performances in American schools and also offers their music for sale. Client: Groundswell Educational Films
This is a short, limited scope documentary about Michael Reese Hospital that I produced while a student at Columbia College Chicago in 2009. While news cameras were stationed outside during the closure of the historic hospital, I gained exclusive access to the inside exclusively of the hospital, gathering a more candid, personal version of a […]
Full Body Whisper is a documentary about Chicago theatrical Joyce Piven pioneer that I built this little website for.
This is the packaging I did for the special 15 year anniversary edition of the award winning documentary The Return of Navajo Boy. I also did the DVD menus and website for that project, as well as edit most of the webisodes and bonus features included on the DVD. Client: Groundswell Educational Films
This is a website I built for One Hope United, the foster care/child welfare nonprofit. They have some unique challenges because the organization is geographically spread out across four states with different but similar programs in each state. So our team had to come up with a solution to make that clear– something their old […]
The Mrs Judd’s Games website features games by KBooM! Games imprint Mrs Judd’s Games. Mrs Judd, a retired master teacher, designs educational iPad apps for parents and classrooms. The site I built also features some videos I shot and edited. The site was designed by the very skilled Beth Keller Stein. Client: Mrs Judd’s Games/Amdur […]
The Navajo Water Quality Website is a website I built with a team of Northwestern University folks who digitized hundreds of EPA water samples taken on the Navajo Nation. Since the Navajo reservation is spread out, people don’t have access to running water by and large. The wells and springs folks down there often rely […]
CleanupDePue.org is a website I built for the village of DePue, Illinois, one of the worst environmental superfund disaster sites in the United States. The town was left with hundreds of tons of toxic waste thanks to ExxonMobil and CBS/Viacom shutting down their factories. The site was a lot of work to build but fun […]
This is a website I built for a documentary called The Return of Navajo Boy. The site includes online ordering of the film on DVD, the first time I’d done any e-commerce stuff. You can also view clips about the film and read news articles. Although it came out in the year 2000, the film […]
Food Patriots is a website I built for Groundswell Educational Films, a Chicago-based documentary nonprofit organization. The site was designed by Six, a British design firm. Food Patriots is an upcoming documentary by Groundswell that I’ve also been involved in helping to shoot and do post production work on. More on this later. It will […]
This is a website I built for LandPath, a real estate development consultant group here in Illinois. It was designed by Beth Keller Stein of Maze Inc. Client: LandPath Inc/Amdur Spitz & Associates
Here are some videos I’ve shot and edited for Northshore University Hospital System here in Illinois. They were super nice and I’ve had a lot of fun working on their projects. Client: Northshore University HealthSystem/Amdur Spitz & Associates
I shot and edited this little video for One Hope United staring Chicago Bulls player Joakim Noah who supports their foster care programs. Joakim was a super laid back nice (and tall) guy. His mom couldn’t have been nicer too. Here’s a behind the scenes photo: Client: One Hope United/Amdur Spitz & Associates
Protect Our Defenders, whose website I built, is a nonprofit organization that seeks to reform the way rape and sexual assault are handled within the US military. It’s shocking not only how widespread of a problem it is but also how poorly it’s handled under the current system where commanding officers are basically acting as […]
This is the Amdur Spitz & Associates website which I built. Amdur Spitz & Associates is a strategic communications and public relations firm here in Chicago that I’ve done a lot of work for. It was designed by Beth Keller Stein of Maze Inc. Client: Amdur Spitz & Associates
Frances Judd is a really cool retired kindergarden master teacher. I’ve shot and edited some videos for Mrs Judd’s Games (subsidiary of the Chicago-based game company KBooM! Games). The impact of technology on education is pretty interesting. The first time I can really remember using a computer in a classroom was in fifth grade– this […]
The Forgotten History Blog is a little blog I started as a hobby project a few years ago with some curious anecdotes I never learned in school. Research is one of my passions so writing little items for it is pretty fun for me. Interestingly it’s had a few hundred thousand hits and was even […]
AssetGarage.com is a cute little website I built which helps creative types find free music, images and footage to use in their work. It has a search engine, although at the moment the browse feature is probably more useful because there’s only about 50 sources indexed. Users can also submit a website if they know […]