saam gabbay

Partnered with Storyworks for this extremely fun shoot and production.  Details are in the news section.

Argon 18 is a unique and passionately managed bicycle builder in Montreal and we happen to love them.  In this film, Architect Terence Young, an airport designer and an 18 year veteran of multisport takes is through the thought process of choosing the right bike.  While holding 28mph on PCH.

I only wish we had enough time to fit in more of Warwick’s remarkable life.  I directed a shoot with him along with Saturday Night Life DP Alex Buono, and documentary photographer Brian Finke joined UrbanDaddy in New York City for Canon and UrbanDaddy.

This was an unscripted and improvised photofilm made with 2400 photographs one Sunday night after dinner in the studio.  Afterwards it was cut to LCD Soundsystem’s “I Can Change” because…. it seemed to fit!!  You can read specifics on the news page.

A photofilm for renowned architect Steven Ehrlich.  You can read more about it on the news page.

Motion graphics examples from the last 16 years.

For JWT / Team Detroit.  Shell’s animated end-tag.

Acura’s first ever animated end-tag, worldwide.  For RPA/LA.

A photofilm with members of Gensler’s branding group shot for Calgary Economic Development.

Jem and I met because I was wearing a mustache at a MoCA opening.  A year later we co-directed her music video together.  It’s a photofilm made from 25,632 photograhs.

This photofilm served as inspiration for the Jem music video.  Made with 650 photographs.  Shot in the studio.   Music is by Arvo Pärt.

A photofilm of Rosalie, Charlie and Emily.  A perfect day in Los Angeles.

A little film made for my good friend Patrick’s well behaved birthday party in Venice.

This is the trailer for the very well reviewed HD yoga film I directed with Oliver Reinsch.  Oliver and I are inspired by good form and we wanted to create a DVD that focuses on fun and form as well.  We created a unique animated pose sequence to highlight the more common yoga postures.  Dave Hodge and I scored it. You can download the full course here or purchase it from Yogaworks, Firefly Venice, or Amazon.com.  The DVD is available in both Japanese and English.

My friend Lux stopped in on her way to Joshua Tree. I told her how obsessed I had been with Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and how I had tracked down dozens of covers of the song by everyone from Bono to Jose Gonzalez. I asked her if she would sing.  We bought a week’s worth of groceries and went to work, finishing on new year’s eve.

Lux D’Coda on lyrics. I played the instruments and produced/arranged the track.

For Saatchi & Saatchi NY.  A spot about good ideas.  With a Toyota FJ Cruiser driving on an off-road treadmill.  Mix of cell animation, 2D, 2.5D and Maya.

A photofilm of director and puppeteer Genevieve Anderson, made when she visited the studio in 2005.  Music was redone in 2008.

This was my attempt to show how you can do laundry using an old Land Rover Defender 90. No- seriously, a friend of mine had turned me on to the band Beauty Pill- and I had coincidentally purchased a camera clamp so I decided to make a film that “investigates all the different places you can clamp a camera while doing errands.” Nothing more. Cameos by my friend John Beug. Shot on a tiny Canon PowerShot SD400 camera in Venice, CA.

How do you describe a complex brand that has many sub-brands and has many sub-sub products all in one shot?  Client was TBWA\Chiat\Day with Erich Funke.

Festival Trailer.  Made for the IFP / Los Angeles Film Festival.  Always great to see our work on a huge screen.

A collaboration with TBWA\CHIAT\DAY ECD Rob Schwartz, myself and Scott Ingalls.  Agency roducer was Lorraine Kraus.  Dina Chang was post producer.  Thousands of hand drawn cells.

Messing around with 2.5D before there was 2.5D!!  With Tim Leake.  TWBA\Chiat\Day.

This is a film by New York City artist Katy Schimert and staring Josh Lucas. It’s the 4th film I made with Katy and the first which did not have Oliver Reinsch as its star.

It was originally screened at David Zwirner Gallery in New York.

The film is about Icarus (in this case a stock trader) who suffers the same fate as the original only this time he’s flying over the World Trade Center. The film was fantastic to make for many reasons- one was that I was strapped to Josh Lucas’s chest parasailing over the Hudson River for the aerial scenes. The latter is that I can say I made a film about the World Trade Center. Buildings that I always loved and miss.

As always, working with Katy Schimert is among the most fulfilling projects of my life. She is my teacher and mentor.

Oedipus was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art Bienalle as well as the Berkeley Art Museum and various galleries/museums in the US and Europe.

My 3rd film with New York City artist Katy Schimert, it was also most perilous!  Katy called and said “you need to get scuba certified” for a new film. The film would be shot in the American Virgin Islands (St. John) and would once again star Oliver Reinsch. Later on I would find out that 90% of the production budget was spent flying Oliver from Japan to St. John in order to work on the film.

It was money well spent. Oliver is the only person on earth that could endure the punishment that would ensue. He was asked to essentially drown and play dead take after take, weighed down by a ceramic chest plate and hearts that Katy had beautifully sculpted. His costume was not able to accommodate any spare air, so an off-camera diver would swim over to him at the end of every take and save his life.

20+ feet down. Over and over and over. For 4 days. One of my favorite projects with Katy.  There is a short excerpt of Katy speaking at the museum in 1999 with the film playing behind her.

TDF was a dance act project featuring Climie and Eric Clapton, with Clapton working under the name of x-sample. Mark Jeremias and I co-directed this music video for Reprise Records in 1997.  This is the uncut version.