Anthony Pellino
"I started to realize my career choice pretty late compared to many of my peers when I was a senior in high school. I was just editing sports montages of athletes, shooting the highlight reels for my school, and very small time stuff for the local town news station for fun and didn't think anything of it. I was going to major in something a bit more practical and follow a path very similar to many of my friends. But something really hit me around October of my senior year. I started to just think about the small little things that were separating me from my friends and began to realize how that could translate to a career path. I found myself watching content on Vimeo, TV, and in theatres much more than the average kid my age, and writing short narratives whenever ideas just fell into my head. It was then that I sat down and spoke to my parents for a few hours, and decided to shoot for NYU as my college choice."
"While I wouldn't say they were ecstatic about my career choice, they were happy to support me either way. They definitely voiced their concerns on how I would pay rent with a film degree, but they were just trying to keep me in the scope of reality. They were raised in a very old world manner so I get it. Having a secure plan is what they always wanted me to push for. But I must admit, it has made me a much more determined filmmaker. The constant reinforcement as to how much this industry demands out of you has really made me strive to make any of my work the absolute best it can be and compromise on nothing."
"When I got to school I decided to just get out there and try and make work right away, I came int school with nothing prominent, and I knew I wasn't going to be handed anything without running a real production first so, I wrote a script for a short in September, revised it through the year and shot it in May of 2014, all out of my own pocket. It really consumed my entire freshman year. Class came second. As much as NYU taught me, I knew the program itself would not prepare me for the real world. Filmmaking is not in the classroom, it's in experience. And this shoot introduced me to who now is my main collaborator, Zach Lowry. He served as cinematographer for this short. I met him at NYU through some mutual friends, and we just have the same vision with our work. We formed our production company ‘Flex Collective’ based on the relationship that grew out of this shoot. And ever since then we've been working as a director // cinematographer duo. The piece is still under wraps, definitely will be out this summer though."
"Now my first ever paid project, if it counts, was as a swing grip on the music video for Niia's single 'Body', directed by Tim Saccenti. It was an incredible experience. Had some crazy G/E stuff going on and it was exciting to see it all happen on such a big scale. Location was really cool, ran a lot of units and learned some great stuff. Tim's vision is something else."
"My biggest influence is still my father. At 51 years old, with a knee that needs to be replaced, he's back in the kitchen every other night cooking for twelve hours on his feet all day. His work ethic and his love of his craft is exactly how I feel I need to treat every project I take on, or else the product will suffer. I'm a firm believer that you get what you give, especially at this point in my career. If your passion is clear, than the people you need to make your piece the best that it can be will match your passion, no matter what the pay grade is."
"Creative inspirations, I hit every end of the spectrum, Nabil, Gareth Edwards, Hoyte van Hoytema,and Travis Scott. Every music video Nabil makes you just know it's a Nabil video. The narrative, the visuals, the content that always pushes the boundaries, his work is just on another level. I can only imagine what his treatments look like. Gareth Edwards' vision with Godzilla was the best I've seen in a monster flick since Jaws. This buildup of tension until the last minute really frustrated me as a theatregoer, but it made that payoff so good. I'm a sucker for any type of monster movie. And with Hoyte van Hoytema his style is so natural, so real. Especially with The Fighter. I can't wait to see what he does with Spectre this fall."
"I came across Travis Scott's work on SoundCloud one day. I try to listen to all types of music, but I always find myself leaning towards classic rap, Nas, Big L, etc. But when I heard this guy Travis Scott, I was hooked. I don't know what it is, but every time I write, every time I edit, I end up blasting his past two mixtapes. This dark ambient sound he gives to hiphop just hits me. Making a music video for him is on my bucket list, I hope to cross that one off sooner than later."
"But for the moment my partner Zach and I are focusing on branded content very similar to the Reebok spot. I believe that current generations have been fed so much bullshit when it comes to advertising that to actually resonate and connect with them, a brand must do so much more than what's currently being done. Zach and I have worked around a motto of developing content that focuses more on the idea of a brand, and trusting the notion of what a product represents, not just how they perform. We aim to develop content that will resonate across all mediums as well. By that we mean developing content that has no issue being played on a phone, a TV, a laptop, or as a 15 second video on social media."
"One day I want to focus a branded campaign on just a few driven and unique individuals. Like the Reebok spot, we focused on one person. I think that's what made it so powerful, the fact that he was real, a real boxer. Not a fabricated persona, or just another face in a montage of five other people pretending to be dramatic."