2016 Year End Review

2016 was pretty interesting along the lines where I was geographically, professionally, and personally (meh kind of).  I was back and forth between the United States and South Africa a couple times (you can check out my other now post regarding visa adventure I had to go through here: https://www.robweidner.com/nows/waiting-on-a-south-africa-work-visa ), made my first trip to Amsterdam for a large broadcasting convention called IBC ( now post recap: https://www.robweidner.com/nows/2016/9/28/why-amsterdam-ibc-of-course ), and worked on projects such as:

Next stop, #VictoriaFalls Operating for the VFX unit of a big superhero movie. So awesome to be on top of the world, shooting for legendary aerial DP John Marzano of #Revenant #TheMartian #Spectre and thank you @panavisionofficial for the support 📸cred @mandisa_moffat #filmmaking #setlife #movies

See this Instagram photo by @rob_weidner * 198 likes

• Marvel's Black Panther, this job was incredible as I was given the opportunity to camera operate for the visual effects unit in Southern Africa.  Very excited to see how the footage turns out, and this was surely one of the biggest movies I have ever worked on, not to mention was a step up in my responsibility.
• CNN's Great Big Story, pretty awesome new client to work with and I love their way of storytelling.  See video below as an example video I made.  Ironically, the video has hit over a million views!  CNN is making great new strides to add to their storytelling platforms, especially with the acquisition of Casey Neistat's technology company, Beme
• Bring It On: All Stars, yes the cheerleading movie...but it was a blast to work on

Film Gear South Africa made some huge strides after finishing our first year of business.  Our online ordering process was completely revolutionised, we added additional distributors which left us with almost 3,000 SKUs, and we opened an office space in Observatory, a suburb of Cape Town.  

Some goals for 2017 include:

• Camera operate more movies or TV shows
• Shoot (DP) my own music video or short film with other people who are interested in pushing their craft
• Open up a shared workspace in Cape Town for creatives (cannot say any more than that, but stay tuned.  Very excited about this one)
• Practice more yoga
• Read more (my crazy long list of books to read: http://a.co/47ypdpC )

#winery have a #pest problem? Call the #QuackSquad! Super fun project I shot for @greatbigstory & @cnn with @ernstheusser at @vergenoegd_wine_estate link to #bts photos & full video in profile #cnn #ducks #mrd #vergenoegd

See this Instagram video by @rob_weidner * 72 likes

As of now, the plan is to be in South Africa for the majority of the year, but I forsee a trip to Mozambique for a bit and I might try to get back to the United States during the middle of the year to avoid the southern hemisphere winter, and enjoy the beautiful Chicago summer!