My name is Romeo Ortiz, and I'm a
video product specialist at MPB.
So my background before MPB
was editing and shooting, I
did a lot of freelancing as well on
the side, a lot of content with
sports or documentaries.
My passions outside of work kind
of surround cinematography or
anything filmmaking.
So anything based around that
is kind of what I do outside of
work.
My greatest achievement, career-wise
, is I actually shot a film
in London. That was around in 2016.
I believe I was 17, and
actually got a shoot
in London with an Alexa camera for
the first time and it have it
screened a year later at the Paley
Center with some big-namecelebrities
there.
So over the years, my kit has
changed. When I first started, I
believe my first camera was a T2i or
T5i, it
was about five years ago.
And at the time I shot some short
films with that, just with the kit
lens, and learned a little bit and
like learned the craft.
So currently I shoot with a
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 6K
camera.
I got it about two years ago.
I bought it with the intention
of doing high-qualitywork
in terms of music videos and
anything narrative.
Over the last two years, I actually
rigged it out to be where it is
today. I want high dynamic
range, but also I want the
capabilities of RAW to be able to
color the image how I want it to be.
My introduction into filmmaking -
it's actually funny the day we're
shooting this because today is my
mom's birthday, and she's actually
the reason how I got into
filmmaking.
We went to Toys R Us one day, I saw
these Godzilla figurines and I was
like, "This looks interesting.
I would like to collect a couple of
these." Because I was a kid.
I didn't really know.
I went on YouTube and then when I
was searching the figures
up, I seen a bunch of action figures
fighting, but people creating these
images and like stories like
with the toys, and I thought that was
very interesting. I ended up seeing
a recommended video that was
actually real behind the scenes of
like the Japanese movies they
actually did.
And I seen like cables and these
big monsters on these cables
and flying around and all these
practicals and everything blowing
up. And I was like, "Yo, this is
pretty cool." From there, I actually
tried to study filmmaking,
and this was about when I
was...before I went to high school,
so about when I was like 10 years
old, or 12.
And it just so happened that when I
was picking my high school, the
first film-basedhigh school
was being announced and opening,
which was the Cinema School based in
the Bronx here in New York.
And then I went there and then the
rest is history.
My favorite genre to shoot in
is psychological thrillers and
horror.
There's like really no rules in
there. Like, I feel like you can do
whatever you want in that genre
because like, it's something that
you make and you're creating like
the world. I want to be able to push
it a little bit more and see like
how I can bring a style that I'm
comfortable with to tell a story
within a realistic setting.
We've told stories on
family abuse and
family trauma, and those things
have been very important to me and
my team, whoever I shoot with, so
we try to portray the emotion
that somebody is feeling in a way
where everybody can feel it.
You know, having very hyper-realistic
.
So without budget constraints
on a project that I could create, I
actually have a feature film that
I've been sitting on for the last
five years now.
It's a very in-depth story about
how love can make somebody
insane.
There's a bunch of cops involved
and prisons and et cetera, et
cetera. Obviously, the budget is
crazy, but that's something I've
been sitting on for about five years
now. And you know, obviously I
can't, but if I could, I would do
that out of everything.
So all my work up to this point has
been very experimental and
in its early stages,
as I said before, I just dove
into cinematography for about going
on three years now, and I have much
much to learn and much much to
study.
But every piece of my work up
until now has been made with
a lot of love, passion, fun.
I hope that it's translated
like that and everybody enjoys it.
If you do decide to check it out and
yeah.
Big smiles.
My name is Romeo Ortiz, and this is
inside MPB.