Behind the Scenes of "Sonya Slidez" with Zeiss Cinematography

I want to surround myself with passionate people. That passion takes many forms. I have my friends that are passionate about fitness, or cars, and hobbies that have been important to my character development. But this year I’ve focused my energy on my career, and thus I’ve looked for and found people passionate about their career. I think that’s why I’ve grown more professionally this year, than any other year ever. 

But before we talk more about the present, let’s hop in a time machine and travel back a bit over a year.

I was scrolling through instagram and suddenly got a DM. It was Sonya Klaus. I had no idea who she was, but after reading her message I realized this was a huge opportunity. Zeiss Cinematography would be making a documentary about her life. 

A little background on Sonya. She’s a nurse who adamantly cares for her patients, but when she’s off the clock she’s timing laps. The doc would specifically cover  who Sonya Klaus is and her experience at the final round of the 2019 Nissan Challenge.

My work would not only document the behind the scenes, but also potentially be used for advertising purposes of the documentary itself. 

This all seemed to be coming a bit fast. For years I had been running and gunning, shooting an assortment of different types of photos, posting it all to Instagram and then all a sudden… I get to be a part of a documentary??

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself in doing this, it’s that maybe I like going as fast as the cars I shoot.

Over the span of a month, 3 days were allotted to film the documentary.

I had no idea what to expect. I arrived on set and was immediately bombarded by activity. The man-power, the gear, the coordination. It was mind blowing.

Feeling very much like the person with the least experience there, which I was, I let the team do their thing. 

But in observing, and asking questions I learned that there was a through-line that connected all the people behind the project. From the sound guy, to the rig engineers, to the director of photography, they all had undeniable passion. A passion that didn’t fit inside the confines of an application or job description that I’ve ever heard of.

Because they had passion, they found a way to make a solid living from these careers. I was inspired. Though I was in the background, I continued doing what I was brought there for. I took shots all around set, and immediately after the shoot was done I moved on to the next one. I’ve been so busy that all these shoots kind of blend into each other.

Months after the documentary was filmed, I was curious to find out what happened to this documentary.

I found out Zeiss pulled out of the documentary. Initially the company wanted the documentary to advertise the Zeiss lenses that were used, but I guess the director had devoted too much time to the narrative of Sonya Klaus. The story must have been too compelling to just act as a glorified commercial.

With footage rights now sitting with the director, the short film was finished. And it was good. It went on to win the New York International Film Awards for Best Documentary Short as well as some other awards. And I noticed the craziest thing. The cover image that they used for the short film, the film that won awards, the film that had a spot on IMDB. That cover image was a helmet sitting in front of a Nissan 350z. That picture was one of the images I had shot.

Maybe their passion rubbed off on me.

Below are some of the BTS images from this span of 3 days of filming “Sonya Slidez”.