Chris Botti

Chris Botti- 2006, Documentaries and performance, credit: D.P.

I was hired to shoot a making of documentary, shooting at Capitol Records, Studio A. Stunning studio sessions left me amazed at the talent surrounding me. Billy Childs, Botti, Anthony Wilson, Christian McBride, Al Schmidt engineering, Bobby Columby producing, Renee Olstead doing guest vocals. We knew we had something special in this session, but the video was not showing off the true talent of the players. The producers commissioned a live shoot with 5 cameras, to take place in the studio, as an extra to the dual Disc. That was a great shoot, I DP’d, Matt Skerrit directed and we had a blast, brought in lots of light from ELS, focused leicos from all corners of the studio – dimmer board, etc. A few months later, when Chris played at the Wiltern, I was tapped to provide documentary services again in support of the PBS broadcast of the live show and the DVD released later. Watch some of the Chris Botti live session. The video below was edited quickly from a Standard Def DVD produced in 2005. Apologies for the image quality. Hopefully some of the magic and lighting still comes through.