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2014 Amor Films Ltd.

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One of the favorite on-air promotions, I've produced for ESPN. A series of programs about everyday people and their connection to sports.
Why do we run? Why do we compete?...and so on and so forth. It was all in the right questions.

From my photo art series Kolossus, a conceptual interpretation of Rome's Coliseum.

A short clip from one of four episodes in the Euromania Show series I directed for ESPN Classic Italy. Featuring former international goalkeeper and Inter Milan captain Francesco Toldo and presented by the sport journalist and international betting specialist Gabriele Marcotti.

This is the first project I have produced with Amor Films. It is a music video commissioned by Olivier Doria of Audiotube.com for Antoine Michel's hit-single

Directed by Peter Berg, this is the story of Wayne Gretsky's much discussed transfer from NHL's top team Edmonton's Oilers to the newly formed Los Angeles Kings in the early 90s. A remarkably honest documentary containing special interviews with Wayne Gretsky himself and all of the key people involved in ice hockey's most talked about transfer story. This on-air promotion was made for the ESPN network airing on all of their UK and European feeds.

This piece commissioned by ESPN UK is to promote the ESPN in-house show dedicated to the Rugby World Cup. Hosted by ESPN rugby presenter Mark Durden-Smith with special guest appearances from former England internationals Austin Healey and Ben Kay. I had a peek view of the whole series of shows and liked the light-hearted, teasing approach of the presenter who never fails to nudge his guests in sharing inside jokes as well as very factual material. I really enjoyed working on this on-air promotion because I think it reflects the true nature of the rugby sport. I always enjoy when I can push themes to the limit, thus the bleep in the script.

Digital Print, 2015

Rhomeless, a series of street portrait photography work to raise awareness of homelessness in Rome.

This is Eric Cantona's on-air promotion I produced for ESPN Classic France and their programme Certifie Classic.

A television commercial I produced and directed as part of ESPN Classic UK's on-air launch campaign. Featuring on both national and cable channels across the UK it was part of the Dead Good Sport campaign to launch the sports archive channel preceding ESPN UK Live.

This piece is to promote the 30 for 30 film Once Were Brothers, the story of the broken friendship between basketball stars Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac.
Together, they helped Yugoslavia to win the World Title in 1990. They both went to America where they became the first two foreign players to attain NBA stardom. But with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Yugoslavia disintegrated. A war broke out between Petrovic's Croatia and Divac's Serbia. Petrovic and Divac, once brothers, were now on opposite sides of a civil war. Narrated by Vlade Divac himself, this is a must see film.

Corporate video produced in collaboration with Alt Mode for the Hotel Palatinus of the Danubius Hotel Group.

Digital mixed media. Inspired by a banker who professing to be my parent's friend convinced them to invest in a fund that collapsed back in 2010. They lost all their pensions and all he said in response

This on-air promotion advertises the 30 for 30 series film dedicated to Michael Jordan's surprise retirement from the NBA to join the US minor baseball league.
This piece is has also aired on the Italian channel of ESPN Classic, thus the text translations throughout.

A still from Nia Vintage fashion marketing campaign for Spring/Summer 2013.
Photography: Stefano Lazzaro of Amor Films
Stylist: Sophia Anastasiou
Model: Henrietta Moore
Location: Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines

An independent documentary that is freely available online, showcasing a series of local Hungarian musicians who are trying to make their mark in a newly-developing national industry that 15 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall is still lacking a solid business infrastructure for independent music labels. Co-Produced by Amor Films and Chameleon Records. Directed by Stefano Lazzaro and Gyula Balogh.

Somewhere driving north in South East Ontario, Canada. Sept 2010. From my LandEscapes ongoing travel landscape photography series.

A sting I produced and directed for ESPNf1.com using acted out sporting scenes in studio and post-produced in After FX.

Stanspoker.com sponsorship of boxe programming on ESPN Classic. Produced in After FX with graphics wiz Regan Wai. Sound design by Mike Aiton at mikerophonics.com.

A television commercial produced and directed for Fashion One aimed at raising awareness of staff hiring possibilities at the Fashion One network based in Hong Kong. Producer/Director: Stefano Lazzaro/Amor Films

This is a on-air promotion I made for ESPN Classic UK. The aim was to explain how their programming strategy reflects the live sporting calendar.
My idea stemmed from the use of Rorschach cards and the concept of seeing something in them, in this case specific sports programming. I wanted it to be quite fully scripted, top and tail with a strong message at the end.

Trailer to Episode 0 of Extravirgin: a new, original tv series in development in the genre of travel, gastronomy and culture.

One of three commercials I produced and directed for ESPN Classic UK to promote their Sport is Back tagline through the Where were you when? 2004 on-air campaigns to launch ESPN Classic in Italy, France and Europe.

This is a trailer for the aptly named ESPN film focusing on MotoGP legends Valentino Rossi, Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden as they battle it out to win the difficult US MotoGP at Laguna Seca.

How do you make ESPN Classic your favourite Sky Channel? This was pretty much the brief I was given by ESPN to produce a on-air infomercial to promote the channel number and placement.

Large photograph available on different mounted formats. Chosen by See.Me.com to appear in the See.Me.com NYC launch in Dec 2013. Night portrait with natural light of two street kids from my Happy Pines travel portraiture series in Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines, April 2013.

An introduction to Ayurveda by Dr. Prasad M of Sunethri Ayurvedashram and Research Center, Kerala, India. A charity film directed by Gyula Balogh where I provided camera operator services.

The second of three ESPN commissioned films I produced and directed, this autobiography of Mario Cipollini, sees the man himself telling the story of his controversial successes, his record-breaking wins at the Giro, his World Cup glory and the exclusion from the Tour de France. Special interviews with teammates and other cycling celebrities. Broadcasted by ESPN on ESPN Classic Italy.

Highlight is a feature film I produced in 2009. An independent low-budget romantic comedy directed by Mickael N'Dour and featuring Somers Town's Elisa Lesowski. Shot in black and white, it's a series of love stories set in a bookshop in London's East End.

Paolo Maldini: La Mia Storia. The legendary AC Milan and Italian captain tells all in this documentary produced by ESPN. This is the on-air promotion I produced for the show.

Directed by Nick Calori for Current TV, this documentary proves that football is, after all, a religion!
We spent 3 days shooting with 2 Sony Z1's in and around Rome's Vatican City, following one of the top teams competing yearly in this obscure yet very important clergyman's tournament.
It was a lot of fun to operate alongside Nick of nickcalori.com on this. We travelled back to our Roman roots and were granted special entry permission from the Vatican to film in special places. So, I got to see aspects of my 'Eternal City' that I never thought I would.
The cool thing about shooting in Rome is that through a film lens, the city becomes even more fascinating. The light, colors, shapes; everything is dream-like-postcard-picture-perfect. I might be biased, but the filmic beauty of my hometown is hard to beat.

This is the finalized version of an earlier promo made for ESPN Classic UK and inspired partly by Simon Robson's 2006 animation film

An original digital art print by Stefano Lazzaro, from the AlieNation series: a tongue-in cheek investigation and artistic interpretation of the UFO phenomenon.

An animal portrait of my friend Paoli's black domestic cat Max whilst drinking from his favourite bowl. Ibiza. Summer of 2012.

Secret Wars is more than just a taggers competition. Held annually in London's East End it features the best graffiti artist the city has to offer. This is the 2007 edition.
The mini documentary made for Current TV by Nick Calori has screened on Current TV's UK satellite as well as online channel.
I loved to operate on this alongside my friend Nick Calori of Shuffle Films and Chilean cinematographer Diego Rodriguez, who had just finished operating on ''In the Hands of God

The first of three documentaries I produced and directed for ESPN. Dedicated to the controversial and outspoken football manager Zdenek Zeman, who between 1997 and 1999 led AS Roma back to a spot in the top four Serie A league clubs. Famous for his attacking football approach and preference to action packed games, the Czech coach was pivotal in the emergence of AS Roma captain and legend Francesco Totti. Special interviews with Zeman, Totti and many other team protagonists.

This is a specific on-air promotion I produced for ESPN Classic, UK. I was inspired from Knife Party's 100% graphics short 'manifesto' film ''What Barry Says''.
I wanted the promo to be direct and cocky yet still retain a certain 2D comic book slickness. After FX graphics by Regan Wai. VO is John Rand. Sound mix by Mike Aiton of mikerophonics.co.uk.

This is one of my oldest on-air promotions dating back to the Matrix days so take a guess on the year. Yeah, Neo was the talk of the town, the Wachowski bros made us think laterally about how the world really works and I just couldn't resist the urge to jump onto that bandwagon. After all that's what producers are really good at!
Half jokes aside, I thought it was going to be fun to juxtapose the Matrix essence with some golfers to promote the official films of the British Open on ESPN.
Also and more importantly from an evolution and knowledge point of view, it was a great excuse to try out the then very new and relatively expensive Matrix text plug in in After FX. GFX treatment by Kevin Cooney of boxframe.tv, sound design by Mike Aiton at mikerophonics.com. 'Are you the chosen one?' and all that jazz!

This on-air promotion was inspired by the title sequence of the movie Hannibal, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs. No justifiable creative reasons really, I just happened to see the film the same week I got this commissioned at ESPN Classic. However, the numerical values in the time code effects, hold the key to important dates and numbers in the history of Liverpool FC. So there is a meaning in the most random and smallest things. That's what this is about really!

An original digital art print by Stefano Lazzaro, sparked by an international news story about a chimpanzee brandishing a stolen AK47 gun and firing it onto an African militia group, whose initial intent was to mock the primate.

This clip taken from the documentary I co-produced and directed for ESPN Classic together with Massimo Picone and Francesco Buti illustrates the 1991/92 season that saw the team gain an unexpected 4th place and access into the now defunct UEFA Cup.

One of two on-air promotions produced for the action channel Sony AXN Italy.

Pravda Vodka Guerrilla Gonzo advertising shot for Carl Cox beach party. Playa den Bossa. Ibiza. Summer 2011.

Leeza, Fashion designer, Rome, 2012. From the My People Ain't Sheeple black and white photographic portrait series.

A pov music video directed by Zsolt Nagy and produced guerilla style through the underground, downtown streets/shops and famous Geller hotel and health spa in Budapest Hungary. Track written by Gabor Kiss & Gyula Balogh for Jutasi Tamas.

This was the third of four specific channel branding commercials in the 'Where Were You When?' campaign launched by ESPN Classic to promote the Sport is Back tag through their European territories between 2006 and 2009. The idea was to associate random daily events to specific sport actions. This came from my childhood. I remember having to go and get some injection on the day Italy beat Argentina in the 2nd round of the 1982 World Cup. I was 9-years-old and I like to remember it in an idealistic way: when the needle hit my skin, Italy scored.

A 3 min trailer for this short documentary film. Nominated at the 2013 Saratov Sufferings international Film Festival as Best Short Kinodoc, In the Cannes is the story of a young independent crew of filmmakers from London, traveling to Cannes to sell their low-budget feature at the most prestigious film market in the world. Dir. Nick Calori. Produced by Amor Films/Shuffle Films, 2013.

Viviana, Space Physiologist & Rhythmic Gymnast, London 2012. From My People Ain't Sheeple photographic portrait series by Stefano Lazzaro of Amor Films.

An independent documentary that is freely available online, showcasing a mixture of international independent musicians who have made Ibiza their home. The films investigates the motives and the life choices that have led many international talents to make this popular tourist destination their home and creative hub. An Amor Films/Chameleon Records/Pataleta Films co-production. Produced and directed by Stefano Lazzaro of Amor Films and Gyula Balogh of Chameleon Records.

This on-air promotion although is missing a Voice-Over mix that is in the original. It's promoting a series of programmes on big football rivalries like Inter Milan v AC Milan, Real Madrid v Barcelona, Boca Juniors v River Plate and Vasco de Gama v Flamengo. I wanted to make a slick juxtaposition between medieval battles and football, because rivalries wise, they kind of feed off from the same vibrational level, if you know what I mean.

This is the launch commercial for ESPN Player commissioned by ESPN to advertise their new online sports broadband live HD channel to replace their existing ESPN360 one.

FIrst of three specific on-air channel branding commercials in the 'Where Were You When?' campaign launched by ESPN Classic to promote the Sport is Back tag through their European territories between 2006 and 2009. The idea was to associate random daily events to specific sport actions. I chose a subliminal/comedy approach with a touch of sensationalism to go with footage of Max Biaggi winning the MotoGP. At the time of this promo being made, a famous former Liverpool player had been caught 'getting it on' in a parking lot. A whole subculture was revealed. I couldn't just pretend it wasn't happening. So there you go, this is the result. This was shot in and around Richmond Park on a typical gloomy London afternoon on Super16mm film.

Nominated as Best On-Air Promotion Campaign at Promax 2008, this is one of a series of Badly Dubbed on-air promotions I created and produced for ESPN.