I spent nearly half my childhood and all of my adult life making movies. I never sought to be a filmmaker, I just wanted to tell stories and make people laugh, cry, and have conversations. I could have been anything - a novelist, painter, game designer. But I happened to pick up a video camera, and never looked back.
Now, the writer and director inside me is excited by all the different ways there are to experience a story, and I find myself passionately drawn to architecture. I see an uncanny resemblance between a frame of celluloid and the frame of a house. The most exciting part of creating a house, is the story that takes place long after you’ve finished your part, when someone moves in or walks through a space and takes the authorship into their own hands.
The following work encompasses a small portion of my film career, and includes some highlights of the architecture and building projects pulled from the last five years of my exploration. I appreciate you taking the time to review what I’ve collected for you.
STAN AGAINST EVIL
Director | IFC | Season 1 & 2 | 2016 -2017
Stan Against Evil is a horror comedy television series created by ‘The Simpsons’ writer Dana Gould. The show was heavily inspired by 70’s shows such as ‘Dark Shadows’ and ‘The Twilight Zone’ with a little bit of ‘All in the Family.” I worked closely with Dana to set the look and feel of the show to draw from these vintage inspirations, but also take a page from more modern day horror
in order to create something that wasn’t just campy, but effectively frightening. I campaigned for playing the horror more grounded in order to earn trust from the audience and allow them to form a deeper connection to the characters and the world. The side effect of this is a show that’s scary at the right moments, and funny in all the rest. It’s good ‘ol popcorn fun.
GRASSHOPPERS
Creative Producer | Independent | Feature Film | 2019
The story of an immigrant couple living in a gated community of a cold and lonely Chicago suburb. One day they both take off work and break into every empty house in their neighborhood, having a drink in each along the way. They slowly make their way to the country club for a dinner reservation, where everything comes to a head and their place in the community is called into
question, and they find themselves reexamining their dreams and relationship. A touching and romantic story that brings up questions of what it means to be a immigrant in this country, and a case study of the American dream and the emptiness at the end of the rainbow. Written and Directed by Bradley Bischoff.
MOON-DRENCHED
Cinematographer | Castleface Records | Music Video | 2021
For my first collaboration with the band “Osees,” my role was Director of Photography, and I also provided producing help. I worked closely with directors Jordan Harris & Andrew Schrader from the beginning of the concept’s conception, and used my perspective as a cinematographer to help them shape the premise. I have always been heavily inspired by the films of Alejandro
Jodorosky, and referenced his films for the look and color palette. The music is psychedelic and features no lyrics, so I tapped into the spirit of the music in order to pull the lighting schema, based on what I would see when I closed my eyes and listened. I used a variety of practical incamera lighting and visual effects.
A FOUL FORM
Co-Director & Producer | Castleface Records | Music Video | 2023
My second music video created for the band “Osees.” Heavily inspired by the avant-garde work of Takashi Ito, we utilized custom VFX assets, front and rear projection, and stop motion animation to create an homage to his work. I was one director and producer in a collective of
artists collaborating on this video, but some of my main responsibilities were developing and pitching the concept that was selected to shoot, and overseeing the technological requirements to emulate this effect.
SOFT SPOT
Creative Producer | Saddest Factory Records | Music Video | 2020
A music video produced for the artist “Claud” for Phoebe Bridgers’ record label. Written and Directed by Bradley Bischoff, this was our second collaboration as producer & director. When I work as a producer, I leverage my experience as a director to empower the filmmaker to
achieve their vision while coming under budget and on schedule. I provided financial, technical, legal, and creative support, and sourced the film equipment that was necessary to shoot this project on 16mm.
THE ROAD
Writer & Director | 20th Century | Short Film | 2017
Two best friends convince their dad to take them out into the middle of the wood to test out an urban legend they heard about at school. Rumor has it that if you flash your headlights 3 times, a
light shines in the road up ahead - the ghost of a slain motorcyclist who died on that road many years ago....Based on a true story!
THE HUG
Writer & Director | 20th Century | Short Film | 2018
A young boy celebrates his birthday party at a Chuck-E-Cheese knockoff, and discovers that the animatronics have a mind of their own... This short premiered at numerous festivals, and was eventually greenlit for adaptation into a feature film by 20th for Hulu. I was also one of the writers on the feature, but the film is no longer actively in development.
LEAVE THE BABY OUTSIDE
Writer, Director & Producer | Independent | Short Film | 2022
A new father takes his baby on a walk around their idyllic suburban neighborhood, when a strange woman in a window asks for help. When the man goes up to lend a hand, he finds himself in a surreal trap, and may never see his
child again. A creepy body swap horror project written while I was beginning to see fatherhood on the horizon. Shot using vintage Japanese lenses from the 60’s with the same aspect ratio as IMAX on an Alexa Mini LF.
Love and Intimacy
Cinematographer & Director | Columbia University Center For Palestine Studies x LIFTA | Short Film | 2022
A call was placed by LIFTA for self-directed and produced personal stories of love in the Palestinian community. I sat down with my father and three cameras and filmed an improvised hour long interview where I asked him various questions about his childhood in Palestine, what it was like to live under those conditions, to grow up without his father, the
conditions of abuse he experienced at various boarding schools, and ultimately his journey into America, Buddhism & self-discovery, and parenthood. It was very painful and difficult to cover these topics, but the process brought us closer together and helped heal old wounds between us.
Dinner Party
Cinematographer, Producer, & Editor | Independent | Short Film | 2021
An adaptation of Jessica Abughattas’ poem “Dinner Party” from her debut book “Strip.” Written and Directed by Jessica Abughattas, this was her first time directing. I selected a vintage Russian zoom lens from the 70s for this, to match the aesthetic of her flowery language. The poem
revolves around the events of a film production in Chicago, so I wanted to give it a cinematic feel. This led me to go with chiaroscuro lighting, a golden color palette with cool moonlit nighttime tones, and anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio to evoke old cinemascope westerns.
NON-PROFIT
Story Producer & Video Editor | IMEU | 2022 - 2024
My work for the IMEU is rooted in my personal desire to tell the story of my ancestors and educate the world around me on an important issue that we are all connected to whether we know it or not. I focus on finding the story within the story - tales of Palestinian heroes, activists, and cultural icons. Through their lens we learn more about the root cause of the occupation,
and are inspired to commit to change. The work below was filmed by others, but the story and editing were shaped through my work with the organization. I have transitioned to a part time role in the organization, focused on creative producing and editing all their social media content, original films, and fundraising videos.
DEVELOPMENT DECKS
Independent | Los Angeles, CA | 2017 - 2024
Throughout my career, I’ve had to design development decks to pitch my scripts and vision for a studio, investor, or production company. I consider many of these decks to be strong representations of the projects I seek to produce. Because it takes many years to develop a project and often the greenlight never comes, these decks embody years and years of work that have become the only fruit of my labor. All decks were written and designed by myself with the support and collaboration of various creative partners.
COFFEE & MAGIC!?
Once you’ve had a perfect espresso or pour-over, it’s hard to go back to that beat up, tin can of dirt they call Folgers. We’ve always been deeply interested in the culinary world, hitting soft opens or food trucks with fellow food freaks and critics. It was only a matter of time before we found ourselves enamored with coffee culture. It doesn’t hurt that Los Angeles has one of the best scenes in the US, dare we say the coffee drinking world, with different takes in each neighborhood on what makes a perfect cup. The thing that made us really fall for coffee is that it acts as more than a caffeine delivering beverage. It’s a unique lens through which we can explore the world - a cross cultural connector. Coffee and its ritual brings people together. So, with a deep love for animation - particularly anime, growing up on Speed Racer and Miyazaki films - we found ourselves at a very interesting intersection...one where coffee, magic, and anime collided.
Brewed by Tommy Keiser & Justin Nijm
THE LOGLINE!
TASTING NOTES
|themes|
Honeycrisp Apple | Cherries | Dulce De Leche
The heart of Coffee Company is love! The deep love that brews between Chloe and Cody, and our love of coffee!
Coffee Company tells the story of Chloe and Cody’s transformation from corporate office drones to bewitched community staple. In a serialized approach we’ll explore these characters’ stories with magical realism as a vehicle to address identifiable narratives such as the effects of capitalism, challenging societal roles, journey versus destination, and the timeless, good versus evil. Most importantly, it will speak to the loss of innocence young adults often experience with a waning belief in magic.
The series encourages us to never give up on our dreams, and to always follow our heart. Chloe and Cody are our anchor, taking us through the world of specialty coffee, educating us on real coffee techniques, sustainability, labor, & environmental issues, and showing us how a strong couple always puts each other’s needs first above ego.
PACKAGING|visuals|
Coffee Company draws its primary visual influences from feature length animated films rather than television, such as the works of Hayao Miyazaki, Makoto Shinkai, Satoshi Kon, and Mamoru Hosada.
We want to embrace the benefits of modern digital advances while also paying tribute to animation’s hand drawn roots. The magic, storytelling, and character designs will be endowed with the spirit of Miyazaki, while the backgrounds, cinematography, and lighting effects will resemble Shinkai, specifically the work of background illustrator Mateusz Urbanowicz.
Back-lighting and halo effects, lens flares, shallow depth of field, and other tools of traditional live action cinematography will be our reference for the overall design language of the series. Budget and time constraints will
OPENING SEQUENCE
THE ORIGIN STORY
The opening scene of Baby Russel choosing his destiny should feel a little like a fairytale, using bold, saturated colors, dramatic angles, and frenetic camera work to evoke the vivid, almost dreamlike tone of films such as DO THE RIGHT THING and RAISING ARIZONA
Opening the film in this way will help prime the audience for some of the more over-the-top humor and provide a stark stylistic contrast to the reality of Russel’s adult life as a struggling Asian-American actor.
Screenplay by
Kyle Killen
Deck design by
Justin Nijm & John Bishop
Original Artwork by Rustam Hasanov
Case Study Element
Pasadena City College | Los Angeles, CA | 2024
This project was completed in half a semester at PCC for Visual Communications I with Professor Ashley Gordon. We were each given one case study house, and I was assigned the Eames’ House. The requirements were to distill and extract simple shapes or patterns from the
An initial hand sketch of the Eames House, a list of words I think of when viewing the house, and some initial shapes.
Another rough sketch depicting how some of these elements would push and pull in different directions for a future iteration. I wanted the blocks to not line up neat and ordered like the Eames’ House, but oppose each other when viewed at certain angles.
house, reinterpret and rearrange them into an abstract form or structure that did not need to resemble a house or building. After designing, we hand drew plan, section, and elevations, modeled in CAD and Rhino, and make a physical model.
Rough sketches of the shapes beginning to take form. I worked in color since I believe that to be part of the shape of the Eames House.
Plan hand drawing.
Section hand drawing.
Elevation hand drawing.
Next page: Photoshop composition render.
The model, milled from rough sewn Poplar wood and spray painted.
Rhino model.
Spirit of the Woods
Pasadena City College | Los Angeles, CA | 2024
For ARCH 10A with Professor Benjamin Warwas, I designed a religious structure inspired by three found objects composed into a single render. This composition evolved into a minimalist Mosque concept set within a forest. Through discussions with fellow UCLA
student Jack Townsend, I gradually stripped away architectural elements until only essential Mosque iconography remained. The final design suggests that natural surroundings, rather than built structure, provide sacred space for prayer and divine connection.
Object study that would inform spatial exploration. Hands - cradle. Train - movement / flow. Treenature / spirit.
Programtic Diagram highlight the key elements of the Mosque.
Model made by hand using cork, fabric, metal wire, and foam core.
Programattic Diagram
East Elevation rendered with AutoCAD.
Memory of a Tree
Yestermorrow | Waitsfield, VT | 2023
For the design portion of this four month sustainable architecture / build program, we were each given a single word, meant to inspire a sculptural gesture, or folly. My word was “notch.” The program required use to incorporate a site called “The Punchbowl” near the school - a public swimming hole. I found a fallen tree that had tipped over, forming a bridge between two rocks. I used this tree as the foundation of my design, and imagined a sculpture around it.
The fallen tree at the Punchbowl, serving as inspiration for my design.
The wood and the foam were both burned to add to the story of the tree. The entire sculpture is “notched” onto the stump.
The first iteration imagined the dead tree as charred wood, with beams fanning up to create a skeletal spine around it.
The beams are also notched into platforms that form the spine.
Where some see only a dead tree, I see life. I integrated a flower into the sculpture to symbolize hope, rebirth, and the cycle of life and death.
I wanted to play with a new concept for the second iteration, and simplify aspects of the folly. Thematically I chose “pin art” as the inspiration.
This created a musical “waveform” or electrocardiograph that becomes what I called the pulse of the tree. Life after death.
The final iteration takes the story of the dead tree into the future, and imagines a world where we didn’t solve the climate crisis, and humans are extinct.
Where the tree is lower, the beams are lower, and where elevated, the beams are higher. Similar to waveform iteration, or pin art.
The “builder” created these structural wooden beams with a third beam that slides up and down, following the shape of the tree, then locking into place.
In the future, the tree has decomposed, and all that remains is the empty space in between the structure, the memory of the tree.
Self Portrait
SCI-Arc | Making + Meaning | Los Angeles, CA | 2023
The first module of SCI-Arc’s summer program ‘Making + Meaning’ had us work with Professor William Virgil to use Midjourney to model a portrait of ourselves. The intention was to create a version of yourself that was a dark reflection, while learning different prompts and commands to develop a closer likeness. Shapes would be pulled from the final image and modified into alpha layers that would later
Thousands of prompts on midjourney later, using keywords such as “snail” and “coffee” in combination with my head shots.
To help us visualize our design before printing, a 3D rendering of the abstract shape was overlaid using Cinema 4D.
be 3D printed and physically added to the image. I wanted to try and push Midjourney beyond its stereotypical tendencies to depict everyone as Caucasian, without it rendering me with Arab stereotypes, something the program struggled with. I also used keywords to bring out some nightmarish qualities that reflect my love of the macabre.
One of several alpha transparencies extracted from the image using Z Brush and Illustrator.
The design was 3D printed and mounted to the image. We layer masked the pattern to remove some of the image, revealing the mirror and your reflection underneath.
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Connected Elevations
SCI-Arc | Making + Meaning | Los Angeles, CA | 2023
This module began with a giant landscape roll of paper on the wall. We each had a designated area to draw and 60 seconds. The drawings were supposed to be stream of consciousness elevations, but they had to connect to the person on your left and right. The remainder of the exercise had us bring the drawings into Rhino, extrude them, and then add materials and lighting in Cinema4D.
Scanned copy of my hand drawing. Top left and middle right connect to another drawing.
To add more depth and whimsy, I began to extract shapes, clone, push, and pull.
Brought into Rhino and added line weights. Further refined and extruded in Rhino.
I redesigned the “mouth” shape that had emerged organically, and added more dimension to the “cracking” effect.
Materials and textures added with Cinema4D.
Found Objects
SCI-Arc | Making + Meaning | Los Angeles, CA | 2023
We explored 3D objects that had some personal significance to us, and layered, booleaned, and animated them with Z Brush and Cinema4D to create added meaning. Since I am a writer, I spend most of my day on a keyboard, and also
Early drawing playing with color and form.
Evolving the layout and adding more pop and depth so key elements are clearer.
have a strong affinity for analogue equipment. I choose the typewriter as the foundation, and added in more modern elements like the PCB keyboard and mouse, to depict the evolution of writing.
Second iteration.
Alt color palette.
Using Boolean in Cinema 4D to break down the objects.
Final rendering before animation.
HAND DRAWINGS
Pasadena City College | Los Angeles, CA | 2024
During ARCH 10A - Architectural Design Fundamentals with Professor Ben Warwas, we drew every floor plan, elevation, and section using hand tools only. The following contain a
collection of some drawings modeled after my own residence, followed by a customized ADU that was meant to draw inspiration from our
Sculpture & Wood
2023 - 2024
My obsession with architecture led me down a road of wondering how things are put together with wood, and it wasn’t long before I discovered the art of Japanese woodworking and joinery. The
work below illustrates my process of learning basic joints from a class with Yann Giguère in Ashland, Oregon, and Takami Kawai in Kyoto.
Stackable Kumiko cubes designed in CAD and printed on 1/8” and 1/4” plywood with a laser cutter. Made as a collaboration between my Beginning Sculpture and Digital Fabrication class. The prompt was “light.”
‘Found object’ prompt for Beginning Sculpture. I recycled plastic elements and the analogue film from a VHS tape and fabricated the cassette out of wood in the machine shop. I wanted to playfully highlight the decline of physical media in a digital world.
Left: Hand carved spoon made in a workshop led by Brandon Stark of Pearl Wood Studio. Right: Danish cord weaving stool put together at a workshop with Allied Woodshop. Design by David Johnson of Sidecar Furniture.
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Ceramics
2018 - 2024
Ceramic bowls and cups made under the instruction of Abudu Nininger from Kinship Studios.
Yestermorrow | Waitsfield, VT | 2023
A simple shed we built to store our lumber.
Installing the subfloor in freezing weather.
Even though we didn’t finish the house, I’m still proud of what we accomplished!
Using a Skilsaw for the first time to cut posts. Glue laminated timber and posts on helical piles.
The first wall I framed, built off site.
Personal Photography
2017 -2024
Most of my photography has been focused on portraits, and nearly all of it has been shot on either 35mm film or medium format. I like to explore the potential of an image that can be generated from spontaneously approaching a stranger on the street. You usually have less
than 30 seconds once they say yes to quickly direct them, frame and light - a limitation I find thrilling. I also bring a film camera with me on my productions, and take behind the scenes photos.
