Home of director and photographer, Daniel Finley dannyjive.com

Now that a few projects have come to an end I’m writing again. I’m hard at work on a new feature length script based on the world of mythology. One of my favorite things about writing screenplays is the research and all the new things you learn. A few more screenplays and I can appear [...]

Phew, been having a terrible time of getting the internet lately. The Chicago heat must be affecting my router. I’ve wanted to post the deadline for this music video contest for some time now, but I’ve been buried in projects (which is a good thing). Now that I’ve wrapped up a couple, it’s a perfect [...]

I’ve just gotten some details on my speaking engagement happening in July. Looks like it will take place on Tuesday, July 14th at the Mercury Café in Chicago. The topic will be “Tips for New Directors” and is aimed at… well, new directors. I’ll be speaking for about 45 minutes with questions. A few things [...]

Ooo, this was brought to my attention from a reader. Apparently this Morning Musume video has been done before. Looks like it’s a direct knock off of a Pharell video. The similarities are almost identical. Seeing as they’re trying to market to an American audience, how could they not suspect that this would be discovered? [...]

Up Front Agency just released the music video for the Morning Musume song “3,2,1 Breakin’ Out” . This is their official release; not the winner of the contest. They’ll announce the winner in July when they perform in L.A. It’s a really nice video, much better than what they usually put out. I’m guessing they [...]

Some fun news. I’ve been asked by a friend to direct a short for Chicago’s 48hr film project. I’ve never participated in the festival before but it sounds like fun. The idea is that a team of filmmakers get together and write, produce, direct, and edit a short film within 48hrs and then screen them. [...]

I go to dannychoo.com to see all the great photos he takes on his photo-walks around Japan. Every once in a while you’ll find bit of inspiration in his posts. Here’s one I found recently that I really like and thought was worth sharing: “No matter what the odds are, Focus, Determination and Passion will [...]

Just finished my contest entry for Morning Musume’s new song “3,2,1 Breakin’ Out”. I gotta say I had a lot of fun making this. I felt like I was back in art school, being able to tackle the project any way I wanted. Even with that said, I went in knowing the target audience and [...]

I’ve wanted to write a blog post about Kensuke Kawamura for a while now. He’s probably one of my favorite directors coming out of Japan at the moment. From the little Japanese that I can understand, his bio says he started in photography and moved into music video. I haven’t seen much by him as [...]

There have been a lot of amazing entries from very talented bands to the “3 free music video” contest. The most frequent question we get is “what kind of music are you looking for?” The answer to that is, “all kinds”. It’s funny because a lot of my friends are second guessing what kind of [...]