“I want my MTV.” — Dire Straits, “Money for Nothing” (1985)
MOTION & PRODUCTION
Producing
Pittsburgh Riveters
Riveters Rise Commercial
Riveters Rise is another project I'm immensely proud of—not only because of the finished video, but because of everything it took behind the scenes to make it happen.
Working again with our then-VP of Marketing, Ryan Shaffer, we developed the concept and story for a commercial following a girl's journey from discovering soccer as a child to eventually reaching the USL W League with the Pittsburgh Riveters.
We also had some pretty significant limitations. Our budget was incredibly tight, we had one day to film, and the entire production had to take place at AHN Montour Sports Complex, our training facility. We couldn't literally show every stage of this player's journey, so our challenge became finding moments that could imply the memories and experiences shared by so many girls who grow up playing the sport.
I created a rough storyboard and from there took on the majority of the project's pre-production and production coordination.
That started with casting. I contacted coaches throughout our Riverhounds Development Academy girls program and asked them to recommend players across several age groups who could help represent different stages of the journey. I also enlisted a friend and his daughter to portray our youngest player—the moment where that initial spark and love for soccer begins.
From there, the project quickly became a scheduling puzzle.
I coordinated directly with each player's family, worked with Voyage Visuals to continually adjust our shot list and story around what was realistically achievable, and divided our different age groups into specific filming windows. Because we were shooting on a school day, I deliberately scheduled the older players earlier so they could return to school, while younger players filmed later in the afternoon when many were already dismissed.
We also had a hard deadline for wrapping production, limited access to certain locations—including the locker room for our adult Riveters player—and absolutely no second day to fall back on.
Once everything was locked, I created the itineraries, talent releases, and school absence forms necessary to keep the production organized and make sure every family knew exactly where they needed to be and when.
And then something wonderful happened:
The shoot went exactly according to plan.
Every group finished ahead of schedule. We captured everything on our shot list and had enough time left over to get additional material. For a one-day production involving multiple groups of children, parents, professional players, location restrictions, school schedules, and an outside production company, I was incredibly proud of how smoothly everything came together.
After filming, I worked with Voyage Visuals on a handful of editorial adjustments before we delivered the final campaign across television, web, and social media.
The finished video earned more than 3,800 views on YouTube alone and aired commercially on SportsNet Pittsburgh, becoming one piece of the larger marketing campaign surrounding the Riveters' inaugural season—which ultimately opened in front of a sellout crowd.
For me, Riveters Rise is as much a production case study as it is a creative one. We started with an ambitious story and some very real limitations on budget, time, locations, and resources. My job was to help figure out how we could still tell that story—and then build a production plan detailed enough to actually pull it off.
Sometimes the creative solution isn't finding more resources. It's figuring out how to make the resources you have feel like enough.
Pittsburgh Riverhounds
Coaches Show
Our Riverhounds Coaches Show has been a fun callback to my experience producing television when I was back in college. My role today is less about physically operating the cameras and more about helping establish the creative direction, look, and overall presentation of the show, while communicating that vision with the excellent production team at 1TEAM Media.
The episode featured here is one of my favorites. Our Senior Director of Marketing, Ethan Lounsbury, arranged for the show to be a featured part of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History's 18+ Night, giving us a location that was already significantly different from our usual shows.
I've always felt that one of the most important parts of working with talented creatives and freelancers is knowing when to trust their expertise. As soon as we arrived, 1TEAM Media Senior Producer Mark Cottington, someone I've known for years and whose production expertise I have tremendous respect for, suggested that we ask to move the set between the museum's massive dinosaur skeletons.
I loved the idea immediately.
Rather than sticking rigidly to our original plan, I went about making sure we could relocate the production. The resulting setup was dramatically more interesting and gave this episode a visual identity completely its own. It's a great example of how I like to approach creative leadership: establish a direction, surround yourself with talented people, listen when they have a better idea, and then help make that idea happen.
My involvement also continues after production wraps. Once I receive the finished program, I prepare it for broadcast by adding lower thirds, bumpers, and music; checking and adjusting audio; and making any necessary editorial cuts before final delivery.
The Coaches Show is also a live experience for the fans and patrons around us, so my responsibilities extend beyond the broadcast itself. On location, I'm typically running XLRs and managing our house audio feed so the audience can hear and react to the show in real time. That live crowd becomes part of the atmosphere of the production, helping the finished show feel like it belongs to the place where we filmed it.
It's a project that lets me wear a different hat than I do with much of my motion and design work: helping guide a production from creative direction and collaboration on location all the way through post-production and final broadcast.
Pittsburgh Riveters
Jerry’s Records Visit
This one wasn't overly complicated, but it was an incredibly fun piece to produce. As part of the Riveters' second season, we established a partnership with the historic Jerry's Records, and our Corporate Partnerships team brought me into the initial conversation to help determine what an announcement video for the partnership could look like.
After talking with the team at Jerry's (seriously, go visit them—they're awesome!), we landed on something pretty simple: send a few Riveters players and our mascot into the store, let them dig through some records, and see what they find.
From there, I worked with our Director of Communications, Matt Grubba, to identify players whose personalities would work well for the piece. I coordinated a filming date between the players and the shop and brought along one of our incredibly talented videographer interns, Matthew Sarkis, to shoot the video.
Creatively, I wanted the piece to have a fun, upbeat, and natural feel without becoming overly reliant on planned jokes or wacky skits. Having a giant hound wandering through a record store obviously meant there were going to be some mascot shenanigans, but we actually made a conscious effort to rein those moments back.
The star needed to be Jerry's Records.
Rather than simply using the shop as a backdrop for a Riveters video, I wanted viewers to actually experience the place—the rows of records, the personality of the store, and the fun of digging through everything to find something you love. At the same time, having our players choose records gave us a natural way to let fans learn a little more about them and their personalities.
The finished piece hit exactly the tone I was hoping for. It gave our sponsor a video that authentically showcased their business, gave our players an opportunity to show some personality, and gave fans a piece of partnership content that hopefully felt more like something they'd choose to watch than something they were being advertised to.
Most importantly, Jerry's Records loved the finished piece, which is ultimately one of the best measures I can ask for when creating something for a partner.
Motion Graphics and Animation
Pittsburgh Riverhounds
412 Football Classic Commercial
This animation was a project I really wanted to push creatively and use as an opportunity to test how far I could take everything I've learned working with 3D and After Effects.
Using a combination of assets sourced through Sketchfab and elements I created and animated myself, I built this 30 second commercial to promote the inaugural 412 Football Classic. From the beginning, my goal was to give the spot the energy and polish of something you'd expect to see during a major sports broadcast. I wanted the 3D environments, camera movements, typography, sound design, and pacing to all work together to make these high school football games feel genuinely big.
More than anything, this project gave me an opportunity to bring together several different parts of my skill set: 3D design, motion graphics, compositing, editing, and sound design, into one cohesive piece, while pushing myself technically beyond what I'd done on previous projects.
The finished commercial will air throughout the Pittsburgh market on SportsNet Pittsburgh, putting the work in front of viewers watching Pirates and Penguins coverage, along with other programming across the network.
Pittsburgh Riveters
Just Dance Halftime
I originally pitched Just Dance as a halftime segment for Pittsburgh Riveters matches. We wanted to create something that could get the entire crowd up and moving, while still giving fans a central focus on our video board and allowing us to tailor the experience around different theme nights. This particular version leaned into an America 250 summer celebration, giving the segment a bright, energetic red, white, and blue look.
I selected the song, helped develop the concept, and oversaw the filming of the dance performance. From there, I brought the final look together in post-production by rotoscoping our mascot into individual segments, one for each color, and layering the performances together to create the multi-character effect.
Most importantly, it worked! Once the segment debuted, we saw roughly 75–100 fans participating at a time, turning a video-board piece into an interactive experience that got a significant portion of the crowd out of their seats and dancing along.
Pittsburgh Riverhounds
Goal Animations
These animations were created to celebrate every Pittsburgh Riverhounds goal throughout the 2025 season. In total, I created both vertical and horizontal versions for every player on our roster, along with alternate “SAVE” animations for our goalkeepers.
With that many deliverables, efficiency was incredibly important. I built a master template in After Effects that fed into separate compositions for each format, allowing me to make universal changes once while still customizing player names, footage, positioning, and other individual elements. The result was a flexible system that dramatically cut down production time while keeping everything visually consistent throughout the season.
I also expanded the same visual language into our player introduction videos, swapping the celebratory footage for more neutral player shots and simplifying elements like the rotoscoped player and background typography. This gave us a cohesive package that could work across both our in-stadium presentation and social media.
Between our social channels and in-stadium video board, these animations reached an average audience of 7,000+ viewers per use, combining motion design, live entertainment, and an efficient production workflow into one adaptable system.
Pittsburgh Riveters
Goal Animation
Similar to the Riverhounds goal animations, this project became the foundation for our Pittsburgh Riveters goal celebration package during the 2025 season. With a roster of more than 35 players, I built another After Effects template that allowed me to quickly produce customized vertical and horizontal versions for every player while maintaining a consistent look across the entire package.
While the workflow was similar, I wanted the Riveters package to have an identity completely its own. The design pulled heavily from the World War II-inspired aesthetic used throughout the 2025 campaign, incorporating period-inspired typography, industrial textures, and steelworking imagery that connected back to both the Riveters brand and Pittsburgh.
I also pushed the technical side in a different direction. Rather than reuse the rotoscoped-player treatment from the Riverhounds package, I developed a cloth simulation system for the player banners and created a 3D steelworking scene to serve as the centerpiece of the animation. Both were integrated directly into the template, allowing me to simply drop in a player's headshot and quickly generate their customized version.
The result was a package that felt distinctly Riveters while remaining efficient enough to scale across 35+ players and multiple formats. Like the Riverhounds animations, each video reached an average combined audience of 7,000+ viewers across social media and in-stadium presentation.
Pittsburgh Riverhounds
Crowd Activations
Below are two examples of sponsored crowd activations I created for our in-stadium experience, each approaching brand integration in a slightly different way.
The first is our Pella Crowd Save. I wanted the animation to feel slightly triumphant, as it accompanies a fun moment in which fans receive a mini soccer ball whenever the game ball enters the stands. The activation itself was a multi-department effort: our Corporate Partnerships team developed the initial sponsorship and giveaway concept, then brought me in to determine how we could translate it into an engaging video-board experience. From there, I collaborated with our Game Night Presentation producer to determine how it could best integrate into the flow of a live match.
One of the trickiest parts was actually behind the scenes. I needed to get the video's alpha-channel wipe working properly with our production software so the animation could seamlessly wipe on and off over the live camera feed rather than cutting to black before playing. After some testing and troubleshooting, we were able to make the effect work exactly as intended and create a much more polished transition between the live production and sponsored element.
The second activation started much more simply. Originally intended to be a still graphic, I saw an opportunity to push the idea further. The thought of an animated mosquito being squashed by a fly swatter was simply too fun to pass up, and I felt the humor and movement would make the sponsor's message significantly more memorable for fans than a static graphic.
Both activations appear multiple times throughout our home matches, which typically draw between 3,000 and 6,000 fans, creating repeated, memorable touchpoints for our partners while adding something entertaining to the overall game-day experience.
Editing
Pittsburgh Riverhounds
Chromatic Jersey Nine Inch Nails Opening Video
I take a lot of pride in creating game intro videos that I would have loved to see as a kid. I think it's critical to hold onto that sense of wonder and approach these more organic, fun projects from the perspective of someone experiencing it for the very first time. If I can make a kid in the stands think, "That was awesome," then I've done my job.
Music is also an immensely important part of my approach. For this particular intro, I felt strongly that Nine Inch Nails provided a provocative, catchy, and somewhat recognizable sound that could immediately grab fans' attention and build anticipation for the match. I try to treat the music as more than a backing track—it establishes the pacing, attitude, and energy that drive the entire piece.
Projects like these also give me an opportunity to continually push myself both technically and stylistically, experimenting with new techniques while still making sure everything serves the larger experience.
These intro videos regularly play in front of 3,000+ fans, serving as one of the final exclamation points before the match begins. It's a chance to turn a few minutes of motion design, editing, and music into something that makes the match feel bigger—and hopefully creates the same kind of excitement I would have felt watching it as a kid.
Pittsburgh Riveters
Name Reveal Video
Sometimes you expect the big projects to be big projects. Other times, you're sitting on your couch when a friend you do freelance work for asks if you can quickly turn around an announcement video for a new women's soccer team—and you put something together without realizing it will become a vital starting point for an organization's identity.
This project was initially sold to me as, "Hey, we need something really quick. Can you make a video we can use once or twice and be done with it?" With virtually no original footage or content available, the challenge became figuring out how to tell a compelling story using whatever I could get my hands on.
I leaned into that limitation. I combined stock footage, news coverage from one of our local media partners, women's soccer footage, and one of my favorite creative resources: old public domain films and archival footage. I've always felt that old footage can be an absolute goldmine of inspiration, texture, and style when used in the right context, and it ultimately helped give the piece an identity that felt much bigger than the resources we had available at the time.
What started as a quick-turn project became one of the first major pieces of content used to introduce the Pittsburgh Riveters to the public. The finished video received some incredibly kind praise from my peers for both its quality and storytelling, and its life extended well beyond the original "use it once or twice" request.
The video has since appeared across social media, web, game broadcasts, local newscasts, and other outlets, while earning more than 1,800 views on YouTube alone. For me, it's a great example of how creative problem-solving and a strong story can turn limited resources—and a seemingly small assignment—into something much bigger.
Pittsburgh Riverhounds
Odyssey Night Intro Video
Everybody loves a good theme, and one of the cruxes of our regular season matches with both the Hounds and Riveters is our use of theme nights. We've done everything from Wicked Night and Napoleon Dyna-Nite to Austin Powers Night, but one of my favorite pieces I've created for these was the intro video for our Odyssey Night.
As I've mentioned before, I always try to approach these videos through the lens of eight-year-old me: What would I see that would make me go, "Wow, I want to be a fan of this!"
First and foremost, I have to credit my colleague and friend Kris Brown, who provided incredible direction and inspiration from the beginning (it helped that he'd gotten around to seeing The Odyssey before I did). His vision was to mimic the moment when Odysseus returns home, restrings his bow, and confronts the suitors who have taken over his home. His other big note was that he wanted the sound of Matt Damon's Odysseus plucking the bowstring to serve as one final warning shot to our opponent.
I loved it.
Collaborating with Kris on this was a joy, and it reminded me of one of my favorite parts of working with freelance clients: being given a strong central idea and then having the freedom to take it and run with it.
From there, everything came down to execution—and especially sound and rhythm. I wanted that bowstring to be the absolute last thing fans heard before the teams entered the field. With my background in music, audio editing is something I'm incredibly particular about. If I'm cutting down or restructuring a song, I want the resulting edit to still feel musically natural and as seamless as humanly possible. In this case, I was essentially rebuilding the music around the pacing of the intro so everything could ultimately resolve into that final sound.
Visually, I also used the project as an opportunity to push myself in a more cinematic, Nolan-esque direction, particularly with the color grade of our footage. But ultimately, the entire video lived and died on the rhythm of the edit. I wanted it to start controlled and continually become faster, more frantic, and more overwhelming—as if the madness was slowly building until it could swallow the entire stadium whole.
Everything needed to reach a breaking point at exactly the right moment.
Did the crowd actually descend into complete madness afterward? Well... not exactly. Sometimes you get a tough crowd! But creatively and technically, I'm incredibly proud of where this piece landed. It allowed me to combine collaboration, storytelling, music, audio editing, color, and pacing into one of my favorite game intros I've created.
Pittsburgh Riverhounds
and Coen Markets
Partnership Commercial
This was a fun team and sponsor video that I had the pleasure of editing for our partnership with Coen Markets, filmed on location at one of their stores around Pittsburgh. I had actually joined the organization shortly before this commercial was filmed and gradually got thrown into the project as production moved along, making it one of the first commercials I edited for the Riverhounds.
The concept, developed by our then-VP of Marketing Ryan Shaffer, was wonderfully straightforward: let AMO loose in a Coen Market and see what happens. He orders entirely too much food, attempts to pay with dog toys, and generally creates the sort of problems you'd expect from a 5-foot-8 anthropomorphic dog wandering around a gas station.
The original plan was to create a longer version of the commercial and then break individual scenes into multiple 30-second spots. Time ultimately got the better of us, leaving us with the full two-minute video and the 30-second version you see here.
For my money, though, I actually think the 30-second cut works better. The quicker pacing helps the jokes land without overstaying their welcome, and most importantly, the comedy never overshadows the sponsor's message: Coen Markets is so good, you'll want to order everything on the menu.
Looking back at the edit now, there are certainly little things I'd approach differently. There's one shot where an employee briefly looks directly into the camera, which I tried to mask by slightly slowing the footage. I was pretty hellbent on keeping the shot because I loved the buildup of her slowly peering around the corner only to discover that she's talking to a giant anthropomorphic dog.
I still maintain that the shot stays. But today, I'd probably find a more creative way to embrace the awkwardness rather than trying to hide it—potentially exaggerating the timing or slow motion enough that the imperfection becomes part of the joke.
It's a small moment, but it's also a fun example of how my approach to editing has evolved since one of my earliest commercial projects with the organization.