Articles Things I have written and things written about me

Producers of Bigger, Stronger, Faster talk Fair Use

by Tamsin Rawady and Alex Buono

Filmmaking is a constant struggle between creative vision and budgetary restraint. In the production of our documentary, Bigger Stronger Faster*, no issue better demonstrated this tug-of-war than our use of archival footage. As writers/producers, we quickly learned about an important tool called the Fair Use Doctrine, which could help us balance the conflict between our goal of being legally and fiscally responsible, and telling the most honest and accurate version of our story.

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SNL’s Digital Evolution

By Dan Brockett
December 21, 2012

Cinematographer Alex Buono has spent 14 seasons behind the lens with NBC’s Saturday Night Live Film Unit.Almost every week, the Film Unit team is faced with shooting a parody commercial spot that will need to emulate the original as closely as possible, but with a far smaller budget, crew, resources and, most significantly, far less time.

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Inside Alex Buono’s Toolkit: Shooting ‘Saturday Night Live”s Digital Shorts

by creativeplanetnetwork.com
February 21, 2013

When a television show runs for more than 37 years, it must be doing something right. Such is the case with NBC’s Saturday Night Live. And when the same director of photography remains involved in the show for more than a decade, he must be just as successful.

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Alex Buono: Shooting for Saturday Night Live

by Michael Murie
August 16, 2012

Alex Buono is perhaps best known for his work with the Saturday Night Live Film Unit. He shot the current opening for SNL, as well as many of the fake commercials seen on the show, but his passion is documentary and making independent films.

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7 Lighting Tips for Shooting Video with Digital SLRs

By Dan Havlik
August 15, 2012

Cinematographer Alex Buono is one of the early pioneers of using HD-DSLRs to capture video for television.

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10 Things I Learned at Masters in Motion

by Jon Connor
January 7, 2013

On December 2nd, 2012, filmmakers from as far away as Canada, Croatia, Tanzania, Switzerland, and Brazil converged in downtown Austin, Texas for Masters in Motion, a three-day immersive filmmaking workshop, held annually at the world-famous Alamo Drafthouse on 6th Street

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Tapeless on Steroids

by creativeplanetnetwork.com

The steroid-use documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster* required processing more than 800 archival clips as well as original Panasonic P2 footage through a unique digital workflow at Mind Over Eye in Santa Monica, Calif. Photo Courtesy of BSF Film.

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SNL: Cutting humor; cutting-edge technology

By: Randi Altman
January 1, 2013

NEW YORK — Once upon a time, the Saturday Night Live Film Unit –— those responsible for the fake commercials, shorts, title sequences and pre-recorded elements used in sketches — shot on 35mm film stock. On the surface that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when you take into account that they were shooting on Friday for a Saturday show, you realize the implications: films labs, telecine sessions and other time-intensive steps. Alex Buono, one of the Film Unit’s primary DPs for the past 12 seasons, remembers it as an “incredibly challenging” workflow.

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DP Alex Buono Talks C300 At SF SuperMeet

By: Clint Milby
February 1, 2012

SNL Veteran, Talks About Using the C300 For Network Television…

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