Horizon Pictures

Los Angeles / Jackson Hole

Award winning motion picture
and television productions

Peter Pilafian

December 15, 2006

I am bundled up here in Barrow, Alaska, the week before Christmas - filming a Ford truck commercial. It is unseasonably warm, according to the locals - somewhere between zero and 5 degrees! But the Northern Lights are spectacular, as we commute via chartered plane every day to Deadhorse. And of course--- it is always dark. Yes, the sun never comes up.....but so far my cameras just keep on working!

November 20, 2006

Now specializing in filming extinct species. Two recent projects for National Geographic Television: The Dire Wolf, and the Short-Faced Bear, both of which became extinct about 7,000 years ago.

January 28, 2006

PBS aired "The War That Made America" on two successive Wednesdays, this week and last. Reviews were positive. I was the DP on episodes 1 and 3 of this lavish and expensive historical documentary series about the French and Indian War. For the battle scenes, I created a "Band Of Brothers" look entirely within the camera - a Hi Def Varicam - thereby saving lots of money in post production.

January 27, 2006

Last Thursday my new short film "Someday Somebody Will Ski That" premiered to a wildly cheering crowd at the 2nd annual Barry Corbet Film Festival in Jackson Hole. It easily won the Audience Choice Award - perhaps because I produced it in just over a month, start to finish - there was no time to overwork it! The 18 minute documentary, shot in HDV, tells legends and stories about the most famous ski run in North America - Corbet's Couloir at Jackson Hole.

January 15, 2006

While I was with Harry Belafonte in Venezuela last week shooting a feature documentary about his "secret" life as a social activist, Mr. Belafonte made big waves when he called George Bush a terrorist. "I thought Bin Laden had a lock on that", said Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

September 29, 2005

"Riding Giants" has been running on HBO. If you missed it in the theaters, here is a second chance to see what some critics call "The best Surf movie ever made". Meanwhile, up in Montana I got so intimate with a Grizzly Bear last week that his drool was all over my lens. We were, of course, shooting a re-staging of the actual attack, but with a well-trained bear.

August 30, 2005

Here in Dilla, Ethiopia, near the Great Rift Valley - the Fair Trade Coffee program, run by Oxfam, has helped local farming co-ops build schools, clinics, and dig wells for clean drinking water. All done efficiently and without government money. Oxfam! Impressive place to make a difference with your donations. (And the coffee is all organic, too!)

July 23, 2005

Survived a month on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Now shooting with Harry Belafonte for "The Secret Life of a Calypso Singer"