About the Inventor
Life’s experiences have led up to this moment.
The quick backstory on me. After graduating from San Diego State University in 1988 I went to New York to become a stockbroker and work in the World Trade Center. It was an exciting time to be a young man on Wall Street.
One fine evening I was out with some friends one of which happened to be a model and she was approached by a casting director. The casting director then looked at me and said hey you have a great look would you like to be an extra in Rocky 5 and I said absolutely! And so my Hollywood career began…
I then moved back to Los Angeles. I went out on various auditions within 6 months I have my SAG card. I am proud to say about that time I got to work with the likes of Jon Voight, Steven Segal, and Edward Norton. I worked on shows such as Cheers, Mad About You, News Radio, and many others.
I began to think that I was able to produce movies as well. Heck! I have a Wall Street background, I thought I know how to raise money. I soon connected with up Start directors and began the road putting together financing for my first film. It was called 18 Shades of Dust and starred Academy Award nominee Danny Aiello. I was able to raise that money in 45 days! And all of a sudden I was a producer in Hollywood!
I continued to make feature films and television working with the likes of Mel Gibson's Icon Entertainment and Executive Producing at Lifetime Television until the business completely burned me out. I had just gotten married and I wanted to start a family. So I retired and moved on to the next chapter of my life.
Luckily during this time of my life technology was exploding. Things that I wanted to do before, such as, make my own movies we're now possible with the ability to edit on any personal computer. Cameras now shot video in the much wanted 24 frames per second. This was an exciting time and I began to direct and produce and edit my first feature film called Death Clique. This movie was eventually sold to Blockbuster Video. I was having the time of my life.
It was at this time that I was approached by one of my high school friends I had not spoken with in years. She was in charge of the ROP program at San Marino High School which was my rival high school growing up. She had an opportunity for me to come and teach Media Arts and animation if I was interested. I thought this would be a very exciting thing to do to help young minds learn about all of the trades and experiences that I had done in my life. So I jumped at the opportunity and got my teaching credential.
Being a teacher was the most rewarding occupation I had ever had in my life. It was so exciting to see these fresh young faces full of life ready to face the world. We were lucky enough to win many awards with our program and many of my students have gone on to do great things. Including working for Steven Spielberg's Shoah foundation.
During my time as a teacher I was faced with over 130 students in my classes. Yes I was quite popular. Getting them to do projects got to be a little difficult as we only had so many cameras. Five to be exact. So I began to let them use their iPhones and iPads for projects. I was getting back a lot of quality work, but the images were shaky, the audio was horrible, and the lighting as well.
I began to tinker with an idea of creating some kind of a case that could hold the iPad or iPhone and allow you to have your hands on both sides in the form of handles. I wanted it to mount on any standard tripod. I wanted to mount microphones and lights and also lenses. So I created a design had the help of an engineer and created a 3d print of my idea and thus the iOgrapher was born.
We are now in our third year, AND our device is used throughout the world. Everyday I get images of users and how they're creating with it and it's exciting. I had to retire from teaching, which was very sad for me, but I had to run this company and become an entrepreneur. You’ll never know where life takes you.
Some of our users include professional sports teams, such as, the Boston Celtics and the Miami Dolphins. Filmmakers around the country including the great Steven Spielberg! And best of all schools and universities across the world. I am truly excited about this new journey in my life and look forward to seeing what you create.
Welcome to the iOgrapher family!
Cheers, Dave