Meet Alexander Miller of Thunder Grip in Central/West Valley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexander Miller.

Alexander, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born and raised in a suburb just west of Phoenix, I grew up the youngest of three. Early on, I had an interest in film and television. One of my earliest memories is sitting on the floor of my grandparent’s house watching Indiana Jones or Starwars on a 7” black and white monitor that my grandfather had for testing A/V installations at his business.

The first time I remember messing with cameras was around the age 12 when my mom bought a brand new camcorder. I obsessed over it, it was a Canon ZR45 MiniDV and I still have it on the shelf of my office, alongside about 50 other cameras I’ve bought over the years. I loved that camera and would make any excuse I could make to use it. That eventually led to my interest in skateboarding and filming combining. Being the least skilled skateboarder in my group of friends, and also coincidentally being the only one with access to a camera meant that filming friends tricks became my job. I absolutely loved it. I attribute a lot of my current lifestyle to those days; spending sometimes hours filming for maybe 30 seconds of a moment, always keeping your eyes open to new locations when traveling, having an interest in camera movement, etc.

But eventually, all things have to come to an end. As I got older, and as friends started working and losing interest, we spent less time skating, so I spent less time filming. And without realizing it, we skated together for the last time. At this point, I’m now a senior in high school, and everyone I know is choosing which colleges they wanted to go to or what they would do with their life. I was still unsure of all of that. I had a vague idea of what I liked doing. I liked cameras, I liked doing different things every day, I just liked creating. Working in film wasn’t even on my radar yet.

I was taking a Media Productions class in high school when a representative for a film school came to speak with our class. I hadn’t realized schools for making movies were a thing. I don’t know why I never thought about it before, but at that point it all clicked. So I did some research and learned that Scottsdale Community College had a film program and I asked my dad if he wanted to go with me to take a tour. That tour changed the course of my life. I got to walk through their equipment room “The Cage” and studios and fell in love with all the stuff that it took to make films. Especially the lighting. Up to this point my experience with lighting was very limited. I was awestruck.

I knew that I wanted to learn everything I could about lighting and that was what I wanted to master. I knew how to use cameras, I’d taken photography courses for four years to this point, but I knew nothing about lighting. I later learned what the Director of Photography on a film set did, and my sights were now set to be a DoP. Simply put, the DoP (or Cinematographer) is in charge of designing the lighting, choosing the lenses, and achieving the camera movements of a film. They are in charge of the achieving the technical execution and also collaborate on the artistic direction of the image. It all clicked. That was my calling.

Throughout film school, I made a great deal of friends, most of which I’m still close with today. But most importantly I shot films and learned the most I could about the language of cinema, what it takes to craft an image, how to dissect other people’s work, how to emulate the work of my heroes etc. I failed a lot, and I learned a lot. I was on set so often shooting or crewing on friends films that I decided it would be a good idea to buy a box truck to help transport gear to the student projects I was working on easier. At this point, I was also employed as a content creator for a sports website and was spending all the money I made there to buy gear and try to work on sets with friends as often as possible. I loved the idea of a freelance lifestyle and wanted to spend the time with my friends making movies. It was just like my time skateboarding. I was having a blast. And before I knew it, I had a truck full of my own gear and was getting hired to light films for a living. I was working as a Gaffer, which is the head of the lighting department, on indie films, music videos, and commercials. Spending all my money on gear.

Eventually, that lead to the creation of Thunder Grip. Before I knew it I was running a motion picture rental company out of my apartment and DPing for friends in my free time. Which is basically what I still do to this day. Ten years after that studio tour and I have a fleet of trucks and hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment inventory. Crewing in the lighting department and renting gear to pay the bills between the more
challenging, artistic DP gigs. Shooting is my passion, and it always will be.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I don’t think anything has come easy, and I don’t expect it to. I’ve been very fortunate in the professional relationships I’ve made that have helped me progress in the industry, but that’s not to say I haven’t worked hard for what I have and what I’ve done. I work roughly 80 hours a week, whether that’s on set or in the shop. Which doesn’t leave a lot of time for other hobbies, and it can be pretty strainious on personal relationships.

Ironically, I also find a lot of difficulty in self-promotion, especially as an artist. It’s a lot of work to try and convince someone to let you make something worthwhile.

I’m just trying to create. My personal motto is “Create or f*** off”.

Please tell us about your work.
Well, I’m in an interesting transition in my career right now. On one hand, I’m an owner/operator with a small fleet of grip trucks. I’m often times working as a gaffer or key-grip on random projects that come through tow. And on the other hand I’m an artist, a cinematographer and film photographer. I love both equally, but personally I’d rather be shooting and creating. Collaborating with visionary directors and other artists is exciting, challenging, and good for my soul.

But that’s not to say I don’t get a lot of enjoyment from working for other DPs as a Gaffer or Key Grip. I’ve learned a ton from other DPs. It’s helpful to learn how other people approach their work, there’s a million ways to approach a scene or a project so it’s cool to borrow ideas from people at the top of their game.

I’m really proud of the work I’ve done. Lately, I’ve been trying to make a conscious effort to shoot more and more. I was fortunate to shoot the player intros for the Phoenix Suns 2019 season which was a huge opportunity for me. I was able to hire a bunch of friends to help me pull off the shoot and I was really happy with how it turned out. I followed that up with a commercial shoot for Lincoln Motors which (for reasons outside of my control) never made the air. And recently I got the opportunity to shoot a western short out in the middle of the desert for a director friend I’ve known since college.

I’m just grateful to be able to make art for a living.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to do it all over again, I think I would have tried graduating high school earlier so I could enroll in film school as early as possible. But otherwise I’m not sure what I’d do differently, I love my life and I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. Maybe I would have invested in bitcoin or something so I could self fund my own stuff and not rely on anyone else budget to be able to make stuff. Haha

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.thundergrip.com, www.alexcine.com
• Phone: 6023097535
• Email: alex@thundergrip.com, Alex@alexcine.com
• Instagram: @thunder_grip

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