El Gallo

Alejandro Wilkins is known for his bold choices and emotional visual style. Throughout his career, he has made an effort to adapt traditional approaches to modern technologies, and the result has been a cinematic standard that spans the genres he shoots.

When not working as an operator on series programming, Alejandro focuses on shooting commercials, recently for such notable clients as Lexus, Cisco, Maruha Nichiro and Nestle. He is also a prolific documentary cinematographer, covering subjects from science exploration to humanitarian activism.

He traveled through the Seram Sea for the critically acclaimed feature documentary Ghost Fleet and is currently in the southern Pacific Ocean filming scientists of the International Oceans Discovery Program who are exploring ancient earth sediment for climate research.

“Documentary cinematography often forces me to adjust what I have planned and embrace what has manifested. It has been an incredible aid for my approach to lighting and composition.”

This is his second recognition by ICG as an emerging cinematographer, his first for a work of nonfiction.

El Gallo is a Spanish-language documentary that was shot primarily in Sonora, Mexico and coincides with boxer Juan Estrada’s title fight in Inglewood, CA.

Camtec L.A. outfitted the team with an ALEXA Mini and Kowa Anamorphic lenses for the principal shoot. A RED WEAPON HELIUM, with a spherical Angéniuex E-Z1 Zoom, was chosen for the fight-night event. Alejandro and Director Michael Medoway focused on choosing equipment that would create a subtle separation between the present-day fight and the film’s flashbacks.

Alejandro’s collaboration with Medoway began at San Francisco State University, where they both studied film production. They now team up frequently for projects in the U.S., Japan and Latin America, often shooting in the native language.

“El Gallo was bred from the desire to cultivate creative growth with recurring collaborators. It would not have been possible without the determination of producers Michael Medoway, Liz de Los Santos and Jeff Murray, the generosity of Juan ‘El Gallo’ Estrada and his team, the precision of colorist Marshall Plante, Hermosillo and our strapping local crew, and the Local 600 Emerging Cinematographers program.”