Keeping Dallas Fresh
Slice Media shatters Dallas stereotypes to show a younger, sexier side of thecity
Cesar Jasso (left) and David Redish (right) make up Slice Media, a Dallas-basedvideo production company.Photo courtesy of Slice Media
"I wanted to work for myself and be in control of my future," Jasso says. "I wassitting at my office desk and thought, 'I'm too young to be wasting my days inan office doing something I don't enjoy.'"Photo courtesy of Slice Media
Redish reviews a shot from the Felix Cartal episode of the Chasing Daylightseries with director of photography Jordan Mathis.Photo courtesy of Slice Media
Cesar Jasso and David Redish, the duo behind video production company Slice Media, are on a mission to make Dallas look cool.
“Cesar is always stressing that stuff when we shoot,” Redish says. “We want to make Dallas look the way it should, which isn’t always how it’s portrayed by the media.”
Forget high hair and credit card statements the size of a small country’s GDP. Slice Media wants to show how the young and restless operate in Dallas.
One of Slice Media’s weapons in the fight against GCB stereotypes is a new series called Chasing Daylight.
One of their weapons in the fight against GCB stereotypes is a new series called Chasing Daylight. The first episode came out in August, starring Colorado-based DJ Paper Diamond, who explored Dallas while in town for a show. You can see the video above, where he plays at Trees in Deep Ellum and checks out Centre in Mockingbird Station.
“I had been doing some shooting with Bassnectar while he was on tour and got this idea of doing more with video than just shooting B-roll for the tour,” Redish says. “I wanted to see what it was like for someone when they were in town, outside of performing.”
Redish says that his friend Geoff Stupay at Fresh New Tracks put him in touch with Paper Diamond, and they set up a shoot last winter.
“It was a lot of fun,” Jasso says. “Corporate shoots can be stressful, because you have to answer to the client, but with this we met up with Paper Diamond for six hours and just planned the day out, taking him around Dallas. It was me, David and two cameramen. Those shots in the car are in David’s car, and he’s driving and interviewing at the same time.”
Slice Media started in August 2010, but the seed for the company was planted back in 2001, when Redish and Jasso were freshmen at ESD.
[Editor's note: The author attended ESD and was three years behind Redish and Jasso. He knew of them only through sports, where they did not talk to him or pass the ball.]
“We’ve known each other since we were 15,” Redish says. “Toward the end of high school, we started leading a film club and thought it was fun, but didn’t really know about a career in it.”
One of their first jobs, a political ad for State Rep. Cindy Burkett, ended up winning a Pollie Award.
Redish went to SMU to study filmmaking while Jasso attended Texas A&M, where he majored in international business. After college, Redish went off to Los Angeles to make movies and went through the entire process of not making movies, he says.
Meanwhile, Jasso had moved to Austin. In March 2010, Redish crashed with Jasso while attending South by Southwest and mentioned that he wanted to start a video production company back in Texas.
“I went back home, and about two months later, Cesar called and was like, ‘Let’s do it in Dallas.’” Redish says. “By August we had set up a couple of political ads.”
One of those ads — “One of Us,” for State Rep. Cindy Burkett — ended up winning a Pollie Award from the American Association of Political Consultants. That early success has allowed them to grow Slice Media organically.
“So far it’s just the two of us,” Redish says. “We hire out as many freelancers as we need, but we want Slice to stay nimble. We didn’t want to box ourselves in with a general topic, which is where our name comes from.”
Jasso says that although they do the corporate stuff, their passion lies in the original productions.
“We’ve done a few festivals with our stuff,” he says. “We got Best Overall last year at Guts and Glory [part of Dallas VideoFest], which was a lot of fun. We shot on Super 8 in 24 hours, which meant we couldn’t do any editing.”
Redish recently directed a tourism ad for the City of Dallas featuring Larry Hagman. The video captures the duo’s efforts to showcase Dallas as more than Dallas.
Outside of Slice Media, Redish recently directed a tourism ad for the city of Dallas featuring Larry Hagman, and Jasso came on as production manager. They teamed up with Redish’s SMU friend Dan Maitland, who was the executive producer.
It may not have Slice Media’s label, but the video captures the duo’s efforts to showcase Dallas as more than Dallas. And if J.R. Ewing is the one telling you to forget that old image of Dallas, then, well, that’s probably worth something, right?
Redish says that Slice is working on getting out the second episode of Chasing Daylight next month.
“We shot this DJ named Felix Cartal last year at South by Southwest,” he says. “He’s this young guy, like 24 or 25, and does this mash-up stuff. He’s on Steve Aoki’s record label.”
Just because the episode takes place in Austin doesn’t mean Chasing Daylight is moving away from Dallas.
“The model of the show is to be on the road and travel with the artist,” Redish says. “But we always love filming with them here to show off Dallas’ rarely highlighted hip and young side.”
