About

Greg Wilson, an Oscars short-listed and Emmy Awards-winning director/cinematographer, has become known for designing and crafting unique solutions to previously impossible cinematic shots, often in extreme environments – always pushing for innovation in his work. A prolific cinematographer, Wilson has lensed multiple narrative feature films with movie stars that include Justin Long, Michael Rainey Jr., Fran Drescher, Josh Charles, Becky Ann Baker, Kate Berlant and Richard Schiff. 

Wilson has photographed nearly a dozen documentary films in both 1st and 2nd Units including Jason Hehir’s Netflix Original Inspiration4, about the first all civilian orbital space mission, Friday Night Light’s director Peter Burg’s Heavy, Sasha Jenkins’ Word in Bond and most recently, Greg was the 2nd Unit Director and Director of Photography on The Longest Row, an upcoming documentary film by the Academy Award winning director of Icarus, Bryan Fogel, which took him to Hawaii and the Gold Coast of Australia following an athlete rowing a rowboat from Honolulu to Australia non-stop, solo and unsupported.  

Beyond his 2nd Unit duties on the Longest Row, Greg served as technical advisor for the intensely challenging ocean environment, including a daily weather briefing for the broader team, and he helped coordinate the athlete’s eventual rescue off the Great Barrier Reef. Greg was the aerial director and aerial cinematographer on the ground breaking Disney+ series America the Beautiful, which implemented high-speed, Jet-Aerial cinematography for the first time in a natural history series. The series won the Broadcast Tech Innovation Awards in 2023 and was nominated for both an Emmy and for Best Cinematography at the Jackson Wild Film Festival. Greg also won an Emmy for his work on the Netflix Original film ZION with his long-time collaborator Floyd Russ. The film was also short-listed for the Academy Awards and won Best Short Documentary at the International Documentary Awards.  

Greg was the first Vision Research Inc. certified Phantom Camera Technician and was on the technical development team for ground-breaking high-speed camera systems the Phantom Flex2K and Flex4K. He cut his teeth as an early DIT designing workflows with early digital camera systems on large commercial and narrative film sets before moving into the role of camera operator.  Greg was a camera operator on the Wolf of Wall Street, Bel Canto, Selfless, Ninja Turtles, Boardwalk Empire and more.

For his first ever motion picture project, Greg won the International Magazine Awards for a film he produced, directed and photographed for National Geographic Magazine called Cheetahs on the Edge for which he designed a 410’ custom dolly system to move a high-speed camera at over 70mph alongside a sprinting cheetah.  Cheetahs on the Edge was featured on the cover of National Geographic Magazine and the video received over 100MM views and was featured on Good Morning America and many other programs.   

Greg’s diverse background and skill set working with real-people on documentaries goes all the way back to his days as a photojournalist and his pursuit of innovation in visual storytelling allows him to be equally comfortable in an intimate dramatic scene, a deeply personal interview or the backseat of a fighter-jet filming massive thunderstorms. 

In 2019, Greg co-founded V/SPEED, a pioneering jet-aerial cinematography company with the aim of transforming how we see the world around us.  Greg designed and helped physically build their custom L-39 camera ship in Hollister, CA.  Greg now has nearly 1000 hours flying camera systems in jet aircraft and helicopters all over the world.  He has been cleared into the restricted airspace above NASA and SpaceX missions, including ARTEMIS, while the rockets were hot and upon launch.  He has designed and implemented sophisticated pre-visualization tools to keep costs to a minimum when flying expensive jet aircraft and unlocked geo-targeting and positional data to automate camera systems for tracking objects that are too fast or have movement too complex for a human to reliably capture. Greg serves as V/SPEED’s Director of Photography and as Director on nearly all their projects, he is also a Part 107 certified drone pilot.

Wilson has directed commercials for Nike, Advil, Airbus, Cirrus Aviation, Textron Aviation, Lift Aviation, Aviara Boats, the US Open of Golf, and more.  He has directed multiple short documentaries and films and has learned and worked under some of the biggest directors in the world.