Follow up to the Biking shoot
Here’s the result from the green screen biking gag I shot the other day for Elastic Creative / Cisco.
Click the image to watch …
Biking on the green
Had an interesting shoot the other week with Elastic Creative where we had to capture an exec bicycling through various streets from different angles and such. Now I’m a big fan of doing things practically, but this was the perfect time for using green screen. It solved a number of issues from having to jack the cost up with either a camera car or process trailer, depending upon the weather gods to smile, maintaining focus and having the proper locations scouted and locked. Not to mention the nightmare of light and shadow control. Plus since they wanted all sorts of angles, we’d need a crane and scout more locations to match. And as we’re dealing with an exec, his time was extremely tight … you don’t want to spend days dragging him around to various locations. You’re luck if he stay for the few hours he can commit to.
So green is good – but creates a new problem: how to have him realistically ride his bicycle. The easy solution was to simply put him up on a bike stand a tilt the image in post. But you lose the perspective shift that happens in a ride by and his weight will not be positioned correctly on the bike. Enter Josh Koral and the good folks at ACME. The same guy who made the outdoor living room in Justin Herman Plaza I shot for Elastic a while back. He made a simple but effective bike rig that gave us great control over the rig to tilt and spin it while he was riding. And there was just enough play in the handle bars to do a little twisting for the turns. The result was awesometown.
And how about that crane shot that was ordered? Well, that’s the beauty of having a tall stage with your own scissor lift – easy high angle shots (as long as they’re static). That’s our Red up there strapped to the top with Joe E. Rivera making sure it doesn’t take a header.
And here’s the final film.
First A’s spots making it out
Here’s the first couple of about 10 we shot in Phoenix just before Spring Training. This one was fast …
And then they got tiny …
A’s commercials in da can
Just returned from a week in Phoenix at the A’s spring training facilities shooting commercials for the 2010 Oakland A’s season. I had a great time working with director DJ O’Niel of Hub Strategy, and brought along Joe Mendoza to light and Aaron Meister to AC. I was thankful that I could bring in these key players as it proved pivotal to handling our super tight schedule. We scouted for a day and a half, picking angles, calling lenses, figuring blocking and light placement. It’s always nice to have a firm game plan going in to battle … especially since we had about two hours to shoot each spot.
The combination of key players worked together very well, including the producers/creative team from Hub and local hire keys as AD and Key Grip. So well that we were able to grab an extra spot one day and finish early every day (except the last day when we were just on time).
I’ll also have to give big ups to the A’s players who were wonderfully humored and let their natural talent come through. We ended up with some pretty funny stuff in the can.
Working with multiple players can always be a challenge as their time is tightly scheduled. Add in such variables as live bulls, firecrackers, tight restrictions on what can go on a baseball diamond and you’ve just opened a whole can of worms. But at the end of each day, and the end of the week, it was smiles all around. I’m looking forward to the next time we get together.
Early on in the process we talked about what camera to shoot on. Hub has an EX3 they’ve been using for the bulk of their work. We knew the schedule was going to be tight so we explored using a DSLR with video (like the 5D Mark II) as a light weight rig that would be easy to move around. Two things made us go in a different direction …
When we explored the scripts closer and crafted the shot list we saw we were after between 3 and 5 shots each spot. And I received a quote for a kitted out Canon 5D Mark II package with the proper accessories to shoot our setups (multiple lenses, focus rings, matte box, etc.) the quote wasn’t significantly less than a Red package (at least one in SF). I had a talk with Joe and Aaron about the different setups and we decided the best too was going to be Red.
I am no fan of carting large camera packages through airports, mainly due to the horror stories that I’ve heard from boxes tossed around spilling out. I usually open them and find both a TSA notice and things mispacked after they pawed through them, most often with something sharp resting against something it shouldn’t. Turns out, however that the price/packaging from our source in Phoenix wasn’t matching up. They were much too expensive/wrong equipment and it was cheaper to fly my package out even with USAir’s excessively stupid baggage fees.
The results are often what matter most, and the camera Red was the right call for this gig. And we kitted out their EX3 with a Pro35 adapter so the Red Prime package would work on both cameras. On set, I wasn’t terribly crazy about how they were matching up. But I’ll reserve my judgement until I’m sitting in the color session and it starts to get pushed around.
Resident Evil campaign
I had the good fortune to team up with Eric Shamlin on another project now that he’s made his move over to JVST from Goodby. As is happening these days, they had a campaign that needed the talents of both a photographer and director/dp. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles for the Nintendo Wii was making it’s push out and due to the concept at the time, they needed someone who could shoot a range of styles and stay true to the vision. The funny / ironic thing was literally the day before, Stacey and I were talking about career paths and shooting Resident Evil came up. So, uh, check.
As the industry goes with combining acquisitions, this was for print campaigns in SF and NYC plastered all over the trains and subways with corresponding web banners with motion.
And as a bonus, they opened it up to worldwide and the UK tossed in a concept.
Each setup for the US was shot both still and motion. In the directing I found myself playing the roll of the zombie to get the proper reaction when there were two ‘normal’ actors in the shot. I’m sure it must have hilarious to be down the hall from us and here me doing repetitive zombie roars (or shouting some non sequitur). And due to the cross shooting, I again chose to go with a gaffer (Charles Griswold from Little Giant) and a photo assistant (Lauren Stocker) to shape lighting and ideas … plus they’re good company on set.
creativity stems … armpit jungle
As it was written, Stacey gives you the arm pit jungle …
This little set will be used well … originally as an arm pit for a gal to walk through, then redressed for a fashion photo shoot, then redressed for a music video, then redressed for another photo shoot. Each will look somewhat different for sure and will have it’s own touch.
The first is for another of the contests for the folks at Poptent … this time for an Old Spice arm pit bar. It was from this concept that the jungle arose and Stacey just went wild. Even though the studio is mid remodel, we had to have the space to put this up. I built a 12×12 grid for her to hang bales of twisted willow from, the various sizes giving us wonderful depth. These should take light wonderfully and give us plenty to play with for each of the shoots. I’ll definitely post a little before / after once we post the projects.
Another shot of Micaela
Another image from the photo shoot with Micaela that turned our great. This time in the series of tubes.
Micaela in hat and corset combo.
First photos off the line
Now that we’ve a little time to focus on post production, Stacey’s been able to get in and work on some of our recent photo excursions. Here’s the first couple of photos from the shoot on the dirty / gritty half of the set she started for Aaron and Anders last spot. We had some really great setups combining Stacey’s efforts with Allison Cohen‘s wardrobe and Jiyhun Kim‘s hair and make up. And helping out on the lighting side is Julio Duffoo as the 1st and Tim Daw as 2nd.
Two photos today featuring our wonderful models Mecaela and Anyssa who really brought game to the set and made some wonderful images.
Micaela models a corset and coat combination
Anyssa featuring necklace and pearls
More to come soon …
too delicious …
Cool! So one of the Doritos spots I worked on (camera op) and provided gear for was selected as the top five! It’s a great spot and made possible by the talents of a number of people involved. Good friend Bob Brindley plays in it (and it’s where I was introduced to Erin Coker). The Dandy Dwarves put it together and did one hell of a job at it. The concept was a last second game plan and I thought it was pretty cool when I heard it. Just the right amount of off-the-wall.
So now what … head over to http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com and click to vote once per day (for TOO DELICIOUS)! The top vote getter is going on TV during the Superbowl! To see the spot spot directly check http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery/video/330/
The spot was shot on our Red with the Red 18-50mm T3 zoom. A smattering of HMIs fleshed out the landscape with some kino fill. I also appreciate the details like the name of the company as Dusterman and Crunché.
bud spot
You can see the finished spot here …
http://www.poptent.net/media/7033
and a little karma photo at the end …
