Commercial Level Video and Film
Shooting for Emirates and Maltsmiths Beer taught me one big lesson…That’s to believe in myself and say yes first and worry about details afterwards! When the call comes in “are you free in a couple of weeks to direct a commercial” what else would I say apart from “of course!” Who wouldn’t right? As an experienced studio stills Creative Photographer, I know I am well placed to deliver on this. Shooting for TV and commercials? How hard could that be!
Timescales, Production and the Experience to handle it.
The production time on both shoots was very tight. But hey, aren’t they all? In the world of advertising and big productions, the multitude of people that need to be involved from creatives, agents, account handlers, agency production, Clearcast to the layers of clients themselves is quite formidable. PS Creative Studio, where I am right now has the right level of experience and expertise in the all departments from shooters to Creative Direction to Production. It is all covered.
Emirates – Ideas and Logistics and Set Up
The first two weeks of production was taken up with a crazy amount of back and forth between my agent and the agency. A big client, and a big agency comes with a lot of communications and meetings. The hardest thing for us was to figure out quickly how we could shoot the scene. We had the key visual to match. The TV spots were already picked and bought. We had to come up with the solution and fast.
Filming on a real Emirates plane as it was sitting on the tarmac was ruled out. There was no time to get that kind of permission in place with a major airport and the client would never hold a plane on the ground any longer than was necessary. So, we went to plan B, which is get creative. We explored many options including building a plane interior in a film studio, shooting on a similar plane and replacing the seats with ones we needed, model making or retouching in post-production the interior to get as close as we could to what we wanted. Nothing stacked up with the timing and budget we had available. The only option left was a CG render that we could and manipulate in SFX. This was the perfect execution, of course. It was the only solution.
The hero of the film was the glass and drink in the foreground with the Arsenal football team playing on the seat back in front of the viewer. I worked with the dynamite drinks stylist Ray Spencer, whose job it was to make sure our drink was sparkling fresh, and the lemon was dropping perfectly in time and in the right place! It was a simple set up really with the back projected CG screen playing slowed down football. Although the glass was going to be placed on our CG moving image for clarity of final execution, we did still need the football and chair to work through the transparent areas and for everything then to tie together in post.
The football had to be slowed down in speed as we were shooting at a very high frame rate to ensure we had control over the drink and moving elements. If all of this was not enough, the shoot landed on the hottest days of the year. It was indeed a tough and sweaty day!
Maltsmiths – Ideas and Logistics and Set
‘We shed a little tear when making it’ was the core idea. The tear, of course, was the beer running down the side of the glass. The executions were a 6 second commercial, bus stop posters and press.
It was a classic big production, even for what is a small subject! Ray Spencer again was the drinks stylist. He knew how he could get that beer under control and running perfectly down the side of the glass. Now in stills, shooting elements and comping the files together easy. In film however to edit different takes together requires the exact same movement every time. So in comes the robotic arm! Have a look at the Maltsmiths BTS to see just how close were to not even being able to get the arm into the studio!!
I led the way, lighting the shot for my stills with the gaffer and his crew. As with any stills and film production situation, the lighting had to work for both mediums. This meant I had to endure a very hot set as the amount of light the film crew needed for shooting at a high frame rate was way beyond the level I would need just for photography. Even the drinks stylist had sunglasses on!
Scalability of Production
This is key to the success of PS Creative Studio. We must be able to go from shooting small scale stills in my studio to shooting TV level commercial film. The only way to do this is to work with a great production outfit and be prepared to be part of a large team when necessary. To do this it is important everyone respects each other’s roles and be able to take advice and suggestions on how to do things. Someone always has a great answer to a challenge – accept it gratiously and remember we are all there on behalf of the client. Getting their result is all that matters.
No egos are allowed on my watch!!!
Check out my specialist galleries that bring to life all kinds of shoots large and small. If you like what you see and want to discuss a project, please get in contact.
Cheers!