Published again! My commercial video online
Amidst editing RAAM footage and hopping between continents, I flew down to California to shoot a video for one of my brother’s clients. It was a great exercise in improvisation with tricky lighting and echo-chamber-like accoustics. Still, we were incredibly productive, doing 8 completely independent setups in 7.5 hours. I also had a lot of fun working with my brother. Have a look at the Definition Fitness web site to see video.
Lighting was interesting. Two walls are entirely glass, thus the California sun was the primary light. Compact flourescents, which give off a really ugly orange light on video, lit the interior. Finally, the ceiling was about 15’ high, unfinished (e.g air ducts visible), and painted matte grey. The net result: light came from the side, not from above, and was very blue compared to everything else in the room. Afternoon light gave us an additional surprise: the broad, white sidewalks reflected sunlight through the windows, giving the actors a pale light from below. Great for horror flicks; not so good for commercials.
Safety concerned me as I had only a crew of 2 (incl. myself) to tend the lights and about 10-12 people with no film-set experience running around. Arri and HMI lights, the workhorse lights for video and films, are heavy and very hot (you can easily cook on them). I did not want these lights around to burn or fall on someone.
Finally, we wanted to shoot the place from several different angles to make the shop feel larger. That meant we’d often be shooting against a bright window in the background. To make it more interesting, some of the folks in these scenes could only come in the afternoon - when it was really bright outside.
I lit the whole thing with the sun and a couple of Mole Biax fluorescents light banks with daylight balanced bulbs from Indie Rentals. These lights are lightweight and relatively cool, thus safe. They put out a decent amount of light which helped fill when we were shooting near a window, and provided good key and back lights for the leg-press shots. I’d still have liked quadruple the power when it came to that golf scene (shot near the end of the day), though.
Sound was tough - the steel roof, bare-concrete, and glass walls made for an excellent echo chamber. Even the lavolier microphones we put on people picked up a ton of echo. I wish I knew more about audio. I’m sure there’s some cool audio-filter I could’ve done in post production.
Still, I’m happy with the final video. It’s the best I could do with my level of experience, and I had a lot fun doing it.
