Soon after wrapping a three-day series of interview and tutorial shoots for Vizcom on a white cyc stage, Director Reza Bird scheduled a commercial on a completely blacked-out stage.
Life is all about contrast, right?
Similar to our last Vizcom commercial, we employed my ARRI Alexa 35 camera. This time, we decided to shoot with my Zeiss Super Speeds and almost exclusively had their aperture wide open (T 1.3). The softness and dream-like quality that that imbues would add a little extra character to our line-up of mostly stationary objects.
I couldn’t risk having the slow-motion shots of Omar out of focus for long stretches, so I stopped down to a 2.8/4 split for those two set-ups. I didn’t want a camera issue to render his skateboard stunt or quick movements breakdancing unusable. This also marked my first time cranking the Alexa 35 all the way up to 120 FPS. I love that the recording resolution remains high even at that extreme frame rate: UHD (3840×2160) in ProRes.
I’m grateful that we had enough time to give each object in the commercial its moment to shine. Lighting inanimate objects isn’t easy and having to do it against a black void made it trickier. My Gaffer, Valentin Selembier employed a number of lighting tactics for separation. The Aputure Amaran 300C through a 36 degree spotlight attachment gave us precisely shaped lines of contrast without spilling everywhere.
Can you guess which shot before the :31 second mark wasn’t shot by our team practically? Yes, we did shoot the iPhone that you see after that moment where everything is else is otherwise computer generated.
Congratulations to those who guessed incandescent light bulb. Even though it is stock footage, I love it. The sound of it turning on gets me every time. What’s your favorite shot? I really like the metronome.
Script: Emil Lukas @emil.lukas
Voice: Nicolas de Peyer @nykodep
Director of Photography: Dustin Pearlman @dustinpearlman
Gaffer: Valentin Salembier @oseku_lighting_inc
Photographer: Ebrahim Safi @m.ebrahimsafi
Motion Design: Black Canvas, Drew Lewis Guerra @directordlg
Colorist: Francisco Lorite @franciscolorite_colorist
Sound Design: Travis Devin
Model: Tomas Flores
Dancer: Omar Gonzalez @ocorp_design
Director and producer: Reza Bird @reza.bird
Edit: Sara Bird @sara__bird
Creative Studio: NXT Animal @nxtanimal
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