Jumping for JWT
We were shooting in Miami for a global ice cream campaign created by JWT, New York. Originally, we hoped to shoot in LA after the last shoot but with recent rains the lakes dropped to 52 degrees. We ended up re-locating to Miami to shoot in slightly warmer waters. You’ll notice the hot tub we brought in to keep the models warm. I kept thinking I should have cast Canadians (with a spray tan). They would have thought it was warm. This was a combination of stills and video, including some water video footage shot with a 5D in a housing.
Behind the Scenes at a Video Shoot
Recently, I was in LA shooting and directing for 5 days, footage and stills for a Video Spot for a pharma client created by DDB, New York. I’ll have the spot posted shortly and I’m quite proud of it. Twenty two models were very brave to star in a piece involving the sensitive issue of a sexually transmitted disease. Personally, the shoot was fantastic. All the video was shot with the Canon 5d Mark II. We shot under mostly sunny skies with locations as varied as a Malibu house to a downtown theater. The stills below are from a snow scene we did. With all the snow going on the Northeast, we made it in LA to keep our production moving right along.
On the Set
It’s been a while since I have written here on what’s going on. It’s been a crazy and intense few months and I hope to catch up with you here. It seems like advertising has re-launched. I have been very busy shooting a number of projects. I don’t know whether it was the rush to spend 2009 budgets or the flush of new 2010 money but I’ve been very fortunate to have some great pieces to work on. Several I can’t tell you much about due to confidentiality agreements but I’ll at least show you some production stills where I can! (That seems to be the most looked at part of this blog).
This project is an on-going Pharma campaign for BMS. It’s been rather exciting to work on because I get to use much of my film background especially working actors. It was a still job but as I have previously mentioned here, I prefer to work with models that can act or in this situation we cast actors that were perfect for the roles. Lighting wise I work with hot lights so I can instantly see the look as the talent move and respond. Plus they, too, can feel their key light and help stay in the “zone” when we are shooting. We shot on location and on a set. The lighting for this campaign is very dramatic so working on a set gives me better control.┬á The set was masterly built by my set builder, Mark Bednark. He created a medical suite of offices and exam rooms. Obviously for pharma, medical offices are important. But they are hard to get as actual locations and here in New York they are all quite small. So we built and lit it, completing what might have been two days in on-location medical offices to one day on set. Stylist was the fabulous Gabrielle Rosenberg, who as always gives me tons of choices (she gets her own cube truck!).
Directing a Lifestyle Commercial
Femibion from Chris Sanders on Vimeo.
My Femibion commercial is out! Femibion is a new vitamin product from Merck/Seven Seas, launching for the first time in the UK. This was a very exciting project. The commercial was done for the some of the same creative team that I shot the Nivea/Labello print ads for.┬á Only this time, I was directing motion and photographing stills. Since I already shoot my stills with actors and script out scenes to photograph, I already had in place my workflow and creative process for this motion piece. But, wow, was this on a big scale!. Here’s the production shots that I previously posted if you haven’t seen those. I felt like a kid in a candy shop with all the options that we could cover. The crews were fantastic and so organized. There were so many scenes, we decided to shoot the entire piece all at one large estate in Long Island. The estate had several different homes and provided many different looks. We even built the office set in a large room at the main house. And, it turned out to be an excellent opportunity to shoot with the RED ONE camera.┬á I’m hooked now. I’ve always loved shooting little stories with my stills.┬á Now, I’m adding video!┬á As a matter of fact I just shot this week a spec coffee commercial.┬á I’ll post that here when I have it edited.┬á As well as on my website’s video section.
Brazil
How about Travels? Recently I was shooting a job for a magazine in Northern Brazil. (I can’t mention too many details until it’s published!1). A great little surf town. Very basic but wonderful. The Brazilian people are very friendly. I’ll publish the tearsheet when it come out. But I want to keep you in suspense.