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Miguel Angel · April 13, 2017

Hi!

I just wanted to share two commercials I shot in Spain last January as it has been too long since I have shared anything on here.

We shot both on the same day and I had a fantastic chance to play with big lights and a really good team of electricians, grips, camera assistants and producers :)

https://vimeo.com/213138247

Camera: Alexa @ 1600ASA

Lenses: Zeiss Superspeed @ T2.8

Filters: Glimmerglass 1 on the first commercial and Glimmerglass 1+2 on the second commercial

The file I got is really small and compressed, the master file looks really really good and with very little noise.

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The idea of the commercials was to shot the whole commercial in one shot.

Starting close on the face of the main character and opening up the shot once the dialogue starts.

Jota was adamant on shooting it hand-held on a dolly, which I love.

I also thought that the idea of starting really close on a person's face and seeing how the emotions are being unfolded while we see the full picture was very clever.

With that in mind I wanted to emphasise the transition between the darkness of where the characters were at the beginning (not being able to pay the mortgage, car accident, etc) and the brightness of the end, a moment where they realise that everything is going to work well.

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The first one was a bit tricky.

We had several locations to choose from and the one we picked had the inconvenient of having to light the room because the sun hit a building at the background, however, it was the best location we could have as the other ones had the sun blasting straight through the windows and facing south.

So we picked that one and together with my gaffer, the fantastic Roberto from Iluminacion FM (Adam, if you go to Spain, ask for him, he is absolutely marvellous!) decided that we were going to light the room with 4 6Ks and 1 M18.

I wanted to diffuse the light with 12 meters of China silk across the windows but he recommended gridcloth, I took his recommendation on board and it worked really well.

I also asked for 10 meters of black solid as I wanted to create contrast on the camera side (when the commercial starts) and on the right-hand side when the camera is moving backwards, Roberto wasn't very sure if that was going to work (at the end of the day it was a commercial :D) but I was convinced and it worked, the agency's creative director said that the light was very sumptuous and beautiful (his words!)

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The second commercial was equally tricky!

We got that location the day before we were going to shoot and we went to see it really late because it was a "last minute" location.

Our production designer (Carolina Vita) liked the location a lot because it had great depth and she could make it work with very few elements.

I was concerned about the time of the day we had to shoot on, mainly because we couldn't put any lights outside the windows (it was on a 2nd floor in Madrid city center) or on the balconies in the houses in front of the location so that meant that I had to shoot it with natural light and for it to work we had to be shooting there from 2.30 to 5.00 which was the time that the sun was hitting the buildings in front of the location.

We had a team working in advance on that location (putting a couple of kinoflos above the windows just in case) and a 4 meters x 4 meters black solid on the side that the camera doesn't see.

When we went there the light was absolutely incredible and after 5 or 6 takes we got it in the can.

So that's it!

Looking forward to hearing from you (specially you Adam, your feedback would be really appreciated! :))

Have a lovely day!

Satsuki Murashige · April 14, 2017

Looks really nice, Miguel! Love the Glimmerglass halation.

Dom Jaeger · April 14, 2017

Really beautiful Miguel, didn't understand a word of the voiceover but didn't need to - the images spoke for themselves!

Mark Kenfield · April 14, 2017

Lovely stuff Miguel, were you just on circular track? And what focal lengths did you use?

Miguel Angel · April 14, 2017

Thanks Satsuki! I do love it too.

I'd have used Glimmerglass Bronze filters but the camera rental house didn't have them available.

Next time! :D

Thanks Dom!!

We shot just on the Chapman dolly, no tracks (because the dolly had to pull back) and if I remember correctly the lens was a 50mm for both commercials.

In fairness, we tried the 35mm so the camera could be closer to the actors' faces but we liked the 50mm the most after testing the 35mm so we shot with it!

Very simple commercials in terms of lighting but I enjoyed creating the right mood for them! :)

Have a good day!