Louis Vuitton - What did they use???

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't think anyone here can give you definite answers, only guesses, because these are all sort of handmade / homemade-ish solutions probably worked out through trial and error. The lake shot has some piece of plastic cutting through the top of frame. The flares maybe come from sort of lensbaby type attachment or a diopter at some crooked angle, I don't know. The last of the girl has some water droplets on the glass as well as some piece of plastic or glass cutting into the edge of frame.

 

I posed these before in the "Big Sur" thread, but I did these by sprinkling water on a ProMist filter; the tighter shots used a LensBaby too:

 

 

 

 

 

Bottom line is that you just have to start experimenting with pieces of glass and plastic, split-diopter filters, fast lenses shot wide-open, etc.

[Marcus Joseph]

Seems like a lot of glass, broken glass, jewels, magnifying glass perhaps? Sometimes a bit of artificial light can help accentuate those flares too. I can really only guess like everyone else, you just have to experiment and try things, be daring and see what happens.

 

Most people don't shoot anywhere near as daring as that because it's risky, it might not work. It works very well for Bruno, there's this fantastically beautiful one he just did with a tiger and a lot of CGI, it's unbelievable. He really shows that you can have a whole career in advertising based on a good eye.

[JK See]

Will start experimenting with the glass. The lensbaby, diopters, glass, etc will likely contribute to those effects

 

But what about the rainbows? I cannot figure that one out.

 

Anyone?

[David Mullen ASC]

I've gotten those rainbow flares with the Lensbaby when there's a light source on one edge and you really tilt the lens in one direction.

[Peter J DeCrescenzo]

"Lens whacking" perhaps?

 

A very nice recent example by James Miller, shot with an old Nikkor 50mm f1.4 lens hand-held (not mounted) in front of a new Canon 5DM3:

 

... and an article he wrote on the topic:

http://philipbloom.net/2012/02/01/the-art-of-lens-whacking-real-lights-leaks-and-ones-done-in-post/

[Arshad Khan]

Definetly Bruno uses split dioptor for the image blur, I had seen a behind the scenes of one of his commercial he was using split diopter infront of lens and mostly he shoots with a anamorphic lens .

Edited October 25, 2016 by Doparshad

[Andrew Trost]

Interesting piece, I'm glad this got dug up! To me, one of the more intriguing effects is the sort of blooming and "dripping" of lights in the background in this shot:

 

 

 

Is this possibly drops or streaks of water that cause this, or multiple layers of filtration? Curious if anyone has thoughts about that in particular...

[David Mullen ASC]

Looks like water or oil on a glass filter.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Bruno Aveillan has his own complete niche - when you need high end fashion or perfume ad's all about visuals, he's in a class by himself. He's done all the highest end luxury brands and done it for decades.

 

As for water on the lens - the first time I noticed/read about it was when I saw Fred Murphy ASC's The Mothman Prophecies. Very nicely shot film with quite a bit of that in it.