Jump to content

Shooting tropical juice TVC on beach lighting


David Pritchard

Recommended Posts

Hi guys! So I thought I'd ask some feedback from some of you seasoned cinematography gurus here. This week I'll be shooting a low budget fruit juice TVC on a tropical beach. My plan that id like feedback on is as follows.

Start shooting at 11am so I can use the sun. 10 foot overhead 1.5 stop diffusion with foam or silver reflector to the left, and negative fill to the right. The 5 models will be sitting on brown towels on the sand. The sun will set directly behind my talent, slightly off to the right. So I'm aiming to shoot from 11 till 2, the shots where I need that scene at least. Oh I'll also have a couple of aputure 300ds with bare reflector for a rim light since that seems to be the TVC style.

 How does that sound? I attached the background that shows sun position. I figure the sky will still be nice and blue at 2. 

 

Screenshot_20210314_000605.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Hi David, 

What’s on the shot list? Just a wide of the models and the product shot?

Seems like it might be better to shoot the wide late in the day for a lower sun and shoot the product shot under the overhead at midday, but I guess it depends on the look you’re going for. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Satsuki. 

It's mostly shots of the models having fun together, play guitar, chit chat. Some wide then some closeups. The worry about shooting much later in the day is the sun would come into the shot as it sets directly in the background I want to use. I.e the distant palms and horizon. 

Do you think what I'm proposing won't look good?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
1 hour ago, David Pritchard said:

Hi Satsuki. 

It's mostly shots of the models having fun together, play guitar, chit chat. Some wide then some closeups. The worry about shooting much later in the day is the sun would come into the shot as it sets directly in the background I want to use. I.e the distant palms and horizon. 

Do you think what I'm proposing won't look good?

I think it certainly can, it just depends on the look you want.

The usual default day exterior approach these days tends to be shooting into backlight with a large sidey bounce for the key. That doesn’t necessarily mean sunset, just when the sun isn’t directly overhead. Maybe 3-4pm-ish. Also, specular reflections off the water combined with lens diffusion tends to look pretty. But that’s not to say other approaches can’t work.

If you’re also doing a product shot, just make sure that you allot a decent chunk of time in the schedule for it. Those tend to take quite a bit of time to make them look good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks as usual Satsuki! Great advice and close to what I am thinking already, just having to shoot a little earlier in the day due to not wanting to lose the vibrant blue background. Wish the sun was a bit more to the right! I Guess I'll start with the product closeup then get the other shots ? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
12 hours ago, David Pritchard said:

 

One thing is, Do you guys think a silver bounce 45 degrees to the left would be better than 300w aputure ledsx2 for the hairlight?

 

puratvclighting.jpg

The sun is going to do way, way more as a hair light than those Aputure lights could do outside on a summer day. That’s why people shoot into backlight on day exteriors, you get the bright hair light for free. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi guys, just about finished the edit, thought I'd get a little feedback and show you guys what I ended up coming up with, just before I do a few final touches in the morning before posting. What do you think? ? Just to add, we lost the sun middle of the shoot, first day in months ? Think it just passes though!

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Thanks for sharing a preview, David! It takes courage to share your work online, so cheers on that front.

Looks like you managed to make the sun-lit and cloudy footage all match, well done. How did you end up working around losing the sun on set?

The product shots were also very nice though a bit different in style, studio rather than location photography. Would have loved to see a Corona-style pack shot, with the beads of condensation on the bottle and blue ocean and palm trees in the background. 

If I have one criticism, it is more on the directorial front. Coverage-wise, it looked to me like you didn’t have enough shots or story to work with, so you ended up repeating the same shots too frequently in the edit without anything new happening.

I think if the sequence had been designed so that each camera setup fulfilled a specific purpose, and each cut then propelled the sequence forward to a new angle, then the story would have been more engaging to me. This would probably be less objectionable as a 15 or a 30, but for a 60 second spot, the edit really drags. I think for a 60, you actually need one or two more story beats/complications to keep things moving. The hard part is, these beats need to be easy to remove for the 15 and the 30. 

One thing with online commercials is that they are very easy to skip after the first five seconds, so you’ve really got to make each shot and each cut memorable if you want people to watch the whole thing.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts. Please take what you find useful and feel free to disregard the rest, I am always learning too and certainly don’t always have the right answers. Hope this was helpful, and best of luck on the next one!

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Satsuki, fantastic feedback!

Firstly for the sun. Luckily I got the wide angles first, closeups are easier to push the key/bounces closer. We had some sun but it went a bit cloudy and lost color in the sky faster than planned so I just had to over saturate in post.

Totally agree on the script... It's really my weakpoint and for the next video I will encourage the client to make budget for someone to create the story for me to shoot. They also insist on it being 1 minute long but Im going toake a much faster cut for myself and (probably them when they see it). 

P.s if you happen to know any affordable script writers for this kind of thing, you would like to send a little bit extra work, feel free to message me their details! 

Oh as for studio style shots... Again totally agree. Wish I'd had more time but it was about 24 shots in 4 hour timeslot. Ended up just shooting everything in the same setup and bringing in a black flag for a couple of closeups. 

Cheers!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
9 hours ago, David Pritchard said:

Thanks Satsuki, fantastic feedback!

Firstly for the sun. Luckily I got the wide angles first, closeups are easier to push the key/bounces closer. We had some sun but it went a bit cloudy and lost color in the sky faster than planned so I just had to over saturate in post.

Totally agree on the script... It's really my weakpoint and for the next video I will encourage the client to make budget for someone to create the story for me to shoot. They also insist on it being 1 minute long but Im going toake a much faster cut for myself and (probably them when they see it). 

P.s if you happen to know any affordable script writers for this kind of thing, you would like to send a little bit extra work, feel free to message me their details! 

Oh as for studio style shots... Again totally agree. Wish I'd had more time but it was about 24 shots in 4 hour timeslot. Ended up just shooting everything in the same setup and bringing in a black flag for a couple of closeups. 

Cheers!

Smart to shoot the wides first with clouds on the horizon! 

Re: schedule

Yeah, not much you else you can do with 24 shots to get in 4hrs. Usually commercial shoots are 10hr days in my area, not including 30min for lunch. Still, 24 shots is a lot, 10-12 would be more manageable. Maybe you could have used multiple cameras to grab 2 shots at a time.

Re: script

Well, I’d be happy to take a crack at it! Work is completely dead here, so I need to do something. I’ll PM you a sample treatment.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...