Heineken Spec.

[Elhanan Matos]

Ok, I didn't DP this spec, but I did direct it. The DP was Kevin Zanit. We shot this spec about three months ago, everything was shot, cut and graded in HD. The compression isn't as great as I would like it to be, the uncompressed files are incredibly sharp though.

 

Heineken Spec

[Brandon Adams]

Not bad.

 

I'm not a big fan of the opening shot. I don't know why its underexposed the way it is. The shots with the water look great, as does filling the glass. My problem is the editing. Up through the filling of the glass is good. But the following shots are misplaced IMO. There is a build from the drop to the pour, but then it jump cuts back to the drop in mid splash, then cuts to even another splash. I would take out those last two splashes and replace them with something else, or find some other way to edit it.

 

Shots look good though. Do you know what the lighting setup was?

[Elhanan Matos]

We originally planned to shoot alot more, there were four scenes that we couldnt shoot because of bad weather, and so what you see there is everything that we shot. The two drops that repeat at the end are just duplicate takes of the first two drops and werent going to be in the final cut, but without those two the spec is only about 15 or 20 seconds long.

[Kevin Zanit]

I shot the project.

 

The lighting varied from shot to shot. The problem is we were working at 1000 frames a second for most of the project, so we had to rely on natural sunlight for most of the shots, because we simply could not afford the size of the lights needed to get an exposure.

 

Most of the shots consisted of using mirrors, silks overhead, and bounce boards (for just white reflected in the glass, etc.)

 

 

For the bear pour I also added a small tungsten VNSP PAR to add warm backlight to the beer. At about a foot away a PAR can with a VNSP globe can do some real damage.

 

For the beer bottle drops, the only thing we really did was silk overhead, place a broken mirror below the water (to reflect some of the color back), and used small mirrors to add some edge and shape.

 

Placing the opening shot in silhouette was a stylistic and technical choice. I knew that I would not be able to balance his face to the sky, especially because this camera (the Cinespeed) does not have very much highlight latitude (1 or 2 stops). We also liked the look, especially when we took a mirror just to make the bottle pop.

 

This was an extremely low budget project, but to my eyes it does not look it.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Dimitrios Koukas]

I shot the project.

 

The lighting varied from shot to shot.  The problem is we were working at 1000 frames a second for most of the project, so we had to rely on natural sunlight for most of the shots, because we simply could not afford the size of the lights needed to get an exposure.

 

Most of the shots consisted of using mirrors, silks overhead, and bounce boards (for just white reflected in the glass, etc.)

For the bear pour I also added a small tungsten VNSP PAR to add warm backlight to the beer.  At about a foot away a PAR can with a VNSP globe can do some real damage.

 

For the beer bottle drops, the only thing we really did was silk overhead, place a broken mirror below the water (to reflect some of the color back), and used small mirrors to add some edge and shape.

 

Placing the opening shot in silhouette was a stylistic and technical choice.  I knew that I would not be able to balance his face to the sky, especially because this camera (the Cinespeed) does not have very much highlight latitude (1 or 2 stops).  We also liked the look, especially when we took a mirror just to make the bottle pop.

 

This was an extremely low budget project, but to my eyes it does not look it.

Kevin Zanit

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

It's a very nice advert stylistic wise,

But I believe that it misses the highlights and the bottle colour looks to me a bit ''dull''.

I don't know , maybe it's my monitor, but I believe it needed some more.

All of it looks underexposed.Like there are no whites in it.

Same with the colour of the beer, heineken is a bit more ''blonde''.

Dimitrios Koukas

[Mike Williamson]

I think the look is very nice, it has a good mood and the slightly darker images set it apart from much of the table top work we're used to seeing. The darker mood gives the spot a bit of elegance, it carries more visual weight (for lack of a better way of putting it), and the look is well-matched to the product. I agree with Kevin that the look doesn't betray the actual budget.

 

I did, however, feel the shots repeating themselves a bit towards the end, it's unfortunate that you couldn't get all the set-ups you were hoping to. This may be bad advice, but have you looked at a 15-20 second version of it? Would that defeat the purpose of doing a spec in the first place?

[Kevin Zanit]

Dimitrios,

 

Looking at the QuickTime version just now, I totally see what you are saying. It seems like somehow in the compression of the clip it kind of dulled everything down a bit, and lost some of its snap.

 

Fortunately on a TV it looks correct.

 

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Dimitrios Koukas]

Dimitrios,

 

Looking at the QuickTime version just now, I totally see what you are saying.  It seems like somehow in the compression of the clip it kind of dulled everything down a bit, and lost some of its snap.

 

Fortunately on a TV it looks correct.

Kevin Zanit

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Ok, gj there m8! What film did you use?

Dimitrios

[Brandon Adams]

Thanks for the response with your lighting setup, very helpful.

 

The comment about underexposure wasn't towards the silhouette, but towards the sky. The sky looks underexposed. I like the silhouette.

[Guest razerfish]

I agree with the first poster, though at first I thought he was just being over-critical. I've seen that on this board.

 

Then I watched the spot. The opening was so dark I wasn't sure what was happening. If you're selling a product, stay on message. Make sure you can see the darn thing and you know what's being sold very quickly.

 

Then the editing. I didn't get what the procession was. He opens the beer, then we see the beer hitting a cooler full of ice. But didn't he just open the beer? Then we see water being poured over the beer. Not sure why that was. Then we get to the pouring. Okay, now I know where we're going. If I can offer one criticism about this shot -- it looks like you're pouring a shot of whiskey, not a full beer because you have the glass cropped so much. I would recommend showing the beer being poured near the top of the glass with the head building. That's what we associate beer with. I associated that shot with pouring a small glass of whiskey.

 

Then you went back to ice falling on the glass of beer. Why did we just go from pouring it into a glass to the beginning? Wouldn't it make more sense to have the bartender/server put the ice cold near-empty bottle on top of the bar or something after he just poured the beer? Again, progression. Then more bottles falling into ice water. They look cool, but I'm not sure of the context.

 

As far as the photography, other than the opening shot, this thing looks awesome. I love the end part where it falls into the ice water. I think you guys could probably brain storm and get yourselves a quick 30 second story that sells this product a little more effectively than you did.

 

Sorry, not trying to come off like a nitpicker. This one is so close that, with some tweaking, could really look like something we see on TV.

[Kevin Zanit]

Dimitrios,

 

The project was not shot on film, but a high-speed HD camera called the Cinespeed (http://www.bandprodigital.com/cgibin/eDatCat/BPDstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=WR-CINESPEED)

 

The camera is impressive, but as I said before suffers from very limited latitude (especially in the highlight range). But, thinking about how much money in film we would have shot shooting multiple takes at a 1000 frames a second, the drawbacks are somewhat over shadowed by the positives.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Dimitrios Koukas]

Dimitrios,

 

The project was not shot on film, but a high-speed HD camera called the Cinespeed (http://www.bandprodigital.com/cgibin/eDatCat/BPDstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=WR-CINESPEED)

 

The camera is impressive, but as I said before suffers from very limited latitude (especially in the highlight range).  But, thinking about how much money in film we would have shot shooting multiple takes at a 1000 frames a second, the drawbacks are somewhat over shadowed by the positives.

Kevin Zanit

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oops, I ve missed that part! what is the widest f/stop? What lenses can u use?

Ty.

Dimitrios

[Kevin Zanit]

The camera just has a PL mount, though I have had it on projects with a PV mount made for the camera (Dan Sasaki is amazing).

 

For the spec I think we used Zeiss Super Speeds (I think, but don't really remember) which we used at around a 1.8.

 

We also had a Zeiss Digiprime with a B4 to PL adapter. It was more for an experiment than anything else, but it worked well.

 

So to summarize you can use any PL mount lens, as well as Panavision lenses (I have used Primos on it), but they have to install their lens mount.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Morgan Peline]

IMHO (not that I know how much of the colours have changed from the original HD master) I feel that the monochrome 'almost black and white' look is a little too cold and unappealing/unappetising; it looks very modern, cool and trendy but it doesn't make me want to drink a Heinekin - maybe I like cliches but if it was a German car advert I'd say OK but as it's beer I feel it lacks some kind of appealing colour sheen. 'Heinekin green' maybe, as opposed to your typical US Budweiser and Michelob browny, amber yellow?

Edited September 28, 2005 by MorganPeline

[Elhanan Matos]

IMHO (not that I know how much of the colours have changed from the original HD master) I feel that the monochrome 'almost black and white' look is a little too cold and unappealing/unappetising; it looks very modern, cool and trendy but it doesn't make me want to drink a Heinekin - maybe I like cliches but if it was a German car advert I'd say OK but as it's beer I feel it lacks some kind of appealing colour sheen. 'Heinekin green' maybe, as opposed to your typical US Budweiser and Michelob browny, amber yellow?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I've seen these clips on a few different computers and the brightness and contrast varies between computers, I also compared the quicktime to the uncompressed AVI's and the AVI's are much brighter and more saturated. I don't know why but I'm sure it has something to do with display drivers or something like that. I attached a still frame, maybe this looks better. I wanted to attach one of the original raw HD images but the hard drive that I had it all stored on seems to be corrupted, and all i have left is the downconverted AVI's.

[Dimitrios Koukas]

I've seen these clips on a few different computers and the brightness and contrast varies between computers, I also compared the quicktime to the uncompressed AVI's and the AVI's are much brighter and more saturated.  I don't know why but I'm sure it has something to do with display drivers or something like that.  I attached a still frame, maybe this looks better.  I wanted to attach one of the original raw HD images but the hard drive that I had it all stored on seems to be corrupted, and all i have left is the downconverted AVI's.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes this looks much better, the whites are near to 1 volt.

Dimitrios Koukas

[Tomas Koolhaas]

Dimitrios,

 

Looking at the QuickTime version just now, I totally see what you are saying. It seems like somehow in the compression of the clip it kind of dulled everything down a bit, and lost some of its snap.

 

Fortunately on a TV it looks correct.

Kevin Zanit

 

Hello,

I am not exactly a computer genius, and I have noticed the same affect that Kevin mentioned with quicktimes of my demo. reel on my website (www.fnvfilms.com)- it seems to dull everything down a bit and also crush the blacks somewhat too. Does anyone know why this is???? this is the case on all computer screens I have checked, but the original footage was perfect exposure wise.

For example on one of the last shots on my demo reel, is a m/c/u of a guy side lit from his left, in the original footage (and even DVD of the film) the exposure is fine, there is some detail in the fill side, but on my demo reel quicktime it is totally black and the whole image looks somewhat underexposed. It really bothers me because people watching my reel, and apparently Kevins spec advert are thinking we have under exposed our footage when it seems to be a quicktime issue.

Any Advice/insight is much apreciated.

Cheers.

Edited October 1, 2005 by Tomas Haas

[Dimitrios Koukas]

Hello,

I am not exactly a computer genius, and I have noticed the same affect that Kevin mentioned with quicktimes of my demo. reel on my website (www.fnvfilms.com)- it seems to dull everything down a bit and also crush the blacks somewhat too. Does anyone know why this is???? this is the case on all computer screens I have checked, but the original footage was perfect exposure wise.

For example on one of the last shots on my demo reel, is a m/c/u of a guy side lit from his left, in the original footage (and even DVD of the film) the exposure is fine, there is some detail in the fill side, but on my demo reel quicktime it is totally black and the whole image looks somewhat underexposed. It really bothers me because people watching my reel, and apparently Kevins spec advert are thinking we have under exposed our footage when it seems to be a quicktime issue.

Any Advice/insight is much apreciated.

Cheers.

 

Tomas,

One thing that we could do about it, is when we do the final export, first export some SMPTE colour bars either NTSC or PAL, (depends on what u have shoot the project at), and see if the colour bars that we see on the screen look a bit ''dull'' too.

Then we can readjust the gamma maybe?

For me looks like a gamma problem, or master gain problem.

I have had this same problem in a tv-drama series that was ofline edited with AVID Adrenaline.

The master tape was about 20% down of the IRE signal.

No whites, just the lightest grey bar on a zone chart for white.

I have them to check with a waveform the output of Adrenaline and we ve found some difference in the input/output.

About 15% of the signal lower.

Finally they have adjusted it, so we saw the real thing!

Dimitrios Koukas

[Guest LondonFilmMan]

Does being 'cool' attract or push ppl way?

 

Personally, I might of liked to of seen representations of the lifestyles of *real* people (that you're targeting) followed by the same outcome (of drinking the Hein.), but that's just me.

[Guest LondonFilmMan]

I've seen these clips on a few different computers and the brightness and contrast varies between computers, I also compared the quicktime to the uncompressed AVI's and the AVI's are much brighter and more saturated. I don't know why but I'm sure it has something to do with display drivers or something like that. I attached a still frame, maybe this looks better. I wanted to attach one of the original raw HD images but the hard drive that I had it all stored on seems to be corrupted, and all i have left is the downconverted AVI's.

 

It was all about the beer to the extent where I felt left out!

[SSJR]

Hey There,

 

I like the shots. Lighting is really nice on the bottles etc.

 

From an editor's perspective IMO I think shot three starts too early in the move. I looks like i can tell someone is taking a pitcher to pour water onto a beer bottle. Perhaps if you start that shot it a little later it wouldn't seem that way.

 

The exposure on the first shot could be brighter. and the ice floating in the water is the only aesthetic thing that really bothered me. I felt the ice unnecessary and distracting from the pure commercial look.

 

Evan

[Guest LondonFilmMan]

Elhanan:

 

To me, the filming is just fine, but it was the approach that I did not like. 'It's all about the beer' to the point where the people don't seem to get included, which doesn't make sense to me as *they* drink it and you are selling to *them*. Yes, opening shot isn't acceptable at all. Way too dark. I *like* the direction of the liquid falling towards the person. Obviously *it* wants them too! very good!

 

I'd want to see a thirsty then satisfied face/s at some point. I want to see smiles and people together enjoying this beer. Different nationalities, different world locations, 'cheers' in many different langauges with translations and traditional dress, some big sounds too....I mean classical... I think your approach rules out some people as well as failing to include the ones you want to sell to!

 

This is just how I feel about it. But, you have also made a mighty fine job on capturing some 'sexy' shots of the product.