As a professional shooter, I often receive assignments that require me to capture both photos and videos, and blend them together to create unique visual experiences. The different photo and video elements combine for a final product that tells a story while remaining compelling for viewers. I was recently tasked with one of these projects from Miller Genuine Draft, a brand of beer known the world over.
The Concept
The goal of the project was to communicate to viewers all the exciting and unforgettable experiences that can happen tonight –what’s the magic that can occur, what are all the fun things that can take place, and what are all the memories people can make over the course of just one night? These experiences don’t have to take place in some big exciting metropolitan area or anywhere in particular. Rather the goal was to show just how much fun a regular person can have in one night if they went out looking for it.
The Execution
My team and I shot on location in Vancouver, London and Moscow, but didn’t focus on all the amazing landmarks associated with these places. Instead, our shooting centered around all the regular places where people work, live and play, and these locations provided the ideal backdrop for the project. We had specific, must-have shots to capture, but I also had the freedom to really explore different angles and vistas in the city that would really feel familiar to anyone – as if these sites could be seen in your city, my city, any city in the world!
For our still photography, we captured a lot of long-exposure shots – many of which went 10, 15 or 20 seconds per frame. These shots captured the movement of the cities – headlight streaks, building lights, signs, people walking – that were like the cities’ veins, through which their lifeblood and energy would flow.
For the motion picture aspect, we kept the shooting documentary style. We captured regular people, not models or actors, spending time in clubs, running down the street, gathering together to laugh, talk and just have a good time. Our team followed these groups of people over the course of the night and simply shot the fun that naturally happens as the night unfolds.
The Technique
We did our still shooting techniques a few different ways. First, we’d use f11, f16, and f22 apertures to create near-to-far depths of field to keep the shots sharp and crisp. We’d sometimes shoot with a wide-angle lens to exaggerate the expanse of the cities, for horizon shots as well as others like when shooting the street from a rooftop. We kept our ISO at 100 for these shots to let the lights tell the stories.
To contrast this, we’d shoot with an f2 or larger aperture close up for a shallow focus and to create what I call “circles of confusion” in the background. We found that they added another layer of motion in the still images. The two still photography approaches provided a visual yin and yang for depth and contrast of the experience.
For my video capture, I used my Canon EOS 7D, the same digital SLR I used for still photos. Rather than using a tripod for the video capture, I used it freeform. This method allows the viewer to feel more like a participant in the action than an outside observer, and the documentary-style approach to shooting the scenes gives the final product a natural and organic feel. For both photo and video capture, I used 32GB and 16GB Lexar Professional CF cards. I find that with the larger cards, I can just get so many images and videos without having to change my cards out.
The Final Product
When the shooting was complete, I pulled all the photos and videos together in a handful of final motion pictures. In addition to interspersing the video content with the long-exposure shots, the wide-angle shots, and the “circle of confusion” shots, I even lined up about 250 consecutive still shots and played them with an old-fashioned flip book style in the end result.
I love a challenge, and this project pushed my imagination and my technical knowledge to create a unique visual experience for a global brand that people will recognize the world over.
MGD – Tonight
