Shooting Stills and Video / it's a lot about creative problem solving!

Recently we were asked to shoot a video and still campaign for one of our Awesome clients.

We have shot a number of food projects for them in the past but this time they wanted to add motion to the project.  They love the "Visual Branding"  we do for them and wanted us to continue their look in motion.

We showed them our food reels on Vimeo and it sold them on our ability to do the project. 

I love shooting both motion and still although the motion requires more time, different equipment, more staff, and many times a lot more product.  For example, if you are pouring sauce on a product, every take will require a new plate set-up.

Communication is critical when shooting motion.  Everyone has to be on the same page on the final outcome of what your shooting.  What is it going to be used for, what does your client want the focus to be on, how many shot variations are needed.   We always need to make sure there is enough footage for the final edit. 

This was just part of the team for the shoot.  Food stylist, Assistant Food stylist, Art Director, Product managers, Photo assistants, Production Coordinators, Motion Digital Tech, Executive Chef, and Myself as Director/ DP/ Still Photographer. 

One of the challenges we had to solve was making the food look steaming hot for the video.  We ended up drilling a hole in the plates and piped steam up through the table and plate to get the food to appear steaming hot. 

Steaming hot and add some toppings!

Success!

We built this sandwich around the steam piping.

We did have one casualty!

Thanks to all the crew and staff we produced some great stills and motion for our client!

Thanks to my photo assistant Calvin for the great behind the scenes photos!