First 7D/5DII Infomercial?

Looks great... very nice colors to me.

I'm interested in the lightning setup, what did you use?
 
Not that I stay up all night watching infomercials (or do I?!?!?), but this looks much better than the majority I've seen, J.F. McCarthy. Not only visually, but with regards to the content, editing and flow, as well. After viewing, I'm hungry and left pondering why I don't have a Sideshow Skillet in my "kitchen setup."

Great job.

I agree, can you discuss your lighting setup a bit?

John
 
amazing what very excellent cinema and high end still class lenses can do. How much do you attribute the contrast, color rendition, and sharpness to what you caught in camera and what you've done in post? It would be nice to have some before after stills just to see how much manipulation it went through.
 
I think that looks awesome- especially the food close ups. My only suggestion would be to tame the highlights in the wide shots a bit- especially the curtains. Unless it's an informercial for curtains, you don't want to draw the eye to them as the brightest thing in the room. A bit of secondary reduction in luma with a vignette would do wonders.

Noah
 
awesome video, great shooting+color grading, however the fx/all that cheesy stuff jumping around and the circle at 0:03-0:05 completely sucked.
 
Thanks for the positive feedback. This was my first infomercial and first time working with food (in motion.) The cramped practical location created an additional challenge--there was plenty of space behind Cathy, but very little behind camera. On top of that, Cathy and I decided to do a re-write with the home economist the day before the shoot, which didn't make things any easier. I want to do a better job on the next one (Alexa maybe, unless the EPIC finally ships :)

Iudex: Cathy was lit with a book light (w/ a 1.2k HMI PAR) from camera left, a ceiling bounce and a couple of 4x4 kinos for backlight. The food close-up's were lit with fresnels through soft boxes as well as bounce/neg fill cards and the occasional dedo light. Here's a blog post from DP Matt Workman:

http://www.mattworkman.com/v6/blog-2010-05.html#20100523

NoahK: Yes, this spot could use another CC session. Thanks for the feedback.

aituv: I agree with you, many of the creative choices were intentionally corny. I was specifically instructed to shoot a "problem/solution" bit for the opening. They also told me to use split-screens and make the finished spot look like their other infomercials.
 
I thought the color was great and i agree that while corny the opening was good. It was what i was expecting when i read that it was an infomercial.

Now i really want that stupid pan, and speaking as a bachelor that most i cook is grilling and boiling water.

I feel like with that pan i would strictly make bacon and waffles
 
NoahK said:
I think that looks awesome- especially the food close ups. My only suggestion would be to tame the highlights in the wide shots a bit- especially the curtains. Unless it's an informercial for curtains, you don't want to draw the eye to them as the brightest thing in the room. A bit of secondary reduction in luma with a vignette would do wonders.

Noah
Click to expand...

Agreed.

If you had enough $$$ to rent an Arri Master Zoom, you had enough to buy a roll or 2 of .6ND
 
J.F. McCarthy said:
Thanks for the positive feedback. This was my first infomercial and first time working with food (in motion.) The cramped practical location created an additional challenge--there was plenty of space behind Cathy, but very little behind camera. On top of that, Cathy and I decided to do a re-write with the home economist the day before the shoot, which didn't make things any easier. I want to do a better job on the next one (Alexa maybe, unless the EPIC finally ships :)

Iudex: Cathy was lit with a book light (w/ a 1.2k HMI PAR) from camera left, a ceiling bounce and a couple of 4x4 kinos for backlight. The food close-up's were lit with fresnels through soft boxes as well as bounce/neg fill cards and the occasional dedo light. Here's a blog post from DP Matt Workman:

http://www.mattworkman.com/v6/blog-2010-05.html#20100523

NoahK: Yes, this spot could use another CC session. Thanks for the feedback.

aituv: I agree with you, many of the creative choices were intentionally corny. I was specifically instructed to shoot a "problem/solution" bit for the opening. They also told me to use split-screens and make the finished spot look like their other infomercials.
Click to expand...

WOW! Thank you! Amazing blog by the way, very interesting to read. I would have never guessed there was so much behind cameras, that thing is huge. I heard about monster rigs with a tiny 7D in the middle, but, seriously, I have never seen something like that!
 
Now that's how you do it!! It wasn't EARTH SHATTERING....but it also wasn't ANYTHING LESS than what you see on TV. Good job! I love seeing work like this, because it validates the fact that the person behind the camera is more important than the camera. Thanks for sharing!
 
Great work! The only thing that stood out as abit odd to me was the almost radioactive colours of the food, but that's a minor grading issue.

Nevertheless, I genuinely want that product. I love my George Foreman grill but it gets really dirty and hard to clean near the plates and wirint sockets - this pan would be great.

Also, the added free Knife had me LOLing, so deadpan!
 
I agree the food shots look awesome, glad those worked out so well John. :thumbsup:

mcgeedigital: The cost of a Master Zoom pretty much ends with the rental cost of the lens the time needed to set up the rig. On the day we save time by not changing lenses and not remarking the lenses for the wireless follow focus.

Buying ND6 gel requires at least 2-3 grips/electrics/PAs cutting perfectly measured rectangles and then applying them to the windows. That is incredibly time consuming and if the light shifts too much we would have to put them up and down. In addition ND gels that are not 100% perfectly applied to the window create very distracting reflections, in my experience.

Given the crew size and the incredibly tight amount of time we had to get through the all of the material, ND'n windows was not an option.

Also I had a 1.2k coming through the window to light up the back table. That would have interfered with that quite a bit. Honestly having curtains that were more opaque would have been a great option, not to pass the buck on the art department :grin:

I agree that a quick secondary or even a basic primary/highlights on some of the shots would help a little.

Cheers,

Matt
 
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