American Cinematographer - September 1998 - 100

rooks Institute of. Photography

Simply The Best Photographic

ing that I'm shooting. On

commercial

a

like this one, a lot of the look is achieved

by just capturing things that are real."

School in the World.

Messick adds, "There are times
when I will sacrifice

some quality for
speed because the spontaneity of the

moment is better. I don't like to tell

people Take five, and well do it again.'
Sometimes it's better to just shoot, and
Mike works well in those situations."
As

far

the

lighting was
use just a few
large fixtures, which also sped up the
shooting schedule. However, for closeups, gaffer John Moore made up several
ring lights of different shapes: one was a
as

concerned, Ozier strove to

wooden circle with two-foot Kino Flos
attached in
BA & M.S. Degrees in Photography

a star pattern, and another
comprised of 10OW household tung¬
sten globes. "I mounted a ring light to the

was

Brooks Institute of Photography
801 Alston Road Dept. P/P
Santa Barbara; CA 93108
TEL (805)-%6-3888 FAX (805) 564-1475

front of the

camera

while it

was on a

Chapman Titan crane," Ozier says,
describing a particular setup. "I sat in the
operator's seat and the model sat in the
assistant's seat, and we drove around

floating in the air and shot what¬
background that looked good."
One of the team's major chal¬
lenges came during the first morning of
shooting as El Nino-driven storms

town
ever

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drenched their location. Recalls Ozier,

"Scott turned to

me

and said 'How do we

make this work? Let's

improvise.' We
parking structure that had some
cool areas with beautiful natural light
and wound up shooting several shots in

found

a

there that made it into the final cut:

people coming down the stairs, and this
girl pushing a guy in a shopping cart.
Those

shots that weren't

were

even

planned; we just had to 'wing it' because
of the rain."

"It

was

Mike, the producer, myself and four
models
Fits OLD models

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well

as

current versions.
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wide

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of lenses

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as

shooting in this garage, all the
looking around the corner for cops
and security guards. That was fun

while

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made

a

bad situation work

Once the storm did stop, we got a

rainbow, which made
shot' look much
there

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we

were

emblem embossed

on

the bottom of his

shoes. "We did that shot

right at the
Ozier. "Since
there was still some ambient sunlight
left, I was able to light the models more
dramatically than the background. I love
to light daylight where the subject looks
lit and the background still looks natural
-which is almost impossible to achieve
unless you do it at magic hour. You can't
overpower the sun during the middle of
the day, even if you have an 18K, but if
you shoot at magic hour, you can have
the background look normal and the
subject still be lit.
edge of magic hour,"

says

"We shot at 120 frames per
second while the kid swung

around the
flagpole, and Ko Maruyama at Post Logic
did the ramp from normal speed to slowmotion in post. It's much easier to do the
ramp effect, because you can decide
exactly where you want it to happen. You
use a lot more film shooting the whole
spot at 120 frames instead of shooting at
24 frames and ramping in-shot, but you
have much more precise control if you do
the ramp digitally."
Maruyama is a digital artist who
specializes in using the Quantel Henry.
His work on "Concrete Feet" ranged from
editing to doing digital compositing, all
done within the Henry's domain. Several
times during the spot, multiple windows
appear on screen simultaneously, each
displaying a different image of the
models in action. Maruyama's primary
responsibility was to maintain the visual
balance between the windows, the

Messick remembers,

*

motion perspective of a model who has
grabbed the tether line of a flagpole and
swings around into the lens feet first -
dramatically highlighting the Skechers

a

more

particular 'money
dramatic because

real clouds in the

of L.A.'s usual

smog."
question

The shot in

sky instead

graphic boxes surrounding them and the
background imagery. "What we had to
do was make the graphic timing work
with the picture, find the pictures we
wanted, and decide

on

how

we

wanted

them

cropped," explains Maruyama.
"The small lines framing the windows

are

all tracked with the movement in the

pictures and both the windows, and the
move slightly to compliment the

frames

action within.
was a

slow-

"Beau Leon and I do

a

lot of work
American Cinematographer - September 1998

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