This is a commercial spot for an energy drink that the marketing company I work for created. This is a video that they wanted shown as part of its launch. Fortunately living in Utah gives easy access to the Bonneville Salt Flats (just be sure to get a permit to film from the BLM, Bureau of Land Management). The particular artistic elements that we had in mind and are also seen in the video is were we saw this as something you’d see in a Gatorade commercial with fluid slow motion and tight macro shots.

To address this we used a Panasonic HVX200 because of its abilities to overcrank. Speaking to the crowd that doesn’t know what this term means. To “overcrank” is to capture at a higher frame rate than the standard 24 frames per second (example 60 fps is what we used) then play it back at normal frame rate for the project which in our case was 24 fps. This yields very pleasing slow motion. The alternate to this would be shoot at the standard 24 fps and then slow it down in post but this doesn’t yield as smooth of slow motion as there is less frames to work with so the editor utilizes frame blending creating a sort of motion blur. So we commissioned the HVX200 for this very reason. The other camera that we’d be using and would be using for principal photography was the Canon 5D Mark II with the newly released firmware for manual exposure control. We’d address the tight macro shots by using a Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro lens, a macro lens simply allows you to get really really tight close-up shots, whereas other lens wouldn’t be able to do this since they can’t focus very closely on a subject.

So with those elements in mind let’s move on to other equipment we used, we hired a gaffer with a grip truck and we ended up using a crane for high shots, a large reflector and at one point a 1K HMI (5600K daylight balanced light) since we had some inconsistencies in lighting since it was a partially clouded day. Not much bounce with reflection was required as the salt naturally acted like a giant reflector. But when we had cloud cover it really created a lot of problems for us and so most of the time we resorted to waiting for the clouds to pass and in the one instance we used the HMI we had extensive cloud cover for a great period of time so just decided we better get the shot.

As you watch the video the only shot we ended up using with the HVX is the sprinter starting off the line in overcrank mode 60 fps over 24 fps. The rest was with the Canon 5D Mark II which did create a significant problem since our project would be in 24 fps and the 5D still shoots 30 fps (or atleast until the new firmware comes out). I just want you to know we chose 24 fps merely because of aesthetic and because we wanted to be able to intercut with the HVX footage which was 24 fps. To address issue of the 5D shooting 30 fps I utilized a workflow to convert the 30 fps to 24 fps. Although the results aren’t perfect I feel they are some of the best. I won’t detail the workflow here but it can be seen over on cinema5d here. Because we’d be taking the 5D rushes and cutting them in a 24 fps timeline I applied this conversion to the rushes before they went to cutting.

Some last things to think about, because of the shooting conditions, extra care was given to preserve details in shadows and skin tones since if we had tried to preserve the highlights the skin tones of our talent would have been way underexposed. So as a result the highlights the salt is blown out but we’re okay with that since it’s just a white flat salt plain where the details aren’t important. Post workflow was performed in Cinema Tools and Compressor (see 30p to 24p conversion workflow), Final Cut Pro, visual effects (“E” on salt) subcontracted to a studio and colored using Magic Bullet Looks.

Credits:
Principal photography: Canon 5D Mark II
B camera: HVX200

Visual effects: Jacob Behunin and Matt Hoffman of BluFire Studios
Graded in MBL

Lenses used:

24mm 2.8
50mm 1.4
85mm 1.8
100mm 2.8 Macro

Any questions please post in comments.

Cheers,
Denver Riddle
D.O.P., Colorist

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