An awesome time getting to hang out with sharks and create this for EPSN.

The authenticity of our characters & the believability of our story was incredibly important. 

We wanted to create a sense that this is footage one of the friends was filming on a phone or consumer camera as the events unfolded in real time. To accomplish this, we adopted a very casual style of shooting with a deep depth of field, whip pans, crash zooms & dipping focus. n text goes here

Our opening shot was to both give visual interest, but also show a children's imagination with experiences such as growing plants with friends and family. This helped to add a sense of fun and fantasy enforcing it to be a fun activity for children. We cast a real mother and daughter, which helped with the authenticity and helped us to get the best performance.

The idea was to bring the magic from Disney books into reality which we did through performance with reactions and VFX. We also wanted to focus on the connections between the children, books and friends and family. We did this by creating three different scenes, all of which we could shoot at one location, keeping it to a one-day shoot. Sometimes working with children can be challenging, but we were very fortunate, and they were all great.

This commercial was to work alongside other videos based on the banter and consequences of losing the footy game, SuperCoach.

We used our female actresses' reactions as the doors opened to create a sense of interest and anticipation before revealing Jonathan Brown in the inflatable costume. We then had Johnathan act as if he didn’t want to be seen by anyone dressed like this, and he was safely in the elevator unnoticed until the doors opened, and then was slightly frustrated he had been caught whilst still being friendly and playful. I wish I could say the unicorn horn getting stuck in the door was my idea, but this was a happy accident on the day that we loved, and our talent were true professionals and kept going with their performances. 

We only had the location available for two hours, was lighting in a small space, and managed inflatable costumes and the lift doors opening and closing, so we decided to shoot handheld to move as quickly as possible on the day.

This commercial was to work alongside other videos, all of which are based around the banter and consequences of losing the footy game, SuperCoach.

With this short TVC coming in at only 15 seconds, we had to be selective with our frames and actions whilst we built up to the punch line.

The opening shot begins with our main talent walking in to show the back of his head and his audience’s reaction. This was done in a bid to not give everything away and introduce the important and humourous reveal. Colour, depth and separation were difficult factors on the shoot as we had no control over the location. We were in a small meeting room with a large table that was the same colour as the wall and we were unable to move. We favourited our cleanest wall for our main talent using blocking to hide the many wall controls and switches behind him. We then created some depth with the use of peoples shoulders, props in the form of glasses, a plant and a whiteboard, and set the camera height to show the table as an additional layer of depth and create a subtle empowering feeling looking up at our talent as he fully embraces the meeting with the mouthpiece giving it his best. Our reverse shot was slightly more challenging as the table, wall and skin tones were all very similar colours and physically close to each other. Fortunately, we had some fast lenses which helped soften the background, we then again used props to add a foreground layer of depth, and created a top light for our talent to bring them out from the back wall which we flagged in order to let the wall fall darker. 

We shot 9 ambassadors films over 3 days with a very lean crew.  The sunlight would come through the windows in the afternoon, which looked beautiful, and we knew we wanted to create a similar look with consistently throughout each day. We were on the 2nd floor, and resources were lean. I was lighting, rigging and pulling focus myself. We couldn’t use artificial sources from outside and through the windows, so I rigged up spotlight mounts with gobos in the ceiling to create the window light on the floor, surfaces and our main backlight for our talent. Several other light sources accompanied this, the use of split diopters and some lens flares to add more visual interest that was motivated by the use of projectors.

A fun spot I shot featuring Shane Warne with plenty of banter for the Supercoach footy game. We wanted to focus on Shane, and his performance so decided to keep the camera either locked off or with minimal smooth and controlled movement to not distract or draw attention away from Shane. 

Green was our main colour to portray the branding, but we chose different shades, vibrancy and reflective properties through our props and set in order to create separation and contrast. We then added to this with the use of light, firstly a hard warm light coming through the window and adding shape onto the wall, and the use of RGB tubes set to green to create more colour and interest under the desk and on the whiteboard. We also shot on slightly wider focal lengths for most of the shoot to open up and show more off the background and exaggerate the abstract studio reality.

We had limited time with Shane and needed to build and light the set on the same day, along with many other social outputs to capture and accompany the TVC. With this in mind, we decided to light with large soft sources and a relatively even contrast ratio so we could move as quickly as possible.

Going into the project, we discussed the brand and target audience. We wanted it to be alternative, edgy and generally pretty cool. Along with our idea and characters, we wanted our visuals to amplify this and decided to introduce some colour with warm tones contrasted by pools of cyan.

Our budget was lean, and we didn’t have a gaffer on board. Everything was lit between the 1st AC and myself. We ran haze and diffusion filters to lift our shadows and create a soft glow with our practicals. This atoms also helped create more depth softening our background.