An unusual job for LocationSpain this one… In fact it wasn’t strictly speaking LocationSpain, more just Bill and James working together on the job by chance. For various reasons it became clear that the job could not be done under the usual jurisdiction of LocationsSpain and would have to take place in the state of Georgia, USA. Bill was asked specifically to stay on the job as the producer, and because James has been good friends with David for a long time, he got asked to be David’s assistant. And so it transpired that the LocationsSpain team were headed off for Atlanta Georgia.

We were heading into Georgia with the idea that we were going to spend the better part of the week shooting outdoors virtually everyday…… During hurricane season. The view from the plane all the way from London to Atlanta was pretty much solely of cloud. However the hopes were high when we landed in glorious sunshine, and rightly as everything went better than planned for the first 2 days, and we put ourselves a day ahead of schedule. But that was when our luck ran out. Swirling above our heads were the clouds that were caught up in the outer band of a huge hurricane who’s centre was 400miles away (Hurricane Gustav). Which led to their being 2 days of torrential rain. This was the period when we were supposed to be shooting bees, and apparently bees are particularly bad tempered in the rain. Fortunately we got a break in the weather one evening (literally for just 2 hours), so we went off with our epinephrine (just incase the bees turned nasty). As it turned out, the bees were in an especially good mood, and we managed to get the shot just as the heavens opened once again.

This then gave us some time to capture the last shot, which as it turned out was time that we very much needed. But after several attempts we finally got what we wanted on the last morning. The hurricane gave us a spectacular sun rise and we packed our bas and caught the flight back to the UK happy with what we had achieved.

More of David’s work can be found at www.davidryle.com

Production pics -

 

LocationsSpain like jobs in the desert, people shoot in a desert so as they can get a clear blue sky and a hot arid looking landscape. Which is easy, you go to the desert and that’s what you get…. Wrong. That is what you want, and what you want is not always what you get. We arrived in howling wind, after it had been pouring with rain for a week. It looked as if the desert had had rivers running through it just the day before. It was certainly a most uninspiring place for the type of shot that Morgan was after. After the reccie and watching them film the tv ad for the same commercial we headed off to the hotel very somberly. The only thing that we had to cling onto was the fact that the wind was blowing a gale and that that may help dry the place out a little. When we woke up the next day sure enough the sun was out (albeit there were one or two clouds too), and the wind had pretty much done it’s job. It was a long way from perfect, but it was still a far cry from what it had been. So with spirits raised we left the hotel and headed back out toward the rocky desert. 

When we arrived, there was a little bit of hanging around for costumes and extras, as the bad weather had delayed the commercial they were filming at the same location, so they were all still being used. This however gave Morgan a little extra time to go over the landscape and find a spot that he felt comfortable with. Then all of sudden we had the props and the extras and it was action. Morgan had a very clear idea of how he wanted the finished image to look, and was very comfortable and confident shooting to achieve that, this is in part because he has excellent knowledge of retouching so was aware of exactly how he needed to shoot the scene. A few hours later he was confident that the background image had been captured, and with the weather looking as though it may change we decided to do the hero shot back at the hotel ideally outside, but we had arranged a large room to convert into a studio if the weather made that impossible. As it turns out this precaution was unnecessary as the weather looked good when we arrived back. Colourama was set up on the lawn at the hotel, and the hand-model was in for a good few hours lying on his back pretending to hold the can which although was supported is a pretty tiring job, but fortunately we had a good model who didn’t mind. Morgan lit it up to match the background that he had just taken, and did a few variations, then felt again like he had enough to complete the shot. Although, we did go out and shoot more general landscapes with him so he could have more options and depth to the shot if needed.

It was great fun and a learning experience working with Morgan, more of the excellent work that Morgan creates can be found at www.morgansilk.com

Behind the Scenes Pics -

 

The Sony shoot would take place in two different countries over a period of almost a week. The photographer on the job was Todd Antony. We had worked with Todd before, but this would be the first time we had worked with him whilst he was the photographer.

So we begin…. and we begin in the desert. Normally when you tell people you are off into the desert they will instantly think of a place with intense heat, no water, large sand dunes, and the wind constantly blowing dust into your face. Well this wasn’t the case for us (at least not entirely any way). We were heading into a photographer friendly desert. Not too far from civilization, plenty of water (mostly in cool boxes), and the clincher that keeps virtually any photographer happy…… the virtual lack of dust! The reason being this particular desert appeared to be made of large slabs of dried mud/clay, although there was no sand, it still undulated in a very dune like fashion. It covered the entire landscape in what was described as Rhinoceros skin.

So for a few days we spent most of our day in this bizzare landscape. We were shooting cars, so it was the normal very early morning starts, and the usual back to location for sundown affair. Once we left the strange landscape, we would head back to our equally weird looking hotel. The hotel was on the edge of the ‘desert’ and it had looked like someone had dropped a load of shipping containers onto the ground and hey presto there’s a hotel.

When we had finished with the desert, we headed off to France where things were decidedly back to kind of normality. Or objective in France was to capture a classic looking car on the coast at sunset. We reccied and Todd agreed on a location very early on. So all we had to do was make sure that everything was ready for sundown. We tried once, it looked as though it was going to be spectacular, when all of a sudden cloud blew in from nowhere, and covered the bottom of the sky. Attempt 1 had failed. The second attempt, we headed out to the location well before the sunset was due, again it was going to be a great one… that was until it found out we wanted it to be. It was almost a carbon copy of the previous night. The only difference there was between the two evenings was that on the second night we managed to attract an audience, a crowd of onlookers gathered around us to see why a bunch of people needed so much equipment just to take a picture of a sunset. So we were now 2 attempts down, and we only had 1 full day left of the shoot, the weather day, everyone had their fingers crossed. We headed down even earlier because we were also taking the risk of moving the set-up along the coast to a lower position. Everyone was watching the sky looking for the low cloud that had ruined it for the last 2 night. It didn’t rear it’s ugly head, we got an almost perfect sunset. It was the perfect finish to a great shoot.

The celebrations began that evening, and the whole crew was relieved that the weather decided to come good for us.

More of Todd’s work can be found at www.toddantony.com

Behind the scenes pictures from the Sony Shoot: