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Rolling with the BIG Dog - Commercial - part 3 of 1 2 3 4 5

by Damian McGillicuddy Published 01/08/2015

SPECIAL SAUCE
Perhaps my favourite image from the day is one that, ironically, doesn't actually feature a burger in it! A beauty of the BIG Shoot Experience (or indeed any job I'm involved in!) is that, if my slightly crazed brain hits upon a slightly crazed idea, I'll always make time to realise it. Which is one of the key lessons of commercial photography: each shoot tends to have a life of its own and, often despite your best laid plans, ideas emerge organically, so it's important to stop and listen to your creative thoughts, once the main images are captured of course. Always remember 'beauty is in the eye of the cheque book holder'!

In this instance we're sort of free-styling with the original brief, which was built around retro, pin-up style, diner waitresses (inspired by the old Boddingtons adverts starring Melanie Sykes) and an uber-geeky customer (taking after the character of Moss from classic sitcom The IT Crowd). What I wanted to achieve here should hopefully be fairly self-explanatory, but suffice to say our customer is getting a little bit overexcited by the quality of the dishes on offer and can't help but squeeze his sauce everywhere!


Obviously the styling was key, so my team spent a great deal of time sourcing props and outfits to fit the brief. And my make-up artist revelled in not just creating the appropriate look with foundation and eyeliner, but also in spraying the models down with glycerine to create that sweaty, dewy texture that adds that extra bit of dimension to the picture.

I started, as I always do, by measuring the existing ambient illumination - which was crucial in this location arguably more than any other, because of the architectural mood lighting present in the VIP venue we were shooting in. With numerous up-lighters and kickers giving me very atmospheric illumination, it was important not to lose the feel of the setting - especially since this was an advertising shoot, so it was crucial to accurately represent the feel of the place. So, to camera-left is an accent light with a red gel and to camera-right is an accent with a blue gel, to enhance the existing lighting.


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1st Published 01/08/2015
last update 21/07/2022 08:46:26

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