Aaron: Welcome behind the scenes of our recent photo shoot Film Noir. Hey guys, my name is
Aaron Nace. You can find me on Twitter @aknacer. Today we’re going to take a look behind
the scenes at Film Noir, our recent series, and we’re going to talk a little bit about
lighting, some of the problems we overcame, the ideas about creating an entire series
together and a little bit of a post-production. Your job as the photographer for the most
part is to create a way for your viewers to get into the photos you take, and including
emotion is a great way to do it because your viewers will see emotion in the photograph
and will feel it in themselves, and that creates that connection. Another great way to do it
is with a series of images. It’s no coincidence that a lot of the photos you see picked up
on the internet and blog are a part of a series, because they give multiple reference points
for a person to see like, okay, this image relates to that image, relates to that image,
relates to that image, and it makes everything come together and feel a little bit more comfortable
to the viewers, who are looking at it as opposed to a standalone.
Now production on a series like this is huge. We shot for 14 hours, we had six different
locations, we rented a van, a fog machine and a generator; all those from different
places. We had three models. We had a hairstylist, a wardrobe stylist and a make-up artist. We
had two behind-the-scenes shooters, a first assistant, me as the photographer, and all
of this came together great and I couldn’t have done any of it alone.
The first location we shot at was a bar. This is a great location because bars, for the
most part, are closed during the day so you could shoot during the day and they can still
open up for business at night. One of the challenges was the lighting just really wasn’t
that great during the day. They’re built to look good at night. We had to create our
lighting from scratch. To do that we used a soft box coming in from the outside, which
made it look like a little bit later in the day with that light coming through. We also
used a couple of parabolic reflectors to bring up the overall ambience in the bar, and we
used a spotlight on the back-left corner of the image with a CTO gel on it to give the
image a little bit of a rim and a little bit more interest with that extra color in there.
The bar was great because it had a lounge downstairs and we used that for our second
location, which we wanted to be the seduction shot. We worked with models for the most part,
not necessarily actors, but we do ask our models to act things out. They don’t have
to talk, they don’t have lines. In this case, for instance, we had them come through
the door on the left, and actually pretend to be making out and things like that as they
walked over and got on the couch. We were taking photographs of this whole process,
and what happens is everything tends to be a lot more natural rather than just telling
a person to pose in a certain way, we can capture that actual movement as it’s happening.
To replicate natural lighting in this lounge environment there was a lamp off from the
camera right. We placed another light off to the side of that with a CTO gel and that
was shining back into our subjects. It looks like the lamp is actually lighting all of
our subjects when in reality, for the most part, it’s that other light. We also used
a couple of pair parabolic back behind the models also gelled a little warm to fill in
that light. You can't have a Film Noir series without
a graveyard. We found a great graveyard to shoot in. We got a couple of props that are
really important for this series. One was the 1964 Thunderbird. We also rented a generator
and a fog machine and this is off the camera left. We basically had the generator and the
fog machine going for the entire shot which generated a ton of fog and drifted on through
the set. It was completely clear day. All the fog was created by the fog machine.
The fog machine also helped to keep the light beams of the cars so you could see the light
beams actually in the fog. We also used lights off the camera left which were gelled the
same color as the car lights, to make it look like the car lights were lighting our subjects
as well. The right side would’ve been completely dark for those subjects because, again, it’s
getting a little bit late so we used a parabolic reflector off for the camera right, this one
without a gel so it’s going to be a little bit cooler in temperature and that would imitate
the light that’s actually going on in the ambient environment.
Since we got such an awesome car we had to do some photographs in the car and we photographed
both of the girls and we photographed the guy as well. The story of the guy was photographed
before the graveyard event happened and the girls were photographed after the graveyard
happened. With the girls shot, again, we had the light coming in from the camera right,
and that was gelled [inaudible 00:04:41] CTO, and that’s basically like looking as though
it was bouncing up something what was going on with the headlights of the car. Then off
to the left we have a red-gelled strobe and that’s looking like something going on with
the taillights. We also have another light in the back and
that’s actually the rental van that we got for the shot. We thought it might be interesting
if it looked like there was another car behind this car as well. Straight up rental van but
you can't really tell. It’s a little bit out of focus and that’s one of cool parts
of the shot. Shooting on a fire escape was probably logistically the hardest shot I’ve
ever done. Our subject was three storeys up, outside, on a freezing cold windy Chicago
night and we had to light the shot. All the light you see in this image is completely
fake. None of it is real. The main light is coming from the top, and that’s a strobe
that’s actually on a grate right above her and that’s still CTO as well.
We have another light that boomed 18 feet up, camera left, and that’s got a CTO gel
as well. That’s what's carving some details there in her face. We have another light that’s
behind the camera, camera right, that had no gel on it and that’s looking maybe a
different street light with a different color temperature on it. We’re lighting a subject
with these huge lights boomed up in the air and she’s three storeys up. To create a
little bit more interest, we also used a fog machine. The fog machine was down on the ground
and we generated fog right in this corner here and it spiraled up into the shot. As
you can imagine, I'm standing on the ground there with my camera pointing straight up
and we've got fogs spiraling up and she was standing over there in the wind. Everyone
on the shoot was afraid of heights, including me. We were all freaking out but the shot
came out amazing and we’re so happy we did it. It all just came together for this one
moment and sometimes you just have to take a chance. Even if you have a crazy idea like
shooting outside in a fire escape at night, pull it off because you never know, that might
be your favorite shot. The same building with the fire escape had
these amazing old elevators with the doors that pull up accordion style. We decided to
use that as a makeshift cookaloris, which mostly I just wanted to say that word, but
it’s when you put something between your light and your background, it creates some
shadows and patterns with your light. All of the shadows in the background you see here
are actually created by the door and having that light shine out in between those creates
that really interesting pattern. We also had a light inside of the elevator
which is a little bit warmer, so the light combined with the warm light and the cool
light from outside brought together these [inaudible 00:07:07] to make them super dramatic
and very cool while adding that extra little bit of interest in with those shadows. Bringing
it all together in post was really important and huge part of making the Film Noir series,
because we wanted to make sure that they all tied in together to tell a story. In Film
Noir you’re going to get a lot of blues and greens in the shadows, yellows and reds
in the highlights. All these images after been editing had been color toned as well
and all of them brought together to match each other in style.
Thanks for joining us on our journey through Film Noir. I hope you guys enjoyed the images
and a behind-the-scenes look at how the images were actually made. We’ll look for a tutorial
coming soon. Thanks again guys and I’ll Phlearn you later.
Bye everyone.