you've seen the film now it's time to break it down in this video i'm going to share some
insights and take you behind the scenes on a fitness shoot i did with sony and burnt studios
if you're not shooting on sony cameras don't run away because the focus here is more on the overall
production from lighting to audio and support gear to start things off the entire video was shot hand
out even the dolly shots where i sat on the skateboard so no gimbals or tracks were used
with in-body image stabilization it's possible to do these type of shoots without a rig but
having some nice handles and extra weight makes it a lot easier to get those smooth movements
for this shoot i use the small rig full cage for the a7 mark iv with some added accessories
with tracking shots i always find that two handles give me the best results and in this case i just
took my top handle and actually put it on the side and made it sit just in the right place to use my
follow focus although i have a mini rail for the follow focus i opted for the dual rails because
it adds extra weight your goal with any rig is always to make sure it is balanced in your hands
without the weight pulling forward or backwards the lighting was pretty simple
although time consuming to set up i used three different types of lights for the background a
bunch of nanlite pavo tubes because they look like practicals and even when they stand up straight it
doesn't distract like a normal light we used cable ties to attach the longer tubes to the ceiling and
the rest was either on stands on the ground or attached magnetically to the gym equipment
not one of the scenes had a single setup that looked the same so we continually moved the
lights around between shots on these lights i went for a cooler temperature to create just a little
color contrast with the key light a bit warmer at a fixed daylight garment overall my aim was to go
for high contrast visuals with darker shadows to create a bit more drama to go with the intense
music i used two types of key lights based on the scenario first a pavotube on a boom arm with a
diffusion silk hanging over it i got this idea from cooper films and his amazing piece called
make your dream the real inspiration behind this film the idea is to let the tube shine down
and the soak just has a beautiful way of spreading the light more gradually from top to bottom i did
however shoot some shots on an f4 lens and needed a bit more power especially on the wides so here i
used my nanlite forza 500 with a parabolic softbox and a grid at all times i tried to shoot from the
shadow side also known as upstage lighting with a key light hitting our model from the side at
an angle of about 60 degrees except for some of the close-ups where i didn't want to have that
star contrast in the face comparing the whites with the close-ups you can see how the face is
just generally lit better not only with more full but also a softer light that's because i moved the
lights further away for the wides to be out of frame and then much closer for the tight shots
the bigger your light source and the closer it is to your subject the softer the shadows will be
with a more gradual roll-off from highs to lows the visuals overall have the same language with a
key light from the side a portion of shadows and a sharper but cooler rim light to create separation
and this to me is what makes the visuals feel so dynamic i use the nanlite forza 60b paired with a
projector attachment for a focused rim light and running it off a v-mount battery made it easy to
move around for each shot this light was a great way to motivate the power tubes from behind but
also to create some flares when shooting directly into the light on that note you might have noticed
some strange flares here and there but they were most certainly not coming from the lens
but was actually created in post in resolve and i feel like they add a nice touch to the form to
get even more depth we use the hazer and here it's always important to try and spread the haze around
as even as possible and to let it settle to avoid seeing it move around like smoke as for audio a
film of this nature is really difficult to sound designing post and i decided to bring in a foley
artist the challenge however was the general noise in the gym being dominated by the sound
of crickets and cars passing by a busy street jason quickly identified the bathroom as the
ideal place to record the sounds not only because it was quiet but also because it had the right
amount of acoustic to sound like it could be in the gym we had our model do a variety of workouts
and recorded a whole bunch of breathing sounds at different tempos and these sounds really
brought the edit to life the only sound we actually recorded in the gym was the silt
bike because it overpowers the external sounds using an on-site foley artist has many benefits
and doing the sound in post was an absolute breeze compared to how long it usually takes me if i do
it myself in post from scratch the flow between shots were really easy in the edit because of the
similar up and down movements making it easy to do match cuts more importantly was the shot list
i had every type of exercise planned out according to what marijke felt comfortable with and she knew
she was good at for example the boxing marijke has a lot of experience here which comes through in an
authentic and powerful way i specifically chose her because of her athletic ability to exercise
really hard but also because she's a working actress which made directing her super easy
if i missed anything and you have any more questions feel free to drop it in the comments
below and i'll do my best to answer thanks so much for watching and i'll see you in the next one