If you work in commercials, you’re going to be shooting smart phones, tablets, and other shiny flat electronics on a regular basis. When the original Apple iPhone was released, I was in the beginning of my freelance career as a DP/Gaffer. The novelty of having e-mail on a mobile phone, meant that I could reply to Craigslist and Mandy ads more efficiently.
Since then, smart phones have replaced newspapers, magazines, and desktop computers. It’s hard to picture modern day life without a smart phone and advertisers know it. The Motorola ad for the new Droid Turbo II, plays on the ever present fear of dropping and shattering one’s precious phablet.
The parade of shattering smart phones was beautifully captured by cinematographer Sean Conaty. We caught up with Sean and got to chat about how he approached shooting and lighting the Motorola Droid spot.
Q/A Interview with Sean Conaty
CD: Hey Sean, can you tell us about your background and what you do in the industry?
SC: I’m an LA based cinematographer specializing in commercials. I studied Philosophy in college and while at grad school at USC discovered my love of cinematography. I’ve shot multiple narrative features, music videos, and documentaries, but have been mostly focusing on the unique challenges of commercial work the last couple years.
Your latest spot for Motorola Droid looks f*cking amazing! Can you tell us how you got involved in the project?
SC: The director, Alden Wallace (http://aldenwallace.co/), and I have been friends for a while and have shot multiple spots for Mercedes-Benz, Oakley, and Motorola together in addition to some personal projects. Alden started as a photographer and is very technical so our communication is always very specific. Even when we do more lifestyle type pieces and he can’t always be at monitor, he trusts that the images I’m capturing are in line with discussions we had weeks in advance. The producers, Colin Hudock and Amie Arbuckle, originated the project with Alden and brought me on board once it was awarded.
The spot features gratuitous slow motion shots of different phones being dropped and shattered. What did the agency and director have to say about the slow motion? Did they dictate a frame rate or have any reference?
SC: You nailed it. The creative called for stylized, high speed shots of competitor phones falling, spinning, and shattering juxtaposed with the shatterproof feature of the Droid Turbo 2. Frame rate was at our discretion and we initially planned on 1000fps being sufficient.
Before we get into the lighting, can you talk about what camera and lenses you used? What was your on set workflow?
SC: We shot on the PhantomFlex4K with Panavision Primo CF lenses. No filtration, but we used a low mode prism for some of the shots. Workflow was handled by our Phantom Tech, Sean Coles, who had a feed from camera to cart to monitors. Recording and playback were a bit more cumbersome than I’m used to because not only did we have to sync the falling of our phone with the window of time we were recording, but in playback even finding the moment of falling and impact took a while.
Breakdown the lighting for us. What was the overall visual approach? What were the biggest creative factors that informed the lighting and specific units?
SC: Alden and I went through a lot of different visual references and were really inspired by the photographic work of Guy Tillim, Helmut Newton, and Chase Jarvis. I’ve always been inspired by Tillim’s Jo’burg series in which they key is oftentimes the sun bounced off a building across the street and shaped through the architecture of the room. We were interested in using a larger soft source versus specular light but didn’t want to have a universal wrappiness and flatness to the images. High contrast and the direction of the sources was crucial because we were less interested in the talent and more interested in showing off the phone.
Our key source was (4) T12’s through a 12×20 light grid 45 degrees (almost flush) to the back wall. The product was parallel to the front edge of the 12×20 frame so it was always a back or side light. Our schedule with talent and product was tight so I had to come up with a lighting plan that would allow me to shoot both within the same set and with minimal relight. When we shot talent, we just moved them closer to the wall to get a bit more frontal wrap from the 12×20 frame.
The wall in the background was a challenge for us as well. We didn’t want to backlight talent in order to separate their dark side from the wall so we used tonal separation instead by placing hot spots on the wall with (1) T12 and (2) T5’s. Unfortunately, because the brick was a synthetic material, we were already melting some of it by the end of our test day.
You used a lot of negative fill and created a pretty decent lighting ratio. Can you talk about how you and your Key Grip approached controlling the fill and also creating “clean” reflections?
SC: With the exception of the ground, anything that wasn’t a light source became a solid; this meant solids to the left of and behind camera, in addition to a 12×12 solid over the set and rigged to the grid (we cut a 1′ diameter hole through the middle so someone from art department could drop the phone from a condor boomed out over set). The solids were more to control reflections than to control the fill ratio; we knew our fill side would go to black almost immediately because of how much light we were using on the key side.
When shooting devices with reflections, getting exposure is less about the incidental light on the surface and more about reflected light. We focused a T5 from background camera left into a 2×4 white showcard that was flush to the right side of camera. Because of the chute system that Art Department (with the help of my Key Grip, Lee Winborn) devised, we were able to get the phones to fall and land in almost the same spot with the same rotation nearly every time. This helped us be really precise with where we would get the best and cleanest reflections for the shot and for the edit. We also had another showcard on camera left, but it was more of a passive bounce catching spill from the T5 and giving the screens some lift if they shattered and spun in the opposite direction.
What changed on the day from your original plan? Extreme slow motion can create surprises for even the most experienced lighting crew.
SC: Our initial hope was that we could shoot at 1000fps with a 360 degree shutter. In the original calculations with my gaffer, Dan McNutt, this was going to allow us to get more spread and textural differences from our (4) T12s. Unfortunately after testing, Alden and I decided that we needed 2000fps with a 180 degree shutter. The solution was to pin the units in more precisely, but fortunately the quality difference was negligible.
Can you talk about the post-production workflow? Was there any VFX? How were the final images graded?
SC: I believe post-production workflow was 2K transcoded ProRes files delivered to Sunset Edit. Not sure if there was any VFX. The online was graded at Sunset Edit by colorist Bryan Smaller on a Resolve.
What do you have coming up? What kind of projects do you want to be working on in the future?
SC: Mostly commercials to round out the year. I’ve been excited by some of the feature scripts I’ve received recently so I’m hoping to get back into longer form soon.
Where can people learn more about your work and get in contact with you?
Website
www.sean.conaty.net
Instagram
@seanpconaty I frequently update with set photos and personal photography
If I’m available, I’m always down to answer questions and discuss. I had some great teachers when I was starting out and their transparency and openness with me about their processes was invaluable. Likewise, I really love what you’ve done with Cinematography Database, Matt. Keep it up.
Final Spot
Behind the Scenes Gallery
Cinematography Design Course
I’m working on my first Cinematography Design course that I plan to release on the Cinematography Database online store. If you’re interested in learning how to create 3D illustrations like the ones in this interview sign up with the form at the bottom.
The goal of the course is to introduce the process of using 3D animation for designing camerawork and lighting to cinematographers.
This will be an intro level course and will not require any previous 3D background. There is a lot to learn in 3D. Too much. I’ll be covering the essentials of what a cinematographer needs to know to use 3D to plan their shoots and hit the ground running.
Cinematography Design is a new way for modern cinematographers to communicate their vision and I’m excited to share this process with others.
Cheers,
Matt
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