As the products are generally milled from a single piece of solid metal we wanted to give the impression of them looming into existence pre-formed, almost like molten metal. We worked with
Art Director Max Meronti to create a tank with a hydraulic lift. This kind of work is always tricky balancing a number of different factors.
The tank had to be deep enough to contain the lift, but not so deep that we were left with hundreds of gallons of the liquid medium that had to be disposed of
The lift had to be strong enough to raise the product but had to start and stop in a controlled manner
The liquid would need to be cleaned off completely between each take
Much of this
brand video production work you can plan in advance but even with lots of previous experience with this kind of shoot some time needs to be factored in for the inevitable and the unexpected. Fortunately, we were able to
shoot in our (old) office/studio in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter so we had total control over the location.
One of the things we knew would be an issue and took a little experimenting with on the day was overcoming just how shiny some of these products are. Some problems need to be resolved with hours and hours of painstaking
CGI work, but some can be solved by poking your lens through a massive paper backdrop. We found the latter to be both effective and cheaper and
DoP Dan Hunt was a great help in working through how to make this project one of our favourites, particularly as we love working with
local companies.
We won’t belabour this point too much but anyone who has done close-up
product video work will tell you, dust is a gigantic pain in the backside.
