This past week I scarcely blogged at all, as I was shooting commercials all week. And it was great fun!

I took some behind the scenes pictures for you so you can see more of what its like on production jobs.
Sometimes they’re glamorous, sometimes they’re not, but invariably they are a good time.

This one was shot on location in an office building.

So here is the makeup palace. It was a make-shift set up in one of the back rooms. Some times you get a full makeup room with lights etc, sometimes a makeup trailer, sometimes you just find a space to work out of. Its all good!

Hurry up and wait is the order of most production days. It takes a long time to re-light the set & do all that production dude stuff.
Here a couple of the actors are made up & chilling out.
I normally put kleenex collars on my dude actors to keep makeup off their shirts while they’re hanging around. The girls never seem to need it.
Our actors are playing office workers today…

Some of the interior lighting is actually lit from outside the room.
I loved the painting on the wall here.
Check it out…

Its Kramer!!! Haaaha! I knew I was in a good place when I saw this!

Another wall has a signed Elway shirt. You know you’re in a cool, vibey office when this is how they decorate! They also had tons of Rolling Stone magazines, so I was super happy!

Some lighting stuff in the hallway. When we arrive somewhere to shoot, we take up heaps of space.
This was a single camera shoot. If you’ve ever wondered what a “dolly” is or a “dolly move”, its the camera moving down these dolly tracks as the shot is happening.

This is an HD camera. So love shooting HD!

The second scene was shot in the same room, but with different lighting, from a different angle, and with different props in place, so the two shots look completely different, as though we were in different offices.

I can’t show you the actors in action, but once the commercial has been edited and has aired, I might be able to post it for you to see.

Commercials are pretty cool to work on. Generally they only take a day or two to shoot, and the make up isn’t particularly complex, so there tends to be tons of time to hang out & enjoy life.
I actually really enjoy watching them light the shots – its interesting to see how they create the environment and ambience to make you believe the story they’re telling.

xo

C

Busy week shooting TV commercials, but I brought my camera along yesterday to try and get you some behind the scenes stuff…

And today, this shall be my domain…

These are some of my makeup cases. I travel with sooo much stuff!
There’s all kinds of wardrobe & props behind there including plastic chain with scary looking manacle things, and under the clothing rack a plastic loaf of french bread.
I wonder what that shoot was about???

all set up, ready to rock n roll. The styrofoam head isn’t mine. I think it belongs to the french bread people.

Hard at work (haha!!!) but looking oh so craptastic.
The actress was really good fun to work with.
I do absolutely love my T shirt though.
Its from Drag Strip Girl Designs www.DragStripGirlDesigns.com

Behind this door is the green screen studio. Its HUGE.

Kinda hard to see, but the walls curve into the floor, so there are no edges or corners.

This was a single camera shoot. The computer will separate the actress from the green background, and they will digitally place her somewhere else.
Although they can isolate that particular green, you still dont have any wardrobe or makeup with any green undertone to it.

We were shooting HD too, which is always cool. Completely unforgiving, but very cool.

To the right of the camera is the monitor. It too is HD. I watch the monitor while we’re shooting so that I can really see what the camera is taking in.

The director stepped in for a minute

Blurry (courtesy of my brilliant photographic skills!) but we’re about to do another take.

So now when you hear people talking about “green screen”, you know what it looks like!

xo

C