VWFS - Hundreds of thousands of roads full of passion
“What I really like about this particular creative idea, was how it takes inspiration from the Prodigy’s music video of the 1990s. I’ve actually met the Swedish director Jonas Ackermann who created the Prodigy’s music video using all those incredible POV scenes on 35mm film! And so when the creative agency said they wanted this to be a POV commercial, I was really excited by the project.”
“The director for this commercial is Michal Korzewski, who is a very interesting guy to work with. Michal comes from this super creative family of classical musicians, so he has a very broad view on creativity. For his own personal projects, he loves shooting on 16mm film, iPhones and anything he can get his hands on. We joke about him being an analog guy in his private life! So when it comes to shooting commercial projects, he brings this creative energy to the idea.”
“And like me, he loves classic cars and motorbikes. I mean, he really loves them! He has a very cool vintage Harley Davidson that he has rebuilt by himself, as well as a classic vintage Porsche. He’s the sort of director that’s totally focused on the details. And when it comes to commercials, Michal is all about the storytelling.”
“The main theme for the commercial was to see the world through the eyes of a legendary football player here in Poland. The football player we got to work with is a striker for Barcelona SC and captain of the national team here in Poland. And so she is a pretty big deal and it was super cool to meet her! However, the idea was to make it all about ‘a famous football player’, but you’re not too sure which one. It’s not until the final scene in the locker room, when she is looking at herself in the mirror, that you suddenly realize who it is.”
“Because we couldn’t show any faces, the challenge was how to make this commercial dynamic enough. Michal had all of these great ideas that take you through her day, from driving to the football ground, training, preparation before the game, the fans, all before she finally walks out into the stadium for the match. So we really needed some dramatic shots to make this work well.”
“As Michal was building up the storyboard, the client and the agency wanted the direction to be more positive and a ‘little less’ dramatic. The plan was to mostly shoot during the day in Barcelona with another two days shooting in Poland. And so we made the edit as positive and beautiful as possible, but honestly, we all acknowledged it still needed a bit of ‘kick’ to it. After everyone reviewed the rough cut, Michal was given another day’s production to get some drama shots into the edit!”
“It can be hard sometimes to see a director’s vision until they can actually show you the footage! And that’s pretty much the arc of ‘the story’ for this production. In the end, the final edit is mostly footage from Barcelona with our extra day’s shooting in Poland. So we had to really scramble to get all of the shots we needed in just one day, and most of that night!”
“There was a lot we had to get shot in that extra fourth day’s shooting! For example, the stadium we were using in Poland is very big, with a capacity for 50,000 fans. But there are some great things about shooting in a stadium. Because we had rented the stadium, meant that I had the direct hotline on my phone to the guy responsible for the stadium lights. Which is perfect when your hero shot is this famous soccer player emerging from the tunnel onto the grounds. This was like our last scene, and shot at 2am in the morning after a very long day. So we wanted it to be perfect and then call it a ‘wrap’. It was just so good to be able to dial down the stadium lights to exactly what I wanted. Sometimes things like this work out perfectly in the end.”
“The other scene that worked out perfectly was the sunset scene in the car park. We had just finished shooting inside the car park with a bunch of Astra tubes mounted vertically around the car. We had done a lot of different shots in this location, from the key turning on the car, to getting into the car, to driving through the car park. It was the sort of stuff we could cut to quickly in the edit and create some more energy. By the time this scene was done, the client, the agency folk along with the producers had all moved onto the next location. Which is when one of the crew shouted out how amazing the sunset was. And so after shooting inside the car park for the last two hours, we all raced up to the top level to shoot for the last twenty minutes of ‘blue hour’. It was perfect timing. Just me, the director, the AC and four of the crew crazily running around to get the perfect shot. This was just before we headed out for the stadium for the last part of the shoot.”
“Michal also wanted to have some fun with the training POV shots. The shots where the grass is all super swirly and it feels like the footballer is drenched in sweat! For those sorts of shots, we could have some fun putting the camera in a plastic bag, which we then sprayed with water, or shooting through a clear ND smeared with glycerin. It’s so much better when you can creatively play with each setup.”
“I guess where this shoot gets really interesting, is that every scene was shot on a Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K G2 with an MFT sensor. And for the entire commercial, we used only one lens - the Laowa 7.5mm. I used a set of Hoya screw on NDs that I have an adapter for, that fits anything from 43mm to 82mm. I won’t use VNDs because of the star pattern you get with auto body paint, so the fixed NDs seem to work the best given I was always shooting between T 2.8 and T 4.”
“The thing about the Laowa 7.5mm is it’s the widest rectilinear lens for MFT cameras. It basically gives you the equivalent of a 15mm lens on 35mm sensor. I picked this lens because it gives you a 110° ultra wide angle of view, which is what we wanted.”
“I am very familiar with this MFT sensor, because I’ve owned a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 4K for six years. So I know exactly what to expect. I’ve been a big fan of this camera for a long time because I could always match the Blackmagic RAW files to anything I would shoot on an Arri Alexa.”
“The Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera is the perfect rig for this type of POV commercial. The solution I settled on was Glide Gear’s Snorricam Rig for the 3rd person footage and a Tilta POV Hermit Helmet. Because some of these shots were pretty long at around five to seven seconds in duration, we needed a helmet that was balanced and light.”
“Our talent is certainly not a giant in her physical stature, so we needed a lightweight rig that she could wear comfortably while running and kicking a soccer ball. She needed something that wasn’t cumbersome and didn’t restrict her natural movements. The Blackmagic Micro cameras don’t have a monitor, so we used a small DJI Transmission setup with an SSD recorder to be as light as possible. Michal also had a clamshell monitor with direct recording and playback as well. The other rig was the Snorricam, so we needed a small lens on the front of the camera to keep both rigs well balanced.”
“The Blackmagic Micro camera captured all of these scenes from outdoors to the stadium, and all of the low light drama shots as well. I’ve used this camera before, mounting it to the side of bikes and cars, but I’d never used it as my principle camera for a commercial. Obviously, the trick to using any camera for a commercial project like this one, is to always light for the sensor’s strengths. And then to have a great colorist like Szymon too who really knows how to grade a car commercial, also helps!”