College football is back. I headed down to Birmingham, AL to shoot promos for Fox Sports South’s SEC Gridiron LIVE show. I was shooting on the Canon 5D.
I was pretty excited about this shoot when I first heard about it. The shoot location was out of this world awesome. We shot “gladiator shots” and interviews in an old iron foundry that use to make pig iron. From about 5pm to midnight we had full access to what is now a museum.
We had a total of three “stations” setup for the SEC Gridiron LIVE talent to go through. The first setup was in a tunnel below the factory. We shot the talent down there being serious and goofing off. I took advantage of Canon’s 70-200mm f2.8 II in this setup. I did a lot of cool “snap-zoom” shots.
The second setup was outside a warehouse area. This setup was primarily for group shots and interviews. I used two Arri 2K’s and one Arri 650 to light the background. I really wanted to bring out the eeriness of the factory. I wanted to create layers of shadows. One of the ways I accomplished this was to send the light of one of the 2K’s through a structural beam. This created a really cool “X” shadow in the background. On top of all of this we had men grinding metal in the background, which created a cool sparks effect.
The final setup was on some old railroad tracks. Structural beams that held up an old canopy surrounded this area. Hanging over the railroad tracks were floodlights spaced every ten feet. The main shot in this area was a group shot of the four talents walking towards the camera. I used the MYT slider to add some cool movement. The “house lights” lit the beams. I used an Arri 2K to hit the factory in the distance. An Arri 300w and 650w, with Chimeras attached, were used to light the talent. I used one Arri 300w as a backlight.
Working with Fox Sports South in an old iron foundry like this was awesome. I felt like a little kid in a candy shot. There was an unlimited amount of possibilities in a location like this. Unfortunately we had until midnight to get what we needed so we were definitely hustling from setup to setup. In the end we got what we needed and left the foundry just a few minutes after midnight. Afterwards I met the producer in an Arby’s parking lot. It was here that we transferred all the footage to his laptop. We double check to make sure he had everything and sure enough he did. We called it a night and went our separate ways. Can someone please put me on more cool shoots like this?!
