Category: Prototyping
New Zealand Catalogue Photo Shoot Details – Part 2: Lighting
As you can see from our last post on traveling and packing the majority of our traveling burden can be blamed on our lighting equipment. What we choose to bring on any given trip depends on the goals outlined by the story and the shot list (on an editorial shoot) or the creative brief (on a commercial shoot).
The creative brief for this trip included outside sculpted portraits at night with gells and light painting, lit daytime action, product focused environmental lifestyle, and a variety of studio set ups. We’ll break these post down into 4 categories: On hill action, improvised studio, lifestyle, and creative (light painting etc.).
Unfortunately we can’t show any of the final imagery until Spyder’s 2012 product is launched.
Red Bull Cold Rush Video and Texas Trip
We already posted about designing, building, delivering, and installing the branding for the 2011 Red Bull Cold Rush in Silverton as well as shooting the event. We promised a video in that post so here it is:
We also just headed to Texas with a trailer full of infrastructure goodies to deliver.
We designed and built this DJ booth is for Red Bull account Rich’s Bar. It is fabricated from powder-coated steel and fixed with color changing strobing LED lights side lighting the front branding.
Alaska Online Editorial
Ian Fohrman wrote a 3 part series for Powder.com on his trip to AK during the worst snow year in 30 years as well as some coverage of WESC and Tailgate AK for ESPN.
Part 1
“I already had my plane ticket and a deposit on an RV when the news started trickling in. It didn’t take long before my entire crew had bailed and the event I was going to cover was rumored canceled. Just like that, I was on a solo mission to Valdez in the worst snow year in recorded history with a 29-foot RV and nothing to do.”
Red Bull Open Ice
We recently got the call to shoot the Red Bull Open Ice finals on Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Over the past 8 weeks qualifiers for the international pond hockey tournament have been held around the world. 32 teams were scheduled to compete throughout the day culminating in a final matchup under the lights.
Having never shot hockey, or any traditional team sports for that matter, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. I did a ton of digging around on the intramanets and found that the majority of the stick and ball (or puck) photography felt pretty generic and stock. After I arrived in the twin cities and did a site walk I was even more convinced that I’d need to do something a little different to keep the shots up to Red Bull’s high standards of creativity. Though the event was well branded and the 9 rink set up was impressive, it was still happening on a flat featureless pond with the skyline far in the background.
Since the day I got the call to shoot the event, I was envisioning some sort of protective casing that would allow my camera to mount in or behind the goal. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to build anything beforehand and the need for a unique angle felt even more urgent as I stood on the ice during our pre-production walk… so I headed straight to the hardware store.
I picked up a Rubbermaid garbage can, a piece of lexan, some hardware, and a piece of scrap 2×4 for $10.54 and headed back to the hotel.
Luckily my good friend and fellow photographer Bill Hickey lives close by and was willing to help. He brought over some tools and a few delicious home brews and we went to work creating a first round ghetto prototype on the hotel floor.
Here’s what we did (really simple):
-Cut the Rubbermaid in half (just deep enough for the camera with a Nikon 10.5 fisheye to sit behind the lexan)
-Drilled a hole though the bucket and the block of wood for a 1/4 20 bolt to fit through and thread into the bottom of the camera
-Hammered a t-nut into the wood for the super clamp mount and drilled a corresponding hole in the bucket.
-Used sticky velcro to attach the lexan to the bucket (pretty ugly but a good quick solution).
-Velcro on side for Pocket Wizard
-Hole in top for Pocket Wizard antennae
-Tested with a hammer.
At about 1:30am we were satisfied that we had created something that would protect an expensive piece of glass attached to an even more expensive piece of electronics from an errant puck.
testing
Test shot on the ice
Couple of the shots:
Overall I was pretty psyched on what I was able to put together for almost no money and within 12 hours of the event but there are a number of things I’d like to change on the next round:
-I think black gaffer tape or some black rattle can on the inside would kill the glare/reflection from the inside of the rig.
-A quick release camera mount of some kind (maybe off my Gorrilla Pod) would be a huge timesaver while shooting.
-Access to the camera would be nice… maybe some a hinged door on the back of the box as long as it doesn’t compromise the integrity of the box.
-Viewing window in the back of the box.
-Some kind of rubber block instead of wood would be nice for dampening in case the box took a hard hit.
-Trim the corners of the Lexan so there is no leverage point for it to get forced off the front of the box.
Here’s a couple more stock shots to give you a feel for the event:
Obermeyer’s 90th Birthday Present
We recently embarked on another big project built almost exclusively from colorado beetle kill timber.
The project started with biodiesel fueled voyage deep into the woods in the trusty old plow truck. The beetle kill is almost all standing dead that amounts to a huge fire hazard so all removal is fire mitigation. After a some scouting, a few hours of wielding the Stihls and pretending to be lumbjacks we had a truck packed with timber.
We then headed into the shop to begin milling the raw timber into building material. For this project we wanted to maintain a rugged log cabin finish so we left the edges with a fair amount of bark and imperfections. We fabricated the joints and interior framing for the images and headed out to Aspen for their first display.
After their stint in Aspen, we delivered the walls to the Convention Center in Denver for the first ever Colorado SIA show.
Check out the video:
SIA Post
SIA Left Las Vegas… Any big change, especially to a long standing tradition or embedded routine can be difficult to deal with but it’s part of life. If you can be open to new possibilities usually you can find solace in moving forward… Good bye Nobu, 4% looser slots, circle bar, yards of booze, and no last call… BUT… Hello fresh air, drinkable water, and city that isn’t a disgusting shit-hole in the desert. I couldn’t be happier.
A lot happened this year for The Public Works at SIA. We picked up some new clients, parted ways with one big client who’s vision differed from ours, got to check out some of our infrastructure and imagery in use, and met a ton of great people.
We’re beyond excited to continue building our network and becoming a bigger part of the Colorado business community. There are a ton of great companies here doing interesting, creative and progressive work and we’re thrilled to be building relationships with many of them.
Check out some of our work at the trade show:
Custom signage for the Helly Hansen Booth getting loaded into the truck.
Helly Hansen signage being installed.
Looking pretty good!
Beetle kill image walls for Obermeyer
Imagery in Spyder booth shot by Ian Fohrman and Mike Arzt
The launch of “Business of Fun”
We have been brainstorming this event for years. A week ago it was finally time for a beta run. The general idea is to gather a panel of action sports experts from different fields of expertise and let it be known to college and high school age students that if you let your passions lead the way, there is probably a job that will make you happy.
We worked with the Colorado University Freeride Club which is the largest college club in the country to kick off this 1st event. Many industry partners kicked in time, promotions and product to also light a fire under the event. There was catered food, plenty of free Red Bull, TONS of give away product from all the involved companies (snowboard, bindings, outerwear, hoodies, magazine subscriptions, shoes, etc. etc.), and a poster signing by Chris Davenport.
The event started off with 4 short films and then the panel introduced themselves and explained how they were able to get their current jobs. The most consistent themes were “chasing what you want without ever giving up” and “being unique”. Got to love Steve “Stix” Nilsen and his stories and antidotes. He told a story about a potential hire telling him she was way to overwhelmed as her house burned down the night before. So he sent her a smoke detector. Persistence with humor.
Then things transitioned into a Q&A session with the students asking about everything from how to become a pro skier to how to sell photos to a magazine. The panel was amazing and provided insight from all different angles.
We look forward to the next Business of Fun and keeping the conversations going here in this blog and also on the Facebook site. Always open to any and all feedback.
The panel was:
Chris Davenport – Helly Hansen Pro athlete
Jake Knigge – Helly Hansen regional athlete and current CU student
Shay Willams – Freeskier Magazine photo editor
Mike Basher – Snowboard Magazine editor
Deric Gunsor – Aspen Ski CO marketing
Trent Bush – Brand Base (Technine, Nomis & Sound) co-founder
Steve Nilsen – Pabst Blue Ribbon marketing manager
Ian Fohrman – Helly Hansen sports marketing
Marily MacDonald – Outdoor Divas marketing manager
Frank Phillips (moderator) – The Public Works, LLC
Huge thanks to all the people that made this first event a huge success. Video of the event coming soon.
Lucky winner of an autographed copy of Chris Davenport’s book
Our newTrailball table seeing its first action
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Public Works Client and Vendor Visits in Chicago
We just had a great trip out to Chicago. Toured the 80/20 facility and got to spend some great time with the founders and marketing team. Check out their product at 8020.net. The Public Works has been using their “industrial erector set” in everything from library furniture to skate ramps. Great to see where it comes from and meet the crew.
From their we were off to McDavid sports equipment. Once again a great crew. Also amazing to walk through a door and see 100,000+ sq feet of manufacturing going on. A little different view than the doom and gloom you hear on CNN about American manufacturing!
We also had a chance to stop through the Chicago office of DraftFCB, which is one of the largest creative agencies in the country. We’ve done an assortment of work for them over the years and it was good to check out their massive Chicago set-up.
In the mix of all this Frank was also able to pick up his new Jetta TDI wagon. It will soon have Public Works produced bio-diesel pumping through it. Seems like a solid car as we proceeded to put about 3000 miles on it within 48 hours. One big fat raccoon was almost a victim but probably only lost a couple hairs off its tail.
Biodiesel Processor: Part 1
The Public Works team just returned from a hugely successful week in coastal BC. We attended the Telus festival, the 1Step launch party, and the PowWow where Mike spoke expertly on the panel, met with HH athletes and industry media, built a state of the art bio diesel processor, and made party.
Helly Hansen Athlete Mark Abma is making a push to embrace sustainability in every aspect of his life. He launched 1Step, a charity aimed at educating and raising awareness and he’s working with all his sponsors to create more eco-friendly products.
Mark realized that even with these initiatives his career as a professional skier forces him have a larger than average footprint and started looking for ways to reduce… and that’s where we came in.
Mark’s work requires that he have a truck and that he make multiple trips to Interior BC every season and bio seemed like a perfect solution to helping him reach his goal of consuming less.
Our company trucks have been running off waste bio diesel for about 5 years and helping Mark was a great way to develop and promote a more efficient and automated system.
We immediately set to work designing the cleanest most user friendly system we could come up with. After about a month of development we had a working prototype in our shop.
All that was left was to find a way to get all the right parts and tools for Mark’s system to his home in Pemberton, find a waste oil supply, and take the crew up north to build the thing…. 4 days, and 100 trips to the local canadian hardware store later, we had processed 20Gal of waste oil from the sushi restaurant into a tank full of clean diesel for Mark’s truck.
As with any project we do, we looked beyond building the best product possible and saw an opportunity to leverage the story to benefit all parties involved. This meant a film partner, photography, a print media partner, and an extended PR strategy.
Watch for a full print article in the October issue of Freeskier Magazine, an episode from Nimbus Independent, and much more information here and across the intrawebs.
Special thanks to Lande for the hospitality, accommodations, and provisions.
Selkirk
Another Helly Hansen photoshoot at Selkirk Wilderness Skiing produced and managed by the Public Works.
“Statistics don’t do Selkirk justice. Sure, 78 square kilometres (30 square miles) is big. Bigger than all of Vail and Whistler-Blackcomb combined. With only 24 skiers maximum per week, visitors to Selkirk Wilderness are guaranteed over 80,000 vertical feet of untracked bliss. But, like we just said, statistics don’t do it justice. ”
The lodge is beautiful and comfortable, the food is amazing and plentiful (bacon breakfasts and constant cat ride feeding rendered some serious heli-belly by the end of the week), the staff was friendly, fun, knowledgeable, and accommodating, and the terrain was endless.
For most of the shoot we broke into two groups… the group with sleds and the cat group. The sled group was basically just the MSP crew: Murray Wais filming, Blake Jorgenson shooting and Mark Abma, Eric Hjorleifson, and James Heim skiing. The cat group was John Roderick on motion, Mark Gallup on stills, and JP Solberg, Lisa Filzmoser, and Chris Davenport riding.
Check out a few photos:
[note: the tree burning, while extremely fun (especially when the tree is lit with a roman candle), is actually fire mitigation and prevents the red trees from burning in the summer when the whole hill could go up… so please no angry patchouli-scented comments.]
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