Dan Bannister – The Boxer
The Boxer – A Still & Motion Story with one Light, the Para
The number of requests I get from ad agency and brand clients asking me to combine stills and motion production on the same shoot has gone through the roof in the past couple years.
It’s driven partly by technology (the fact that still cameras now do video pretty well) and the fact that the platforms on which many brands are advertising (social media, online etc) have a huge focus on motion content. As a result, clients are asking for both still and motion on most shoots. It’s not always possible for a whole bunch of reasons (technical and practical) but, if they follow a few key rules and partner with the right content producer, the results can be really great.
The Boxer for BioSteel from Dan Bannister on Vimeo.
I’m very particular about the quality and style of light I use and when you boil it down, both photography and motion is about telling stories with light so, I put a lot of thought into how projects get lit. One of the biggest obstacles to converging stills and motion is that it takes a lot of pre planning to be able to use the same lighting for both stills and motion. Moving pictures don’t require as much light in general as a stills shoot does so, walking into a set and shooting stills of what you see when it’s been lit for motion can be a real challenge, especially when the client needs the stills at F11.
Dan Bannister shoots “The Boxer” using the Broncolor Para 133 and HMI800 from Dan Bannister on Vimeo.
The other issue that comes up is that motion light is a lot more forgiving. Your eye can rest on a still image for a long time and thats when things like harsh light, hard shadows, color shifts and exposure issues become obvious. In a broad sense, lighting for stills has to be softer and more controllable. With motion, the images are moving and these issues are less obvious because the viewer is usually following a story and is less focused on the details of the visuals in a micro sense.
I’ve been looking for a simple solution for a while now that enables me to create an acceptably soft and controllable light with enough punch for stills but that runs continuously for motion. As well, stills generally just don’t have the people resources on set that a film shoot does so, everything has to be more portable and easier to set up than most of the high production motion gear. I’m used to broncolor Paras from shooting fashion and have always loved the quality of light and controllability I got from these tools so, when the local Bron rep told me he could now drop in an HMI and allow me to dial the power up and down with minimal color shift, I had to try it.
These videos and stills come from a project for a sports drink company where we created both stills and motion content to tell the story of a boxer. Since the ask was both stills and video and the subject and locations were more moody and dark, I felt this would be a perfect opportunity to try out the Para/HMI combo and in the end, it was. We only used 1 Para for the whole shoot and alternated between a couple different HMI’s before landing almost exclusively on the 800 watt version. We were able to easily move the light around and adjust it to create the moody feel I was looking for in the final output.
One of the things I like about continuous lighting is that you can readily see what’s happening and what effect any changes you make have on the final product so, I’m excited about the possibilities of setting up shots on set and not having to relight each time for stills or video independently and I really like the quality of light I get from the Para.
About Dan Bannister
New York and Toronto based commercial photographer and director specializing in advertising, fashion and portraits.
