We Did It: Chevron Headquarters Shoot for Shanghai Expo 2010

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Chevron employee being interviewed by George Spyros with DP Rob Featherstone monitoring the recording.

DP Rob Featherstone breaks down the shoot…

For our recent Big City Pictures shoot we were presented with a little challenge. The assignment was simply to shoot several “screen test” interviews of potential representatives who would appear on screen on behalf of Chevron. However, we simply felt that setting the subject against the standard out of focus plant or blurry window would do neither the subject nor our film making interests any justice. For example, this shot on the right which someone did for another Chevron project in the very same room with the subject in front of the window.

On the day of the scout we looked at several locations on the corporate campus. We were met once more with the disparity between what seems like a great location to shoot an interview and the reality of the demands of video shooting; namely the depth and breadth of the location that is required for interesting composition and lighting.

Today’s conference room has an enormous table that is hard wired for communications and cannot be moved. In addition, these particular conference rooms had windows but the windows had seams in them so they did not provide an unobstructed view of the outside. While these affects are perfect for a conference they are an obstruction to composing a frame for an interview.

So wondering what to do we noticed there was one wall that was translucent in nature and took on an unusual appearance when we put lights upon it. We determined that shooting into this glass wall would provide a more compelling backdrop than either the potted plant option or the outside view.

The frosted, glass wall from the outside looking in.

As the final project is to be projected on an enormous screen, we wanted high definition video. George loves slow motion so also wanted a camera that could shoot at variable frame rates. The camera that met our demands and was available was the Panasonic HPX 500. We also wanted to work with selective focus so the standard zoom onto the 2/3 inch chip was out of the question. We added the PS Technik Pro 35 adapter and a set of Arri ultra primes to the order. We rented this equipment from Chater Camera in Berkeley, California.

Here’s the 85mm Arri Zeiss Ultra Prime:

And this is the 135mm Arri Zeiss Ultra Prime:

Achieving the look of the background proved a little tricky as the key light was highlighting the seals between pieces of glass in the wall creating two, bright white vertical lines on either side of the subject’s head. We needed to blend the values of the background and key so that they would match and blow out into white. Also, we needed to carefully position the camera and set our stop to create just the right amount of shallow depth of field so that the vertical lines would disappear into blur.
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Our lighting package consisted of small hmi’s that can be plugged into house power and a couple of kino flos. We left the lights and camera day light balanced as there was a fair amount of ambient light (especially with regards to the translucent wall).

The key light was a joker bug 800 with a medium chimera with 2 layers of diffusion and an egg crate. We supplemented this with a 2 foot four bank kino flo from below the lens. For fill we used a 4 x 4 bead board and the back edge was a 4 foot four bank kino flo.

To create the effect on the back ground wall our gaffer, Darrel Flowers did an amazing job of finding the prefect spot for the Arri 1200 watt par plus and cutting the light down to just the right shape.

The Joker Bug 800 on the opposite side of the conference table.

Key Grip Jimmy Stewart rigs the showcard gag.

Camera Tech & Sound Jay Farrington sits in as the background effect is tweaked for camera.

For a little motion on the b-roll shots, we used our Hollywood Microdolly with straight track. Here’s a little push in shot at 60 fps:

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We shot the interviews in HD1080p and slow-motion in 720p with camera tech Jay Farrington downloading P2 cards in the field via MacBook Pro equipted with Duel Adapter. Because we had access to power, we didn’t have to rely on bus-powered portable drives but instead could off-load to 2 terabyte G-Drives drives which none-the-less cut a fine figure themselves with their sleek form.