This assignment looked at many ways of using cinematography by creating a promotional video on a known perfume, fashion house or designer. The project wanted me to think carefully about using cinematography to captivate my audience using different camera shots. I was assigned to create a promotional video following a cinematic style on a perfume which must be presented to a professional standard. At the end of the project the final submitted video will be presented to the rest of the group in the theatre.
For the first week of the cinematography project I want to fully understand how cinematography captivates specific target audiences. Along with generating my own ideas I looked into existing cinematographers who have worked on advertisements related to perfume. Spike Jonze and Baz Luhrmann were great to use for inspiration as their work includes hidden narratives in branded advertisements. Progressing through the first week it was initially difficult to generate ideas which would be challenging to create using cinematography. During the second week I came to the conclusion that creating a promotional video for Jean Paul Gaultier perfume would be interesting using a different context to Jean Paul Gaultier existing adverts. Since the advertisements focus on women and men being provocative I wanted to follow my own concept in the video such as having the actor feel that she’s in a new world when she uses the perfume. I researched existing films and dream sequences which focuses on unique camera shots that follow a cinematic approach to advertising perfume. I compared two scenes from different films to give me inspiration. These films were Spectre and Final Destination 4. By comparing them both the Final Destination transition involved the main character’s eye coming in and out in a different location. The Spectre title sequence focused on a scene of an eye that blinks to reveal a new scene of the title sequence. The transition in my opinion looks quite complex to create as it requires sharp focus shots and closeups, along with the same shot in a different location.
During the third week of the project I booked the Canon Mark III out to start shooting. For setting up the camera picture style I changed the sharpness to 0, the contrast to -, the saturation two stops to the left and the colour tone to 0. This technical setup allowed me to shoot footage in a flat image, allowing me to edit the colours into a cinematic look. For the shoot I arrived at the bus stop location, opposite Wey Valley. I used my own tripod and attached the 50mm 1.8 lens to shoot with. The overall shoot did not go very well as I was not getting any depth of field for my footage. This resulted in most shots being dull and some had reflections of me with the camera. This resulted in relocating to a different bus stop which had shade, providing a nice depth of field. In university I primarily focused on using more locations which would be used for the main shoot of the video. I called the Plaza and Odeon in Dorchester as I felt they would be a suitable places to film. I booked out the camera again during the week and practiced using the 80 and the 100mm macro lenses with a good depth of field. I conducted some test shoots out in my garden such as using a butterfly and a spider to get a overall feel of how to use the macro lens for a eye transition. I decided to change the storyboard of my project as the original idea focused on having my actor teleported to a empty green field in a flowing dress when she sprays the perfume. The changed idea follows the same concept but has her feel like a celebrity. This will involve the paparazzi taking loads of pictures of her. For added props I acquired a red carpet for my main shoot at the cinema and permission from the Plaza to leave their cones out to stop the public from parking in front. This allowed me to shoot my actor more easily as I would have more room.
On the shooting day I arrived at a bus stop opposite the petrol garage at 9:45am to film all the bus stop scenes. The film shoot went really well in my opinion as the weather was dull and the specific bus stop had bushes which gave me a good chance to gain some shallow depth of field for my actor. I used the 50mm 1.8 for the close ups and mid shots as I felt it would be professional to focus on my actor throughout. I also used the 80mm macro lens for the eye transition, I had to be careful with the transition shots as a good focused shot is needed. For this type of shot I had to shoot it twice, one to go through her eye when she uses the perfume and the second shot where it comes back out from the main shoot for the effect to work. From there we travelled to the Plaza in Dorchester at 11:30am the latest to setup. For equipment I had double sided tape which made it easier for me to put the red carpet down the steps. The issue that occurred with the Plaza was customers using the middle steps to go into the building. I had my actor in a light blue prom dress for the shoot as I felt it was suitable for a celebrity look. For the main shoot I used the 300mm zoom lens for the transition, then I used a 80mm macro lens for another transition shot. The overall shoot went quite well as I did not encounter any issues. For the last shot I took a photo of the Jean Paul Gaultier’s perfume. Originally I asked permission from Debenhams however, I was misinformed by a member of staff who informed me she was a manager. So I went to Boots who allowed me to take a photo of the bottle and the box it came with for the ending shot.
For the post-production stage I primarily focused on gathering all the footage together and started editing the bus scenes in Adobe Premiere Pro. The footage had really good depth of field which focused on my character. The audio was all natural in camera which I was hoping for. With the audio I added bass onto the clips which worked really well with the passing vehicles. For the Plaza shoot I shot in 50 frames at a resolution of 720p. This allowed me in editing to slow down the footage by 50% which gave a nice slow cinematic shot. I felt this would work nicely for my viewers as it would portray a dreamlike state in a positive emotion. For the transition I needed to edit two separate clips for the transition to work. For the first eye transition in After Effects, I froze one frame in good focus in the footage and then key-framed the position and the scale to animate the transition to the eye. I did not want to zoom too far into her eye as that would lose quality of the footage. Once it was nicely scaled I overlapped the second clip from the Plaza shoot and key-framed the scale and position to zoom out. For the second transition I had to edit it the same way so the dream sequence would end. This effect was entirely new and looked quite complex for me to do however, the eye transition worked well for my footage. This gave viewers a new perspective of the characters dream sequence. For the edit I cleaned it up using the fast way colour corrector, applying a warm colour of orange and using the reference monitor to balance the black, white and grey colours. By keeping the colours below 100 and above 0 on the reference monitor it balances the colour grading of the footage. For soundtrack I used John Murphy – Sunshine as I’ve came across the track years ago and felt it would be cinematic to use for my cinematography assignment which would fit well for my video. For the ending of the last shot I photo-shopped the perfume bottle and imported it in Aftereffects and animated it using the Z axis.
By comparing my cinematography video at low budget to a high budget production in the industry you can tell that my cinematography video was a simple yet effective idea with nice camera shots. With the high budget cinematic advertisements they are equipped with the most expensive camera equipment and top celebrities to make a video perfect.
The cinematography assignment for me was challenging as I was not introduced to cinematography in the film and television course I did two years ago. I learnt many new skills in the project such as using macro lens for the first time, working with cinematography in the editing process and creating a eye transition which was slightly complex to do. I felt that using different camera shots works well for cinematography and editing it to look like a professional cinematic video. It was a shame that I could not acquire a camera slider which could have worked very well for the overall feel of my video. I really enjoyed and engaged in the project with high enthusiasm for the level 5. In the future I will use cinematography for my own videos as I feel it would impress viewers through visuals.
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