My Role: Producer, photographer
Brief: Produce a two and a half minute video to promote a series of piano masterclasses.
Process: I spent time talking to the client about their work and how they perceived their brand. It became apparent to me that what we needed to promote were clients themselves more than the actual classes they were running.
The classes themselves are self explanatory but the the warmth and passion which Barry and Cosmo showed towards their work was what I really wanted to capture.
Challenges: The clients were based in New York and Boston and I was based in Nashville so we would meet on line. The entire pre-production process was conducted remotely. Of course, in an ideal world it would be great to sit down with the client in person but by using all the online collaboration tools at my disposal the process was a smooth one.
As well as the production of a promotional video I was engaged to record the classes themselves as a record for the students. This presented a challenge because the the style that was required for the recording of the classes was very different to the style that was needed for the promo but we had to do both simultaneously. I needed to find a balance between the simple 'informational' style of capturing the class and the more artistic requirements of the promo video.
We overcame this by adding a third, camera to the setup in addition to the two that were originally required to capture the classes. This was hand held and allowed us to move around the space and capture footage from a variety of angles in a more visually interesting way.
Another challenging technical aspect was recording the sound. At various times there were five people speaking and often in completely different directions. This, combined with the fact the room was so acoustically 'live' made it difficult to mic the space to capture the sound. I opted for each of the 5 tutors to wear wireless radio mic and to record the piano separately. I was fortunate to have employed a skilled sound technician who was able to give me fantastic results.