He Took Five Hundred Pounds of Clay...
A great layout for Merck Pharma was sent to me by art director Lori Jones from Hamilton Communications. The visual was that of a summer scene, with a little boy grabbing his opportunity to splash in a water puddle, while taking a nature walk with his grandfather. Meanwhile, it was wintertime in Chicago. Temperature was sub-zero, nothing was green, nothing was warm, and logistics required us to stay in town. So we created a warm, pretend piece of summer in our studio. The recipe: clay and dirt, concrete, ground cover plants, leaves, stones, 2x6's, drop cloths and water. Our pathway had to include a slightly hollowed out area for the water puddle. Cement was used for our puddle and it's surrounding area for a solid landing pad. You see, our boy was going to be jumping repeatedly into the water, and I didn't want a broken puddle after just one jump! Our lighting had to blend with our beautiful forest background. We staged the splash area about 25 feet from the background, to help our selective focus with our short telephoto lens. The ground cover that was furthest away was electronically softened into the background. We also kept our flash duration short, to freeze the splash in mid-air. Filling our puddle became a science. We quickly mastered the combination of the water level with the impact of our jumping little boy. Happily, he nailed it each time! By end of day, we had all kinds of great splashes to pick from, our little boy had the time of his life, granddad was soaking wet, and Don Levey made Merck and Lori from Hamilton happy. |
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