Director/DP Brendan Williams, ACS, has joined Passport Films, the Santa Monica shop headed by owners/executive producers Patti and David Coulter, for U.S. representation. Williams has already wrapped his first project under the Passport banner: a Cooper Tires campaign for agency Marc USA, Pittsburgh.
The campaign’s premise was to follow a tire traveling along and through the scenes of the lives of people who trust the safety and quality of Cooper Tires. Williams’ approach was to shoot at high speed (up to 1500fps) and have the camera motor by the scene at up to 60 mph on a camera car.
“We came up with the idea of a second high-speed camera car pulling/towing the lone tire on a long pull rig,” related David Coulter. “The rig was then taken out in post, leaving the tire traveling down the street by itself at normal speed while all the other action in the scene was seen in extreme slow motion. For scenes where we didn’t need the tire traveling at 60 miles per hour we used a specially designed rig attached to the camera car to “launch” the tire on its own.”
Williams noted, “It was a great challenge to achieve in three days and working on the roads at 108 degrees made it that much harder. However, creatively it was really fun. The guys at the agency were really lovely, they were keen for me to try this crazy technique that created the ‘moving through a still photo’ type of feeling we were after.” The work was shot on the high-speed Weisscam HD camera.
Williams’ work spans such genres as automotive, tourism/lifestyle, food and people. Before turning to directing, he was a DP for 10 years, contributing to dramatic series, commercials, films and documentaries. Williams is among Australia’s most awarded DPs, and has earned the ACS designation. He made a successful transition to the director’s chair, having helmed and lensed assorted spots for such clients as Subaru, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Queensland Tourism, Tasmania Tourism, Nivea, Domino’s, Subway and eBay. Williams continues to be repped Down Under by production house 8com in Sydney and his own shop B Films in Brisbane. Earlier he was briefly repped stateside by Original Film.
William’s penchant for blending original shooting styles and approaches with postproduction techniques is evidenced in his work for BMW out of Melbourne agency Badjar Ogilvy, Melbourne, and Hyundai via ad shop Innocean in Sydney.
For the former, a silver sedan from the 1960s magically morphs through successive models until it eventually becomes a current BMW. All the while, the car is driving around a racetrack at high speed. In one transition, the car is travelling down the straight of the racetrack with the camera chasing the vehicle in a profile from a helicopter. Suddenly the car morphs into the next model. The section of track, the hero car’s speed, helicopter altitude and camera angle were matched as closely as possible and multiple passes were photographed on each car to provide as much information to the VFX team who performed the morph in postproduction. Williams used a picture-car mounted boom that was rigged out of the sunroofs of the hero cars and tied to the seatbelt points. Completely freestanding and counterweighted, the boom allowed for a 360-degree circular track around the car while it was driving on the racecourse. Passes were shot on two different models and the shots were married together in post.
Meanwhile the Hyundai spot featured time-lapse photography. “Working with our research team we threw a whole lot of ideas around for potential locations/events that would make for stunning time-lapse shots. One of the first thoughts that we knew would make for amazing pictures was the Northern Lights. We were fortunate that our filming was taking place right across the season where the Aurora performs,” recalled Williams.
The mathematics involved made every shot quite tricky taking in to account time, light changes, speed of objects moving in the frame, predicting the weather, and also using a special motion control dolly and calculating the speed of that in between frames and the speed of our pan and tilt head. “This all made for a nice brain teaser,” said Williams.
The weather varied greatly on location. “From the Northwest territories of Canada at minus 40 degrees where we had to devise heating systems to ensure our cameras and dolly rigs would still operate–not to mention trying to set up intricate pieces of equipment in an environment where taking off your gloves and mittens would result in frozen fingers within minutes,” said Williams. “Our other most challenging location was the Salt Lake in Ceduna, South Australia, which the day before our arrival had received unseasonal rain that resulted in a lake with a layer of water a few inches deep. Thankfully it made for amazing pictures; however, working through the night in gumboots and trying to keep our equipment dry and off the water was challenging, to say the least.”
Lensing entailed up to six Canon SLRs on this project, 5Ds and 7Ds. The main unit had three, second unit had two, and the third unit had one. This was necessary in order to be in so many places at once given the time frame of the production. Williams regards the Canons as the best tool for shooting hi-res time-lapse pictures.
Passport Films is represented by Sarah Jenks on the East Coast, Sarah Lange in the Southeast, and Donna D’Aguanno in the Midwest. Patti Coulter oversees the West Coast.
Kamala Harris Receives Chairman’s Prize At NAACP Image Awards
Former Vice President Kamala Harris stepped on the NAACP Image Awards stage Saturday night with a sobering message, calling the civil rights organization a pillar of the Black community and urging people to stay resilient and hold onto their faith during the tenure of President Donald Trump.
"While we have no illusions about what we are up against in this chapter in our American story, this chapter will be written not simply by whoever occupies the oval office nor by the wealthiest among us," Harris said after receiving the NAACP's Chairman's Award. "The American story will be written by you. Written by us. By we the people."
The 56th annual Image Awards was held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in the Los Angeles area.
Harris, defeated by Trump in last year's presidential election, was the first woman and the first person of color to serve as vice president. She had previously been a U.S. senator from California and the state's attorney general.
In her first major public appearance since leaving office, Harris did not reference her election loss or Trump's actions since entering the Oval Office, although Trump mocked her earlier in the day at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Harris spoke about eternal vigilance, the price of liberty, staying alert, seeking the truth and America's future.
"Some see the flames on our horizons, the rising waters in our cities, the shadows gathering over our democracy and ask 'What do we do now?'" Harris said. "But we know exactly what to do, because we have done it before. And we will do it again. We use our power. We organize, mobilize. We educate. We advocate. Our power has never come from having an easy path."
Other winners of the Chairman's prize have included former... Read More