VanIves - Arc of The Moment (Live @ The Loft)

Shot on 23/12/21

Nearing the end of the year getting closer to the inevitable January drought we decided to end on a passion project.

‘The Loft,’ a photography studio recently opened and transformed by instagram.com/lolliography/ seemed such an interesting space to become available in Dumfries & Galloway. Unlike many other studio spaces, The Loft has purposely been left bare at one end. The raw brick and floor boarding still on show, a black canvas to work with. I knew as soon as I was first shown the space that it’d be perfect to shoot a live session in. Another rarity is that the space is so long allowing for so much depth while filming. Being able to shoot on such a large variety of focal lengths was a luxury we don’t often have.

I’d had a reference for a shooting style in mind for a while - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN_YhbAO8G4

This version of Sam Henshaw’s ‘Broke"‘ grabbed my attention back when it was released. I thought the energy brought on from the camera movement and post-zooms was class. I decided to avoid the wipe & zoom transitions, although myself guilty of using them in the past, definitely a fashionable editing technique of the time - See post Malone’s ‘Better Now’ and every other video released by Youtube Filmmakers around 2018.

Lighting (Disclaimer, I’m not a lighting expert) - With the roof beams we rigged a Fresnel overhead pointing down at the performance area.

I initially planned on having the fresnel and then a soft key lighting the VanIves from the front. When put into practice however, it looked horrific. Reminiscent of a Youtuber’s studio talking head, which has it’s uses, but not for this.

After some experimenting we finally landed on the backlight, in the far right corner. This would give us the dramatic look I was aiming for while creating some nice flares.

Ideally I could have done with another light, possibly bouncing off the right wall to fill Stuart’s face a bit more. But the wrap from the backlight would do.

We used ALOT of haze. Consequently causing the fire service to come. We’d covered all the smoke alarms during set up, but during set-down I Opened the windows and door to the hallway to let the haze dissipate. Unknowingly there was two more alarms in the hallway, which triggered within minutes. As the space is a commercial premises located above a shop front, all the alarms are connected, and so all the alarms went off. Very embarrassing.

Really happy with how this turned out and would love to shoot more live sessions in this style in the future.

Techy bits:

Sony a7siii

Atomos Ninja V - Prores 422

sigma 14-24 2.8

Zeiss 35 1.4

Zeiss 80 1.8

Black Promist 1/4

Gimbal

DaVinci Resolve

Blue hues, Dark water and Little wind.

Reflecting on the previous year I realised a few things.

1) I didn’t go on nearly enough day trips despite being able to drive

2) I’d rarely taken any photos for myself

3) My free time was spent pretty poorly - Either being a couch potato or essentially doing nothing - I’d been neglecting hobbies that at one point were a part of my daily routine.

To try and remedy this I thought I’d try and start the new year by, for the first time in a long time, taking photos for no other reason than for my own enjoyment. This lead me to Loch Lommond. An area which I’d been to many times before but never so casually as a morning drive.

Having recently moved to Glasgow I’d felt guilty that this incredible landscape was so close but I’d never taken the time to travel there outside of work.

Greeted by the first snowfall of the year there was a sense of calm.

Blue hues, dark water and little wind.

We stopped at the side of the road many times but the most memorable being to have a chat with these belties.

Some general human to cow noises later and we managed to coherse them to come over. I took a couple of stills as they were slowly walking towards and figuring us out. My favourite of which being the main image for this post -

The group stopped waiting on one which had gotten distracted scratching itself. I can relate.