We have all been to a minigolf. Worst case it was an old concrete infrastructure which felt like it pre-dated Soviet Brutalism. Best case it has some nice astroturf and a moving windmill. But what if you could take all current technology to make Minigolf shiny and smart? This is exactly what Jora Vision came up with: RemarkaBall.
Modern screens, lasers, nice lights and smart point counting completely reinvents what Minigolf can be. Their only problem? Showcasing how all that nice stuff works. And as a picture says more than a thousand words, I got a call from Jora Vision.
Up to that moment they relied on renders to sell the concept, and wanted to show the product in two campaign images, a series of lifestyle images and a commercial. After a brainstorm with the marketing and product managers and comparing photos and videos from various locations we decided we would shoot our production at Swing Minigolf in Geneva with a mixed team of our own trusted people and local talent and make-up.
One huddle was sourcing all the gear. Either we had to fly in the entire team and rent all lights and grip local in Geneva. However, the nearest rental house was located four hours away in Zurich. Meaning we would still have to rent a local car and drive sixteen hours for the gear. The same time as if a team member would drive a van with our own gear from Belgium. Fortunately Arno Poppelaars, our DOP & Camera Operator, volunteered to drive.
So a few weeks later we all descended on Switzerland in a full blown snow blizzard. On Sunday evening we all gathered at the location for a technical scout on what tracks we would use to tell the story in video, and what angles would look best in the photos. Shooting in a foreign location always comes with unforeseen hassles. For example, the documents that were provided us showed that there were standard European plugs present to power the technology, but during our scout we discovered that the location had completely Swiss plugs, which would work for our phone and computer chargers, but not the heavy duty plugs our packs and video lights needed. We were aware this could be the situation, but through researching online discovered that these are sold around every corner, so we picked some up from the hotel bar (which had about a box of hundred of these available for sale).
Casting talent in a remote location also isn’t easy, but thanks to the combined effort of our and Jora Vision’s teams we managed to get a diverse group of people together. But you can’t test for chemistry. But we could not be luckier in this regard as the people truly clicked. I’m convinced that new friendships were founded that day, and you can really see this energy in the photos.
Problem solving like these issues rarely get mentioned in photography blogs, but with all the pre-production, prepping and post-production we spend days or weeks working on a shoot without even holding a camera. Even writing and editing these behind the scenes looks take time.
But, onto the shoot!
For the holes we alternated between video setups and photo setups. Near lunch we focussed on food video with all models. It was a real nice surprise for the models that they could actually eat all the food on the table when we were done shooting. And it tasted as good as it looked. No hairspray on these fries!
With a location with a lot of shiny elements, screens and neon having a tight control on light spillage was always on our minds. For the campaign images we shot with the light as close to the talent as possible with shooting clean plates later on to composit everything out. For the lifestyle images we could get a little tighter in our framing giving us enough freedom to light the talent and not blow out all the mood this location had to offer.
As usual on shoots like these we shot tethered so the client could directly provide feedback and everyone is on the same level. We shot on my Hasselblad X2D-100C and lit the location with a combination of Profoto Pro-10’s, D1’s, B1’s and A2’s. For the video shoot we shot on the RED V-Raptor and plussed the location with Astera tubes as well as Aputure light mats, as well as some Profoto modelling light.
In the end, the shoot was a great success, and these images will see a wide array of use, both online as physical. You can read more about RemarkaBall here.
Credits:
- Photographer / Director/Editing: Kris Van de Sande
- Camera/DOP: Arno Poppelaars
- Art Director: Matthijs de Graaf
- Product Manager: Shane Lieberman
- Retouching: Studio FOURSIDE