Illuminated Ceramics

As a bit of a push to start doing more video work in 2024, I decided to set myself a few personal projects. In late December I hit up a client of mine (Elisa Bartels) to see if she would be keen to collaborate on one of them. A simple telling of how she goes about creating one of her ceramic light pieces.
After a few calls and a hastily written shot list I got my gear, a fish tank, a portable smoke machine, a breakfast to go and jumped into my car down to Sydney to her studio.
The only BTS shot I got was my intro shot of the fish tank so this will be a short post. Ha.

I think I’d also like to talk about lessons learned in creating this. Just as a reminder and a decompression for myself.

Lesson 1
I need to invest in a sunshade for my monitor. Lol. Trying to see what Im shooting and to focus in daylight is hella tough. In fact focusing is tough by itself. Both manual and automatic. My canon has a great autofocus system but sometimes the AI in it sees ghosts in the trees and decides to follow them instead of the talent. A sunshade helps that 10% and sometimes that can make the difference between in focus and blurry mayonnaise video.
Lesson 2
Big powerful lights are an essential piece of kit.
Ive used LED lights for ages but I am definitely running up against the output of light I need. At full blast and close up they barely cover the subject. For ages I thought I could get away with it or just crank the ISO but I am seeing the flaws in my understanding of video/codec/software and how far I can push them in post. Also with lots of photos at my disposal I have the ability to draw focus to the talent and not just create a direction in the lighting (even though that is important)
Lesson 3
I know its been done to death but I like slow-mo. Just like having a kicker light, its just something I gel with.
Lesson 4
I need to put in as much effort and ideas into the ending of a video as the start. Duh. Sometimes the simple lessons are the most profound.

This may sound like a bunch of negatives but I am on a quest of continual improvement, even if its just a little bit each year.
The year of 2024 is going to be as much about self care as it is improvement in workflow and my art but its all connected so the listing these lessons is important. Writing them down I get to digest it in my mind and incorporate them into my work.
Thats about it really.
:)