Grolsch Product Shoot

Last Saturday, I spent 12hrs in a studio shooting nothing but B-E-E-R! It was all kinds of macro shots of the bottle, the label, the embossing, the super-chilled sweaty "condensation drops" (that was just spritzed water). This included all kinds of pouring shots - more foam, less foam, more bubbles, less bubbles, more golden colour, less swirls, more viscosity... and the more appetizing and delicious the beer looked, the less edible it actually was (coz of all the chemicals mixed into it to create the particular effect).

As you can imagine, trying to get the lighting and timing right what with all the reflections in the glass and bottles or trying to get the bottlecaps falling at the right place, etc. was a S.L.O.W. and painful process. It was literally like watching paint dry.

Here's a shot of the popping beer bottle that was shot in real time (the whole thing was over in 2sec):



Here's the same 2sec shot that was actually shot in slow motion (high speed) played back at 900 frames per second:



And here's an extreme close-up of the bottle cap popping, also at 900fps:



All shot on a Hi-Def Weisscam camera which doesn't actually record onto tape - everything's recorded on a hard drive and you only render out the shots that you want. This baby is so hi-tech, it even comes with its own technician. Yes, a camera technician who travels with it and operates it completely separately from the DOP (the Director of Photography - in lay man's terms, also the 'cameraman'). It's hooked up to its own computer system which the engineer operates, while the DOP carries on doing his thing framing and lighting the shots... it was pretty geeky-cool to watch this relatively new technology in action!

More photos from the shoot in the album here: