Last weekend Brian and I drove out to Sarnia from Windsor. The job this time wasn’t for our usual wedding videography however. It was our first commercial video production of 2010, for a women’s clothing boutique called Silhouette’s. We were pretty excited for this opportunity since it would be aired on Cogeco cable television in their local broadcasting network.

In my 26 years living in southwestern ontario, I’ve never been to Sarnia so that was a first for me. Brian took us through the back country roads. He’s from a small town, Corunna, right outside Sarnia. So it was his part of the woods. The entire drive took us about an hour and 40 minutes, far quicker than what google suggested.

We ended up meeting the models at various locations around Sarnia — most of our footage was at the river front overlooking Port Huron, MI.  And luckily for us, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. It was sun and blue skies everywhere, almost to a fault. Shooting out in the bright sunlight has its pros and cons.

Pro: beautiful weather, not having to brave the cold, snow or rain, got some nice sun for our skin. Con: shooting out in the sun for 7 hours straight leads to one badddd farmer’s tan / sunburn.

We didn’t have an external monitor or LCD loupe with us this time, so it was a bit more of a challenge than usual to set the focus.  Also, ND filters or ND Fader filters will definitely be required next time. We were shooting at f20 and above for most of the day, but that worked well for us because the client requested everything be tack-sharp focus throughout the screen.  It was a departure from our usual artsy-shallow depth of view, but in the end everything worked well.

I did end up feeling a bit like a movie producer. We attracted small crowds wherever we filmed up and down the river bank. For some unknown reason, we had a higher proportion of male audience when it came time to do the lingerie and swimsuit portion of the videography shoot…hmmmmmm……

Special thanks to Brian’s mother, who grilled up some delicious burgers and hot dogs for dinner for us!

We’re currently editing and cutting up the commercial now though, so you’ll have to check back here soon for the final version of it!