More television shenanigans

I feel like I'm living and breathing campaigns based around sport at the moment - it must be that time of year. The latest project for Wellington Rugby hit the small screen last night. We've produced a series of four 15-second TV commercials to promote the first bunch of home games for the Wellington Hurricanes in the Super 15 season. With almost no time to turn these around and with no existing footage to use, combined with players having pretty hectic schedules, I reckon the results aren't too bad all things considered. These will air during primetime on TV3 over the next few months on-and-off so check 'em out.

Canes 2011

It's January, it must be rugby season. Last week was a big week of post-production on the 2011 Hurricanes poster campaign (with EyeQ Design and Wellington Rugby) but we got there. Making set-in-stone concepts work can be tough as it's largely about making someone else's vision a reality. The final image is made up of over sixty layers which all had to be meticulously worked over, shadows and shading added and then tweaked. And tweaked again.Then tweaked a bit more. There's plenty of back and forth on projects like this but we got there (and hopefully nailed it).

Kris Gemmell - pro athlete

I spent a few days last week up at the Snow Farm near Wanaka shooting a project with olympic triathlete Kris Gemmell. It was a bunch of fun and I'll hopefully head back there next month to finish things off. I'm also shooting a video which will need a few months of production but keep an eye out - I'll be sure to post it here when it's finished.

The setting for last weeks shoot was breath taking - quite literally. At 1600 meters above sea level the air is thinner than at sea level which is enough to make breathing a bit tougher than usual - like chasing a speeding triathlete. We were interupted during a 7am session in minus 4 degree temps so Kris could be interviewed on radio and even he was out of breath. More proofs from the shoot here.

Ngaire the star

I've now shot a few features about caravans for NZ Life & Leisure magazine, and the latest one was a bit special - the caravan was ours and it was for the Jan/Feb cover. We hit the road for a weekend shoot to the Central Hawkes Bay back in October in Ngaire, our 1955 Starliner bubble caravan and the mag is out this week. She's had some work done by the retoucher at the publishers especially for the cover - of course I don't own a pink caravan! It's quite a tough assignment shooting yourself for a magazine story, everything felt very set-up and contrived but hopefully the results were worth it. Ngaire in all her glory is in stores now - check her out.

Lucy and Brian

I photographed my first wedding of the season on Saturday and it was a good'n. I was so excited, I've turned the images around in record time [at least a record for me]. The wedding was at The Wellesley Hotel on a grey ol' day in the capital - perfect for an intimate indoor wedding in a grown-up setting. Love it.

Keep'n it real

It's about time I showed the blog some love after a busy few months. This week we finished production on a spot for Contact Energy to promote the Contact Triathlon Series. Produced with/for Zephyr WPD and Rainger Connect. We shot this sucker in Wellington, Tauranga and Rotorua on the Canon 7d at 50 frames-per-second so we could peg the action back to a gentle slow-motion. The brief was for a raw/photo-journalistic feel, fly-on-the-wall stuff and the triathletes we used were actual, real-life triathletes. When you want real, nothing beats reality.

Contact Tri Series promo from Mike Heydon on Vimeo.

It's on near the Tron

We're at day six of a ten day shoot at the World Rowing Champs at Lake Karapiro. Good to be finally shooting the business end and the real action after months of planning, shooting the campaign and video and working on logistics. It's a very slick operation up here and the media are well catered for - just as well as there's about 50 photographers and hundreds of international media. The next three days will be hectic during finals, but it looks like the kiwi crews will deliver the goods on home soil [or home lake]. Below are few highlights below along with a behind-the-scenes from the media centre including a familiar face.

Something I said?

Last months issue of Next magazine featured a shoot I'd done with Green MP Sue Kedgley at Parliament a few months back. The same month she announced she wouldn't be standing for Parliament after next years election... I hope it wasn't something I said?

The shoot itself was great. It was a fantastic team effort with five of us charging about the corridors of power photographing Sue wearing an array of 1920's garb. While we were rushing around inside Parliament, coincidentally there was plenty of rushing around outside as co-leader of the Green Party Russel Norman was caught in the middle of the Tibetan flag scuffle which featured in the news that day. All just another eventful day in the capital.

What to do with 52 cameras

This is awesome - aerial surfers photographed simultaneously with 52 different cameras all in a row. Produced for RipCurl, the result is a three-dimensional still image of the surfer frozen in space, Matrix-style. Check it out. Right, I'm off to work out who I can borrow about 49 cameras from.

Sneak peak: our first TVC's

Our first TV commercials hit NZ screens tonight. Initially produced as just a web promotion for this months World Rowing Champs at Lake Karapiro, they proved so popular we've cut them in to a 30-second and 15-second spot. They'll air on TVNZ over the next three weeks during the 6pm news, Primetime and Breakfast time slots. The full video has been used by SkyTV [who are official broadcaster of the event] as a promo and build-up for their coverage as well. It'll be nice to sit back, put my feet up with a beer and watch them on the box.

WRCH 30sec TVC from Mike Heydon on Vimeo.