Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Bride and Groom with Sticks and Dirt Floor

We're going have sticks brought in the lovely students are really cute over there holding the sticks I love it anyways so we're going to bring them in and I'm actually going to utilize this dirt that I have on the ground and the reason why I have this year it wasn't so much for the bed shoot that was kind of irrelevant it's for this part that we're going to be doing and the next part so what we're going to do is I'm just going to set this camera down real quick uh yeah yeah thank you okay switching lenses so I'm going to have the bride and groom holding hands and walking and then we're going to have sticks sort of coming into the scene and that's going to be the suggestion of nature that we have and now I don't mean it to look like there's a they're in a forest or anything clearly they're not but this kind of background but I do want it to look really really nee cherie really intentional I don't want to look like sticks or just sort of poking in and out of the scene or anything strange...

like that so I'm going to have all of the wonderful students lining either side and holding the sticks in the frame that's why the dirt is here and one thing that's really important to note is that I'm not actually going to have them walking like this to the camera because that's going to be an issue if we have a lot of motion going on especially if there are sticks in front of them a little bit and behind I don't want them moving too much to where they're going teo run into the sticks or get in the way of the set so we ready to bring the sticks in good you guys just grab a sticking and come on over does not matter big little tall short we're all the same oh awesome. Okay, so three over here and three over here and that's great I like it you grab the log that's great. Okay, so now everybody here is going to be blocking the light just ever so slightly it's not a very big deal though you can see the light so really even on this side of my body so what I'm going to have you guys do let's do the two centers you guys can sort of get down on the floor a little bits then your sticks or a little bit lower. Good. Awesome. Now if you guys can take enough to them and you khun separate your hands just so you're not having to hold it all with one good so I want to create a much separation in the set as possible awesome struggling with the sticks okay, look atyou cool so I'm goingto have you bring this hand down good and then just stick these sticks in the frame good so you're good so let's separate them and I'll just bring this hand down and this one up then same with you guys just pick a hand to raise and lower and then we'll get them in the shot. Perfect. Great yep you're great okay, now I'm going to step out and see how this looks uh no thank you. Okay, that looks really nice. I don't have enough quite in the front at the lower portion so if you guys could both just sit down with your sticks that'll look really nice yeah, you don't hear that every day. Okay, good. That looks really nice I hope all right, so let's get the bride and groom in. All right, so again I'm going to position the bride towards the light so she will be on my left hand side her right hand side so you guys can step in there and just yet in front of those last sticks so you don't get impaled with, um perfect now. Like I said, I am not going to ask them to actually walk as you can see that would be an issue that we don't want to run into that was a good plan so all right, so we're going to have them hold hands good and then we're just going, have you put one foot forward each of you, like you're walking perfect? And so now if you think about how you actually walk, you lean into that leg, that you're stepping onto it, so you guys could just put your weight there, and I'm just going to step back and see how this looks. This is just our test shot, and we're going to steal that looks now I can see a hand from aidan in the back, so yep. Perfect. All right, so we can see that we have some sticks coming into play here, and I like how they're looking. I think that they could look a little bit more wild. So let's, put some sticks on the ground here. Just a little bit. Yep. Good. Throw your logs, herbig. Now, a couple in the back would be great. Yep. There you go. Good. That looks really nice. Perfect. I just want to create some believability here. Like I've been talking about. So it's not just sticks poking into the frame. You can actually see the six laying on the ground. All right, now, could you to hold your six of in the back of them are down lower and they're sort of pointing up a little bit more. Yep just like that and then lift them up a little perfect yep. That's great. Thank you. Okay, so we're going to take one more shot of this and then I am going to light a smoke look emitter not a smoke bomb gay all right, so you guys are doing perfect and I'm going to check my light out after this shot before I was really just focusing on what did the sticks look like? And now that I'm liking the sticks a little bit more I want to see what the lighting is like now obviously I can already see that I need to move her hair back because it's just going to block the light a little bit so I'm just going to step in here don't move for me you guys are good. Okay, there we go. Oh you're so beautiful. Okay, now I'm going to have you guys both turn into each other just slightly good perfect just like that and I'm going to cheat your face over this way so yep, perfect and then you can look down on her. Great wonderful. So I really like how that's looking gonna wait for that to pop buffalo but here so I can see what the lighting is like but I do think that looks a lot nicer because we're getting much more even light and the sticks are looking really cool but it doesn't look as cool as they could so let's light a smoke emitter ok it's going to get smoky in here we don't have windows okay so uh can you be my assistant and you are my sister okay all right so come on this way I'm goingto have you start in the back light that thing and then just run across it should be well try one to begin with we're trying not just set the smoke alarms off good and so I'm just trying trying to create a really smoky background for some atmosphere and make sure you only hold the bottom part so that it doesn't burn you it'll start smoking eventually into a forty five seconds with it so good okay we'll take one shot there now go back with it and hold it lower perfect all right now can mean big drop it back there hold it down low yeah that looks nice perfect so I'm just letting that go a little bit and it looks really nice starting to rise up behind them good got the shot okay, well now it's still going so I might as well take another picture right? Yeah, I got the one okay, so we're going to do one more smoke bomb and we're actually going to put it in front of them you know what let's do two at a time can we do that every good with two at a time okay and I am going tio place one on this side and one on that side yeah exactly. So what we're doing here the reason why I'm changing this up is because I have the smoke kind of you know really filtered out in the back and I can't see it as well as I'd hoped around them so in order to get that smoke around them we're going to put one on this side one on that side and then if I tell you guys to do this with your hands do that and blow the smoke in a little bit towards them but I think it should be fine now you can drop the trees I mean not everybody just whoever is goingto flap your hands okay yeah that's perfect yeah, you can use your mouth ok with the other one a ce fast as we can thank you. The students are making great little campers. Okay? Let's keep blowing yeah, that looks great perfect. You guys okay? We've definitely got some shots that looked amazing thank you it's just always dio way just say we choke our students that one's really going I want to take another picture of it so this is starting to look a lot better am I right? Because we've got the smoke going so now there's an actual atmosphere happening so it doesn't just look like we have, you know the fog happening alone or the sticks happening on the background it's actually all cohesive and that's really what I wanted to achieve with this shot now I specifically wanted to get a wedding dress that had some movement to it because if we wanted to add another element we're not we're not going to like two more smoke bumps because it's actually really hard to breathe in here right now but if we were going tio I would probably have another person over here just with this dress just moving it like this then we could get some movement to her dress but I'm not going to smoke us out of this place any more than I already have okay so everybody could drop your sticks for now good stay in place though do we have any questions about that set up? Yes absolutely just quick question I know a lot of people are going to be asking it out there can you tell us the brand of those smoke emitters yes, those are from inspect yusa and I don't know what they're called exactly but it's on the website very obvious and smoke emitters are great they you know they're not going to burn the house down or anything I'm pretty sure they say outdoor use only but who cares really eso eso there are some that are that only burn for fifteen seconds these air forty five second burns some go for minutes so it just depends on what you're looking for, and as you can see, forty five seconds is actually a while you can get your shot in that amount of time and anything longer doesn't really give you enough time to reset anything, so I like the forty five second burn. Why not use dry ice? Somebody is wondering, because that's a lot more expensive, andi it's a lot more unpredictable, and they're just more elements that you need to work with. So this is just one little thing that you can carry in your pocket with lighter, you have it on hand, super simple to use there's a pro tip for you, okay, I was going to ask, and I guess she kind of asked it, but I was going to ask about a fog machine, so why not use a fog machine? Okay, so fog machines are great and we're actually going to use one on the third day, I believe, but the reason why I don't use them typically is because I have one from target twenty five dollars doesn't work very well, so I only get a little bit of smoke. But steven say I had a great one it's not easy to take around two transport to use out in the forest or wherever you might want to use it. So these air great cause you can use it anywhere, anytime. I mean, even if you're by yourself doing a self portrait, you have a tripod, you ever remote wave that thing around and throw it to the side, but don't burn the forest down? What kind of a big picture question here from laura h who said, can we ask brooke what's the story? She's thinking of it would help our imagination, and I know you've kind of broken down each one of these, yeah shoots, but just to hear, you know your big picture in your mind, yeah, for this set up. Yeah, so for this one, I when I think about couples, you know what I'm thinking about a bride and a groom, I'm thinking about the journey that they're taking, and so I wanted to demonstrate that, but in a way that would still be really atmospheric, really interesting. So you have this really misty background that we've created. You have the sticks, it's, a forest setting, but at the same time they're the two most beautiful things emerging from that and that's, what I love about this set up is that it these two beautiful people who are in love, who are sticking together, holding hands and emerging from this really sort of very fantastical and dark scene