Teamed up recently with Emily Cooper who is a Food Stylist and Recipe Developer to create a self-promotion video.
Our initial plan was to create a cooking video in the studio of a summer recipe developed by Emily.
Since we were using fresh local ingredients from the farmers market, we decided to capture video of shopping at the farmers market as part of the story.
I thought it would be nice to shoot sunrise in the city to kick off the video, then follow with scenes from the farmers market, and finally the cooking portion of the video.
While researching the best locations to capture sunrise of the city, I felt that the Transamerica Pyramid building should be my focal point for the cityscape.
With location list in hand, I went out exploring around the city looking for the best cityscape vantage points.
Images captured with iPhone
Twin Peaks have always been a great location to view the city.
The morning light is beautiful, but I felt the Sales Force building was too prominent in the skyline.
Ina Coolbrith Park in Russian Hill was one of the locations on my list.
I really liked seeing the Bay Bridge and Transamerica Pyramid building and envisioned the sun rising from the east over the bridge and illuminating the city with morning light.
The following morning I arrived at Ina Coolbrith Park 5:30AM to set-up my video camera and waited for the 5:51AM sunrise.
Unfortunately Karl the fog had other plans, the light did not break through until later in the morning and even then the city wasn’t visible.
I went back a few more times, but every morning was the same – summer in the city meant foggy mornings.
The following day I went up to the Marin Headlands to see if shooting from a higher vantage point would make a difference with the fog. Thought maybe I could see the city peaking through the fog, which would’ve been a pretty shot.
Unfortunately it was the same situation, a hazy layer of fog blocked most of the skyline.
I decided to shoot later in the morning and headed back over to Ina Coolbrith Park.
It’s not the sunrise over the Bay Bridge shot I had envisioned, but the morning light was pretty and I got a nice composition of the Transamerica Pyramid building and Bay Bridge framed by greenery.
I went to Grizzly Peak the following morning to see if I could get a wider cityscape from the East Bay.
On a clear day the view of San Francisco is stunning, but unfortunately I had a blanket of fog covering the city on my first trip.
A few days later I went back to Grizzly Peak and the fog was not as dense. With patience I waited for the fog to roll out.
After an hour of waiting, the fog started moving and I got a glimpse of the bridge, so I set-up the C100 Mark 2 and started shooting video. The video capture wasn’t giving me the rolling fog feel I wanted, so I switched to the 5D Mark 2 and shot a timelapse.
We shot at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market because it had an urban feel we were looking for, and honestly it’s one of the finest farmers market in America.
Note – It’s important to get permission from Foodwise to shoot at their farmers market. Security will provide you with media badges so the producers/vendors know you have the proper authorization.
Location information:
All video on location was shot with a Canon C100 Mark 2 Cinema Camera + Canon EF 24-70MM Lens + Rode Video Mic.
Taking my Canon C300 Mark 2 on location would’ve been too cumbersome, and a DSLR doesn’t have ND filters or waveforms like a cinema camera.
Canon 5D Mark 2 + Canon EF 100-400MM Lens was used for the timelapse. Wanted to shoot raw for post processing the images and a larger megapixel camera would’ve been overkill for a timelpase.
Gitzo tripod and Manfrotto monopod with Manfrotto video heads were used to support the cameras.
I have backpacks for my photo gear, but nothing that fits a cinema camera. I’ve been thinking about purchasing a larger photo backpack the could fit a DSLR with a couple of lenses, a drone, clothing, and accessories – for that next travel trip. There are a lot of options to choose from and newer companies backpacks looks great, but I decided on purchasing Think Tank’s MindShift Backpack Elite 45L, mainly because I have a lot of Think Tank products and trust their quality.
The MindShift Backpack Elite 45L is great, it fits the C100 Mark 2 with the 24-70MM lens attached, and a Canon 5D Mark 2 body and 50MM lens detached. Fully loaded with cameras, accessories and other gear, the backpack fits great on the body and is very comfortable when hiking/walking.
Studio information:
Cooking portion of the video was shot with a Canon C300 Mark 2 + Canon EF 100MM Lens, and Canon C100 Mark 2 Cinema Camera + Canon EF 24-70MM Lens .
C300 Mark 2 was the main close-up camera mounted on a tripod. C100 Mark 2 was either on a slider or monopod, and was used to pan back and forth between Emily and the cooking scenes.
Both cameras were connected to a Lilliput BM280-4KS Broadcast Monitor facing Emily so she had visual feedback.
Sound Devices 833 Mixer-Recorder and Sennheiser MKE 600 Shotgun mic was used to capture the cooking sounds.
An Arri 575 HMI and Chimera Video Pro Plus Softbox was used to light the kitchen island where all the prepping and cooking took place. Full CTB (Convert To Blue) gels were used on the overhead kitchen lights to mix in with the Arri HMI light.
Spent a day setting up cameras and lighting prior to the shoot, and it took about half a day to capture the cooking scenes.
Editing information:
Video was edited with DaVinci Resolve 18.5
Both cameras were set to C-Log 2, but because of the different camera codecs, they still have a different look in the footage.
After color grading both cameras, I used CineMatch to blend both footage closer together.
Summary
Growing up and living in San Francisco, you never think about venturing out to find the best views of the city.
A lot of energy was spent scouting and shooting the different content for the opening of the video that played for only 3 seconds, but it was a lot of fun.
It was good to have a contact at Foodwise that guided us through the proper channels to get authorization for shooting at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.
I’ve always loved shopping and supporting the producers/vendors at the farmers market. Wherever you are, you should eat local and support producers in your area.
This is the first cooking video in the new studio kitchen. It was good to figure out lighting and general set-up for future shoots.
The video turned out great, love the process and steps we took getting to the cooking portion of the video. In the end it’s more of a lifestyle video about Emily, which I had envisioned in the beginning.
A Visual Journey 