KROGER "Game Day"

I LOVE shooting food!!!!
Seriously.....I do
This spot allowed me to shoot both fun food/action shots with live-action.
They wanted a DP who can shoot BOTH life-style AND food...I do both...so it was a nice shoot, single location over 1.5 days.
We could have used 2 days, since they would swap out the beer for soda, the wings for BBQ...many variations on a theme...you know what I mean :-)
To organize the shoot schedule, we spent a half day before doing a heavy tech scout with the director, myself, the keys [gaffer & key grip] as well as the production designer and the food stylist.
I have a director's finder which I can mount the actual lenses on and snap stills to show exact framing and depth of field...we used this with stand in food [soccer balls, wadded up newspapers, empty water bottles...anything in the correct physical size of the future food]...we had the agency's art director with us on this scout and could discuss placement of the food, the backgrounds, what type of camera support we would need, lighting ideas, etc...
We made detailed notes and floor plans and then hit the ground running on the shoot day with a wonderful plan for everything! It saved us a boat load of time knowing which food would be ready at which time and which location [in the kitchen or living room] we would need it, as well as what type of food rig to work the food [mini-catapult, mini-onion chute, turntable, Weaver+Steadman head, jib, dolly, slider, etc....]
I LOVE working this way because it gives up a plan to start with, and if things go awry, it allows up a better chance to punt and get back on schedule sine a lot of the leg work is already figured out :-)
The camera [Epic Dragon] was flown over/around the table-tops on a Weaver+Steadman w/3rd axis on a jib arm. I actually prefer the older Weaver+Steadman head to the Lambda as I can more easily work the mounting tubes to set my center of gravity & balance a lot easier...I will shift the CG to help me operate down shots, dutch shots, etc....
Lensed with my "DESILU" Super Baltar primes to capture that "creamy" smooth look that these vintage optics give the modern day digital image.
Jim Walter directed, I was the DP