THE IDEA
A few weeks ago I got this brilliant idea that I wanted to shoot a spec cosmetic commercial. I love photographing beauty work, and I want to move more into motion picture. I’m a firm believer that generally, people don’t hire you to do something they’ve never seen you do. Therefore creating more work that illustrates your capabilities and passions is valuable both to your company and your creative desires.
I pulled together commercials I found compelling or inspiring in the beauty space and used them as a point of reference when structuring my own 30 second spot.
Speculative work or Spec work is voluntary work made by creatives to illustrate an idea or concept to submit to prospective clients in hopes of ultimately getting paid work with a similar scope
THE CREW
I then assembled my team:
Hair: Quick Hair Solutions
Makeup: Kenya Haynie
Wardrobe: Trenez Scott
Talent: Ashley Arre
THE EQUIPMENT
For lighting I used this new light from ParabolixLight called an Omni It pairs perfectly with my parabolic umbrella from them as well. I added a bounce board below her and kept the lighting the same for all the shots with the exception of the opening shot. For the opening shot I bought this $40 party strobe off Amazon.
For my camera, I ran with my Red Komodo and bounced between a sigma 18-35 and Sigma 50-100 lens.
BTS
ADDITIONAL ASSETS
I wanted to incorporate product visuals into the spot as well, so I reached out to a motion design studio to assist with this process. I supplied a rough cut of the spot and references to what I imagined, and they created renderings of the lipstick and then an animation that I could then incorporate into the video. Here are some of the early renderings of the lipstick.
