I recently had the pleasure of shooting the band Subtheme again for some publicity shots. (this is the band formally known as The Drop).
Having shot the band before, and knowing the time constraints of getting all the members together and the much harder task of directing a group to all pull a rock star face and keep their eyes open all at the same time, I decided to shoot the band members individually an create a composite group shot later on. This also gave us a lot of options for locations for the shot.
I lit the greenscreen shots with a softbox directly above camera and quite close to the band. This gave us some strong directional light, but still soft. This main light was then augmented with a pair of bare flashguns behind to give us some srong rim lights and also separation from the greenscreen. I also threw a couple of other flashes onto the background to get a more even tone to the greenscreen (anything that makes your life easier in post is worth spending the time on when setting up the shoot).
The whole shoot took about 30 minutes. Couple of different outfits for each member, close shots an wides. About 130 usable images in total. Lots of options.
After the studio shoot, I went with the band to a practice at Resolution Studio (a post on that is coming soon). Resolution is a nice space, but gets quite cramped with a whole band an all the gear a whole band needs. I also wanted this shoot to have a very different feel to the previous practice shoot I’d done with the band. To make my life easier – I set up 2 remote flashes, one at each end of the room, bounced off the far walls. Then from the camera, using an SU800, I could dial in the power settings for each. Ti way I could decide as I framed the shot which would be my key and which would be my fill. I wanted these shots to be bright so in general I threw most of the power to the backlight on the far wall, while the flash behind me provided enough light to lift the details in the shadow areas.
All in all, I’m very happy with both of the shoots we did that night. We’ve still got options for new shots to be composed from the studio session (especially if there are any future line-up changes) and the practice shots have come out almost exactly as I envisioned them.
