We've always wanted to do a high-end car shoot; to create something iconic, elegant and stylized, but put our own little twist on it. However, as we couldn't afford to rent a car rig (to capture that sense of movement and energy), we decided to improvise...
The tunnel and car were photographed separately, and composited together in Photoshop. We also couldn't rent any studio lighting for this shoot, so we mounted four little LED strip lights together and light painted the car from diifferent angles at 10s exposures to bring out the details we needed later in the composite - constantly being mindful of matching light direction. To recreate the natural reflections of the tunnel lights on the car body, we set our exposure time to 5s and walked our LED light rig along the lines of the car.
About 7 hours of shooting, and 10 hours of compositing later, the images were done. But no high-end car ad is complete without a good tagline, so we decided to incorporate some tongue-in-cheek copy for good measure. Sorry BMW drivers!
For those of you interested in the post-production process, check out the speed composite video here: https://vimeo.com/143988453
(Disclaimer: this is a SPEC AD done for creative & portfolio purposes and has no affiliation with BMW or any related brand or advertising firm. Dear BMW, if you're reading this, please do not sue us into submission.)
