Adam Hinton: San Miguel Shoot

12th Dec 2011

By Adam Hinton

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Back in July I got a call to pop into Saatchi’s & Saatchi’s to have a chat about a campaign they were working on for San Miguel. It was to join a TV shoot in Barcelona and Cadiz that was being directed by Daniel Wolfe, of Plan B music video fame.  The agency creative Dave and Ollie were looking for a photographer who could work along side a director and capture some of the essence of the shoot without getting in the way. The brief they gave me was very lose, I need to capture the feeling and aesthetic of the brand. They wanted me to explore both the scenes of the film and anything around that could speak of the brands essence.  As it was a last minute idea to cover still’s on the shoot there were no any visuals to work towards as none had be done, I just had to explore the theme. I didn’t even need to show the products in the shots so it was a very liberating brief and they had enough trust and faith in me to just get on with it. They would then construct ad’s from what I shot.

Many photographers consider trying to get campaign shots from a TV shoot a nightmare. Whilst the TV can construct a message through the narrative of the commercial a photographer has to capture this in a single image. Some would say trying to get press and poster ad’s out of them is like making a silk purse out of a pig’s ear. I actually find them quite liberating. No location finding, no casting, prop’s and styling sorted, light already set up for you.  I just have to turn up, check out the locations and figure out the best I can get in what everyone’s agrees is a difficult situation.  Of course there’s quite a bit more to it than that. You need to be very diplomatic as everyone is under a lot of pressure, find the key people and work with them, sus out what are going to be the key moments you need to cover and above all don’t piss the director off! 

Luckily on this shoot I was working with Daniel Wolfe who is a great director who also likes to work quite loose and it always keeping an eye out for the unexpected. Robbie the DOP was also a very creative and chilled out Irishman and they had a great crew which reflected this. Also as a documentary photographer my approach to shoots is different from many advertising photographers, we work with the elements as we find them and so have to always keep an open mind to the shoot.

This is one of the most important things one needs on a TV shoot. The situation is not under your control and schedules change all the time. When your told “you’ll get 5 minutes at the end” of a scene, a lot of the time that won’t happen so you have to quickly rethink how your going to fulfil the brief. The plus side is you can suddenly see something perfect happening and you’re given a quick opening to capture some frames and the images evolve as your shooting. That makes is exciting and rewarding.

I like to work with two assistants on my shoots and it’s especially important on TV sets. You can send hours hanging around, unable to leave the set in case you get the call ‘Right you’ve got 5 minutes now’ as you have to jump to it. In those 5 minutes you need one assistant with you and another if they have to run off and get something. You then work fast and suddenly the cameras reloaded or they’ve re positioned it and your times up, back to sitting around again. That’s why it’s very important to have good assistant’s with you and we all know are roles.

As with many TV shoot’s some days are good, others not so good. One day we were shooting by the coast near Figures. It was a very early start and long hot day. It was good for TV but not for stills as once again the problem of trying to capture something in one image when TV is narrative driven. The next day in Barcelona was at this amazing old clubhouse, Daniel and Robbie were rattling through the set up’s fast and we had great set’s and great model’s. I was being given as much space and time as the schedule would allow and got images that the Art Directors loved. That was a good day.

We returned to the UK with a set of images that both the client and agency loved and I was very happy with myself. As no media space had been bought the campaign has gone onto the internet but has yet to see any executions in the non-virtual world.

www.adamhinton.com

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