The the launch video of the flowtech 75, we needed something which demonstrates the robustness, versatility and speed of the tripod. I decided to go to Iceland, not only because of its stunning landscapes and harsh weather conditions. One main reason was the color contrast. As flowtech is still a black product, it’s best to show it in front of something white and so Iceland was just perfect. The video was shot with a 3-man crew where I was mainly directing and acting in the shots (limit budgets), Simon Spätke was shooting the Commercial, and Garðar Ólafsson was helping us with the right locations and permissions. The video was shot on four days across Iceland. It was a hard but wonderful experience as it’s one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever been.
Tight Budget, Tight Timeline
The whole content creation for the flowtech75 project was tight. I received the first tripods on Monday the 20th February and the imagery + Video needed to be finished two weeks later. I got an overall budget of £10.000 for everything so money was tight as well. To save cost I decided to create the product shooting at a rental house, so I had access to to a bunch of cameras, lenses and accessories. I also rented some equipment for the Iceland shoot directly from the rental. From there I flew directly from Munich to Reykjavík. Because of a snow storm the whole shoot got delayed by one day as all the roads where closed. We got picked up on Sunday the 26.Feb on drove all the way to Höfn and had the following Schedule:
Choose the right tools
The commercial got shot with a Sony FS7 in Slog-3. Because of it’s size, a hand gimbal was no option, and the calibration of a normal gimbal takes quite a lot of time, that’s why I decided to take the Alexa Maxima with me in combination with an Easyrig. With that combo we where ready in less than 4min. For other shots we used a Kessler Cine Slider which was attached to a Sachtler Monopod. Again, I wanted to save time and everyone who changed the hight on a Slider wie a dual tripod support, knows the struggle. With the Hotpod we could easily change the height as we wanted. All supported with Anton/Bauer batteries, and if we needed light we used a Litepanels Brick.
Behind the Scenes
The complexity was, that we had to shoot every shot twice, because we had two brands with us, a Sachtler and Vinten flowtech 75. We later then decided in the post which brand should be shown where. But that meant that we needed to rebuild the camera from one tripod to the other after every shot or sequence and in locations like the ice cave, where we only had 10min, this was quite tricky. But at then end its all about the team you are with, and we three worked really good together and spend nice evenings.
Conclusion
This shoot was one of the most beautiful and also exhausting ones. We had to create a lot of shots and the expectations where high. We spend a lot of time driving and reassembling cause of the dual brand strategy, but I would never hesitate to shoot again in Iceland. I would book everything more in advance, so we don‘t end up in the last little rooms and I would also schedule an extra day for any surprising snowstorms.