VRBO: “SUBWAY”

PROJECT
MY ROLES

Director
Writer
Creative Director

LIFE IN SLOW MOTION

I’m fairly certain this is the only commercial filmed in the actual LA subway (yes, there’s a subway in LA). This makes perfect sense considering the numerous difficulties involved in filming at 500 frames per second in such a vast tunnel. We had a limited timeframe of just three hours to complete the shoot before our subway car needed to return to work, making every minute count.

We created a comic-style storyboard to sell the idea of a peaceful vacation home, away from the stress of daily commuting. This approach was aimed to engage people and spark their interest in the project.

IS THAT A…COMIC BOOK?

ILLUSTRATOR: Ben Tripp

BEHIND THE SCENES

Shooting in this location was difficult enough, as power needed to be routed from the surface level. But one of the biggest hurdles we had was lighting. It may seem unintuitive, but the interesting thing about slow motion capture is that the “film” is actually running many times faster than the normal 24 frames per second. Because of the incredibly fast shooting speed we needed consistent, timed lighting to avoid flickering in the slow-mo footage. Since the actual subway lights were about 100 feet above us, we essentially needed to block out the existing lighting with our own. To accomplish this, our DP Michael Hurley devised a system of utilizing inflatable light balloons that would block out the existing light sources with our own.

To accomplish the slow motion action of people running full speed down a subway escalator, we used a Bolt camera arm. This amazing piece of technology can be programmed to perform precise camera moves that matched the filming speed of the Phantom camera necessary to capture the action at such high speeds.

COLLABORATORS

Director: David Bessenhoffer
Producer: Stuart Mydlow
Director of Photography: Michael Hurley
Editor: Jason DeLaRosa

CONTACT