Inside out / outside in

I had the opportunity to work with the insanely talented Michael Tompert of Raygun on this ad for EA's new game. It was a very cool experience to collaborate with another artist that looks at things so differently. As someone that creates 3D objects from scratch, he views things from the inside out, where as a photographer, I look at things the opposite way. This was totally fascinating to me, and has changed how I now look at objects.

For the record, Michael was hired by Heat (via Kate Chase) to create the image, and I was there to shoot photographic elements, and to create the feel and mood that would translate to the main image. We rented the Alameda airstrip and wet it down with a water truck, then arranged the cars into a rough approximation of the layout. We waited for the light to be just right, then started shooting like crazy in order to capture as many elements as we could. Which looked kind of like this:

Michael also did shots of everything from the car's POV so he could get the reflections right. We also did shots of the car blasting through the scene on wet pavement to get details of how the water comes out off the wheels, which was really fun to shoot, and looks kind of like this:

Then we shot a million more frames of everything, and Michael went back to his studio with a bunch of jpegs (yes, jpegs) and started work on the final image. When he sent it to me I was totally blown away. It had been through a million rounds of art direction and retouching and had taken on a life of its own. I think it looks pretty killer, but have a hard time seeing my hand in this project.

Michael insists that I did create the mood that was the starting point for the image. I guess I'll take his word for it. I had a blast on this shoot, and am hoping to do more of this kind of work.