July 25, 2019

On Location: Mercedes with Nick Meek

Bold primary colours meet strong abstract shapes in this campaign for Mercedes from Antoni. We travelled with photographer Nick Meek to Calvert Studios, an extraordinary and unique open air car studio in Spain.

The crew arrives:

The cars wait for the light under a pitch black sky in the open air studio:

Nick discusses options in the early morning light

Dawn at the studio

First rays of light

Scouting for angles

Christoph on set:

Nick shooting backplates:

The crew in the shade:

White light white heat:

Success! Celebrating a great shoot.

The dream team – Jorge, Nick, Christoph and Paul.

The final images are used in the deluxe print campaign.

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And billboards in place in Germany

See all the finished images on Behance here and try to work out which ones are CGI…

Client: Mercedes-Benz Deutschland
Photographer: Nick Meek
Assistants: Jorge Dieguez, Paul Blundell

Executive Production: Siobhan Squire
Location: Calvert Studios

Agency: Antoni
Executive Creative Director: Veit Moeller
Creative Director: Christian Kies, Christopher Hoene
Art Director: Mathias Wilke, Tim Grötzinger
Copywriter: Matti Lietsch, Luca Haeussler
Head of Product Communication Cars Germany: Christine Wolburg
Product Communication Cars Germany: Nancy Weitling
Art Buyer: Valerie Opitz

CGI Artist: Kristian Turner / Recom Farmhouse
Post Artists: Pepe Alram, Kate Brown, Maria Luisa Calosso, Nuria Segura, Aljaz Bezjak / Recom Farmhouse

March 13, 2019

On Location: Volvo with Tomek Olszowski

This cinematic series gives a new slant to the dramatic play of sunlight in a big city, with strong transitions to long edgy shadows.

Against a backdrop of heritage architecture in Warsaw, the sleek modern neutrals of the car set the scene for its driver – a bold and stylish redheaded individualist.

Recom Farmhouse London collaborated with the photographer to intensify the film noir ambiance. A strong duotone palette led by the rich orange and deep greens of the model infuses with subtler tones into the car and background.

On location in Warsaw, Tomek scouted for locations with interesting light and shadow, no matter how awkward!

Observing the position of the sun, he planned the shoot over time, looking for places where dynamic lines throw the shapes into sharp relief.

For the car, a neutral coloured Volvo was a perfect choice, fitting the overall vision of elegant and modern style with the feeling of heritage in the background.

Amongst the redheaded models cast, Natalia instantly stood out for this shoot, with her striking colouring, purposeful attitude and insouciant style.

Her pierced nose adds a hint of rebelliousness, and Dorota styled her with a gorgeous series of ensembles in green to lay the natural foundations for the palette, to be developed later in post-production.

In discussions with the team in Recom Farmhouse’s London studio, the decision was to evolve these original colours with cooler notes in the darker tones and a strong overall combination of rich warm oranges and deep cool greens.

Post-production also emphasised the strong transitions between shadows and light.

“Being such a noir narrative, we thought that being kinda duotone could be quite fitting. Also, when properly worked on, I think the carpaint could really “sing” with some cyan/green”. – Pepê / Recom Farmhouse London

Enjoy the strong shapes and subtle tone combinations of this series here:

See the whole series on Behance here

Photography: Tomek Olszowski
Production: Piotr Stefański
Model: Natalia Michalewska
Stylist: Dorota Magdziarz
Make up & Hair: Magda Gontarczuk
Assist: Dominik Nowak, Adam Gocel, Tomasz Kret
Post Artist: Pepê Alram

November 2, 2018

On Location: Nissan Juke

We travelled to Spain with Nick Meek to shoot the new Nissan Juke in a series of elegant architectural settings. For post-production, this involved a wide spectrum of skills – from shooting duplicate cars in order to avoid complex reflections, bringing sunshine to a rainy day, and finally a dramatic day-to-night conversion.

For this shot, the reflections of the structure were too much to be removed in post, so Nick photographed duplicate cars inside and outside the building. The two can be seen here:

Christoph captures additional backplate elements.

Quick retouch on set to confirm that everything is in place

The next day, the heavens opened…

But the rigshot must be completed!

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Sunny weather again for the harbour shot

…and out to sea to shoot the skyline. The cityscape that you see in the shot was puzzled together from many separate shots to get the perfect backplate, evocative of an attractive city without detracting the viewer from the car as the hero of the shot.

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Nights are drawing in! After the shoot was completed, Nissan wanted a night-time version of one of the shots. This was a very interesting challenge – moving a very high key image to be ultra low key

The car is a new, special edition model, so the alterations were complex – far beyond just changing the colour. We re-rendered the paint and the interior of the car – only tyres and lights remain from the original model. Using the HDR spheres that we’d produced at the time, we re-rendered the building and environment. The floor was taken from the original (pre-retouching) imagery, so retained its texture and was accurate at night. We replaced the city at skyline at the back with sourced material to make a new nightscape.

The new shot retains the elegant simplicity of composition that is a key part of the original, whilst adding the distinct ambience of a moonlit night.

See the process here:

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And the whole campaign on Behance here.

Client: Nissan Europe

Agency: TBWA/Paris

Art Director: Elisabeth Ribeiro

Assistant Art Director: Maude Muller

Art Buyer: Marie Moulin

Photographer: Nick Meek

Production: New Moon Productions

CGI Artist: Kristian Turner (daytime shot), Carlos Pecino (night time shot)

Post Artists: Pepê Alram, Ulf Cantignon, Christoph Bolten

April 20, 2018

On Location: Bentley with Graham Thorp

We spent a week shooting in locations around Italy for Bentley, with photographer Graham Thorp and agency Keko London, updating classic Italian landscape photography to fit with the modern luxury of the new Bentley Continental GTI.

As we started work to create the perfect image above, it was clear that there would be some challenges along the road…photographer Graham Thorp waits for the briefest moment of sunshine:

Let’s shoot in the mountains, they said. The light and views are amazing, they said…
Creative Director Iain Ross searches for a break in the clouds:

Recom Farmhouse on location with Bentley

…but after extensive scouting (and a wait for the weather!) we’re up early and waiting for the light:

Awkward positions make for the perfect angle on those twisting mountain roads…

As workspaces go, you can’t complain:

That perfect low light for shooting needs some work for the post-production environment…

Talk to the monitor!

Beautiful sunset light on a perfectly curving stretch of road…

Setting up in the early morning – classic Tuscany landscapes:

Burning the midnight oil by the pool:

Some of the final results in print, in Harper’s Bazaar:

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See the campaign on our site here

Credits:

Client: Bentley
Agency: Keko London
Photographer: Graham Thorp
Creative Director: Iain Ross
Production: Martin Bennett, Mustard Berlin
Producer: Maja McIntosh
Post-Production: Recom Farmhouse

March 27, 2018

On Location – Ford Ranger CGI with John Roe

Sling your surfboard into the pickup and join us on location for our ten day shoot travelling across Oregon’s beaches, forests, deserts and mountains. We worked with John Roe and GTB on the launch campaign of the Ford Ranger, marking its return to the US market after seven years.

This was a fun shoot with a great bunch of people. We couldn’t resist setting up the Lizard for a 360 degree group shot. Introducing the Dream Team!

From left to right:
Jason Pachura – Location Manager
Brian Hug – Motorhome
Josh Nagy – Digital Technician
Richard Levene – CGI Supervisor
Phil Treece – DST (Car specialist)
John Kwiecien – Producer
John Roe – Photographer
Dianna Berggren – Production Coordinator
Nathan Garcia – Camera Assistant
Pete Thomas – Camera Assistant
Todd Ruthven – Creative Director
David Nonthaweth – Digital Art Director

We had a Ford Ranger brought in from Australia with the same dimensions and wheel base as the new Ford Ranger, which we would later create in CGI for the final images.

Ford Ranger onset with Recom Farmhouse - lake

This helped greatly for lining up shots, and for the talent to interact with – especially for loading and unloading surfboards, bikes and so on.

Ford Ranger onset with Recom Farmhouse - canoes

Ford Ranger onset with Recom Farmhouse - bikes

We had every kind of weather imaginable – sun, snow, rain and wind but thanks to the Lizard’s super fast capture, we were able to work quickly, even in the shortest windows of sunshine.

See how this shot was created in our “Making of” video here:

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We arrive at sunrise to scout the beach location.

Ford Ranger on location with Recom Farmhouse

Setting up on the beach, in a gorgeous reflected skyline.

The photographer would first shoot the image with the stand-in truck. Then we would move the truck out of view and shoot clean backplates. In this way we could easily add the new CGI truck, and composite the talent back into the final image.

Using the stand-in truck for the initial shots:

Using the Lizard to capture the empty beach without the truck:

On set in a contrasting location – a very cold morning as we shoot the truck in the snow.

Ford Ranger onset with Recom Farmhouse - snow

With the truck driven away, Richard sets up the Lizard to capture a spectacular mountain backdrop.

The final images from the beach location:

Client: Ford Agency: GTB Photographer: John Roe Creative Director: Todd Ruthven Art Director: David Nonthaweth Art Production: Kim Harris, Gerri Kozikowski Production: Roe Photo CGI Artist: Recom Farmhouse Team Post Artists: Recom Farmhouse Team

And the completed image from the mountain location:

While we were on the shoot, we talked about how it would be fun to put Bigfoot into one of the images, and we put him into a shot as a surprise for the client in the presentation. They loved it! So a couple of “Easter Eggs” made it into the final images and can be seen on the Ford site ..see if you can spot Bigfoot and Nessie! North American Product Communications Manager at Ford, Mike Levine, referenced them for people to find on his Twitter account here:

Were you able to find the Loch Ness Monster easter egg hidden in the all-new Ranger photos on https://t.co/pwqZrBcd9Z? Bigfoot is out there too. https://t.co/biLEP4rw7k pic.twitter.com/0UcXvSLUUm

— Mike Levine (@mrlevine) January 18, 2018

See the whole series of fifteen images on our site here.

Client: Ford
Agency: GTB
Creative Director: Todd Ruthven
Digital Art Director: David Nonthaweth
Art Producer: Gerry Kozikowski, Kim Harris
Photographer: John Roe
CGI & Retouching: Recom Farmhouse NY & London Team
Production: Roe Photo

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ON LOCATION

On Location: Mercedes with Nick Meek

On Location: Volvo with Tomek Olszowski

On Location: Nissan Juke

On Location: Bentley with Graham Thorp

On Location – Ford Ranger CGI with John Roe