Al Khaleej Sugar Making Of Video.
3 gruelling days.
Canon 7D. Prime lens.
52 degree heat.
Sugar in the air.
Good Fun.
SHOOTING IN 52 DEGREE HEAT IN THE WORLDS LARGEST SUGAR REFINERY!
This blog comes a bit late but we’re proud to say we finished our latest film for the world’s largest standalone sugar refinery - Al Khaleej Sugar.
Shot over 3 days on the Canon 7D using a prime lens kit of 10-20mm, 30mm f1.4, 50mm 1.4 and 85mm 1.4 this was one of the most gruelling shoots we’ve done. Our recces started in Ramadan of 2011, under scorching August heat, really testing both our strength and our faith :)
The first thing we noticed on our recce was how sticky everything was - from the air to the floor. Not cool when you’ve got delicate camera and lens gear! Add to that Dubai’s heat and we had to be extra careful with the gear.
The Al Khaleej Refinery is a massive place and managing a large crew was a challenge in itself because JAFZA, the authority managing the location, wouldn’t allow 2 way radio. The plant consists of a maze of pipes that refine the sugar and a massive storage facility that holds thousands of tonnes of raw sugar.
Our most difficult experience was at the raw sugar storage, where initially we were glad to be away from the sun. But later realized that the lack of any ventilation made this place even worse. 5 minutes into the shoot, and our eyes were burning from sweat consistently trickling down our faces. But we continued, and with our panther crane managed to get the most amazing shots of industrial earth movers managing huge amounts of raw sugar.
A big thanks to everyone on the team:
Poorna our most supporting and fun client
Oliver and Bernd, our camera crew
The crane crew at Action Films that can take anything we throw at them and smile
My boy at The Gold Mine, Alawi who managed the shoot
Zubaik, our editor, who took in all this footage and gave it the most beautiful grade
Amber, our producer, who kept us all and the budget in check :)
The film was played by the client recently to rave reviews at their internal events. Makes all the heat strokes worth it…
I love stop motion! The team at The Gold Mine are already dreaming up our own little stop motion entry…
We recently completed 11 TVC’s for Abu Dhabi Sports Council. 3 were 60 sec spots and 8 were 15 second spots. The entire theme for the TVC campaign was to use the UAE national football team as well as the UAE Boating F1 champions to promote messages for good citizenship to the people of the UAE. Exactly the kind of stuff we like because we’re on a mission to the “make the world a better place. One film at a time” right?
But here’s the kicker. We had to do it in 6 weeks from storyboard to broadcast. And we had to deliver all the TVC’s in HD as well as SD.
Our resident producers Amber and Alawi worked tirelessly to put together a winning cast, props and wardrobe and manage locations as well as schedules for our football stars. Having a supportive client definitely helped. A big thanks to Mohammad Al Zaabi from all of us. Others who supported the effort were the TDIC Abu Dhabi, twofour54 and Lively Nutrition.
Zubair our resident editor cut the film on FCP and color corrected using a mixture of Color, After Effects and Magic Bullet.
Shot at 24p using the Canon EOS 7D using fast primes, kessler cineslider, some dedos, kinos, divas and a 2k HMI.
You can watch the commercials here:
http://vimeo.com/channels/goldmine
A big happy b’day to our resident producer, Alawi!
Thanks to him, we all got cake!
[Flash 10 is required to watch video]
Unavoidable when you shoot with the captain of the UAE Football Team. Coming soon to a TV near you..
Long Live The UAE!
Another gem from Ghana.. Despite what most people think we found Ghana to be one of the most advanced African nations! Big thanks to our fixer Sulaiman!
Wanderings from our shoot in Ghana for Noor Dubai.
These guys are out of their minds! What a fantastic film!
15 Online Tools Every Entrepreneur Should Know Of!
Some simple, easy and effective tools we use at The Gold Mine Films!
Milky Way in timelapse. What a spectacular way to see our world. Hats off to TSO Photography :)
