Lighting a Tablet Demo Video

[Bill Davis]

Tim,

Sorry I wasn’t able to respond quicker, but I’ve had family in town.

In any case, when I got a chance to look at the Apple ad you referenced, I can tell you with some confidence that you’ve not looking at an actual camera shot in any of the frames I saw in that ad.

Those are composites. The hand model was acting in virtual space. That allowed the light hitting the fingers to come from wherever it needed to to illuminate the fingers properly. The clue is that when the solid surface of the ipad slides under the hand, there’s absolutely NO shadow cast up on the hand even tho the angle of incidence on the fingers clearly shows light hitting the underside of the same hand. That simply defies the laws of physics. The very experienced people creating thsi including the creative director, art director, cinematographer, etc all understood that “reality” wasn’t nearly as important as conveying “tactile siimpicty” in the presentation. So they eliminated everything from the frame except the experience of “the touch” – leaving that as the ONLY impression out of a negative space.

The pad surface might have been shot, or might have simply been rrendered in CG, but it’s trivial to composite the two, then to geometrically “deform” the fingertip and reflect it into the virtual pad surface to “sell” the idea of the touch.

At this level, everything is on the table as to resources, talent, and the quest for perfection in making every pixel look as near “perfect” as is humanly possible.

So it’s the key to results like this is never about the camera, the type of lights used, nor the technical stuff. At this level you use whatever you need, whoever you need, and pay whatever it takes to create the spot you need. And if anything doesn’t work exactly as you wanted it to – you toss out what didn’t work and do it differently until it DOES work.

Effective marketing to support such a product is budgeted in millions of dollars, because it supports a product generating billions of dollars. So no corner is cut, no production element is left unexamined and no “would it be better if we…” possibility is left unexplored.

It looks simple in the viewing. But it is anything but simple in the execution.

I understand it’s tempting to simply think, “If I got the same lights and a good camera, I could do that.” but that’s not how it works. That would perhaps be a little like trying to build a scene in the physical world that you see in a modern video game. It’s impossible because a world that can be designed, composited and rendered in computer space can be totally different that one that has to exist in the real world.

Such is advertising.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Scott Sheriff]

[Tim Ryan] “A friend also said he was pretty certain the graphics are added in post. I couldn’t figure out how they got such perfect color correction on both the fingers and the iPad.”

Not that hard if the raw footage has a decent exposure and the highlights are not completely blown out. You can CC selected areas with mattes/masks and CC selected colors and areas of illumination on an individual basis. Combining these techniques gives huge control over the post color process in the hands of someone that is good at Color, Resolve, etc.
Or they could have composited the shots. Or done all of the above.

[Tim Ryan] “On the other hand, some of the Apple shots look like the don’t add anything in during post as there’s a reflection on the tip of the subject’s fingers.”
Could have been added in post.

Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com

“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair

Where were you on 6/21?

[Michael Brown]

The iPad and the screen contents are entirely composited. The iPad is mostly a green screen prop with a green screen background. The iPad was 3d modeled (or done using animations in After Effects) and the hands were aligned to the actions on the screen.

This is how they achieve animating the iPad’s freeform movement and perfect lighting since they only record the hands over green screen.