case study: nerdio

Nerdio is a valuable and repeating client of director AJ Campli. Though they have been consistently satisfied with his services so far, they had yet to see what he and Boulder Media House were capable of when tasked with a more traditional commercial project.

With limited budget and a quick timeline, director AJ Campli was tasked with writing and directing a comedic commercial showcasing how Nerdio is an invaluable asset to their clients.

This commercial spot was premiered at the 2024 NerdioCon, a 600+ attendee week long convention for partners and clients of Nerdio in February of 2024. It was received with overwhelming positive feedback.

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client: nerdio agency: small hill films
dir/writer: AJ Campli   dp: Bailey T. Miclette
1st ac: Dustin Wheeler   2nd ac: Riley Clinton
gaffer: Tyler Trepod   key grip: Teej Morgan
pa: Deanna Schaekel   color: Jonny Sirotek
VFX: Casey Webster

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pre-production

Tyler was approached by director AJ Campli with a unique set of constraints for this commercial:

one-location
6 completely different looks
10-hour day maximum
Keep G&E budget to a minimum by re-purposing the same set of lights for each look

A location scout was arranged, where various setups and looks were tested and decided upon.

To help keep the team under budget, Tyler assembled the following lighting kit:

Aputure 600d – 600W daylight point source
Kelvin EPOS 300 – 300W RGB-capable point source
(2) Aputure Infinibar PB12 – 4′ RGB-capable linear LED’s
Intellytech Mega-Litecloth – 5×3′ bi-color panel
Aputure 60x – 60W bi-color point source

This lighting kit was chosen for the following reasons:

The entire G&E kit, including lights, stands, rags, and steel, could be brought to set on one cart. This would save nearly 30 minutes of load-in and load-out time. Also, the total amount of power draw for any one scene needed to fit on one 15A circuit because of power access limitations.

An Aputure 600d with F10 fresnel was chosen as the key over the Aputure 1200d Pro because of two major considerations:

First, there wouldn’t be windows in the background of any of the scenes; meaning the exposure of the talent in the office environment wouldn’t be tied to retaining highlight details in a sunny blue sky.

Second, using an Aputure 1200d would’ve required additional power load management during a fast-paced set day.

The Kelvin EPOS 300 was brought as the other point source because of it’s low rental cost, CCT tuning & accuracy, and RGB capabilities.

The Infinibar kit was brought because linear LEDs have multiple uses, serving mostly as hair lights and practicals in this commercial.

The large size, low height, and included grid of the Intellytech panel greatly reduced setup time during the last scene of the day.

Lastly, the Aputure 60X is an inexpensive small point-source that can be modified in multiple ways.

After Tyler gave his input to production on planning a shooting schedule that minimized downtime for G&E, it was time to get on set and bring the vision to life!

scene one

The first shot of both the commercial and the shooting day was a wide of the entire office space. The biggest issue to solve with shooting on such a wide lens was that it didn’t give Tyler any place to hide lights except frame left.

So he applied the adage, “sometimes the best way to make it look like a grocery store, is to leave it lit like a grocery store”, and used the installed overhead lighting and available practicals to fill out the frame. Not having to do a bulb replacement on every light in frame drastically reduced setup time and rental cost.

To draw viewer interest to the foreground talent, and give some left to right shape to them, an 8×8 magic cloth was placed just out of frame on camera left with an Aputure 600d Pro pushing through that.

A double net was folded in half and clipped to the bottom half of the 8×8 magic cloth. This was done to reduce the intensity of the back of the couch in the foreground.

Without the double net, the back of the couch would have looked “sourcey”, and given away where the key light was located to the audience.

The Aputure 600d Pro was pushed through a full CTO gel. This helped match the color temperature of the key light to the available office lighting.

In the back of the room, a Kelvin EPOS 300 was pushed through an 8×8 half-grid to help increase the exposure of the background talent.

Half-grid was chosen because it’s approximately one stop brighter than magic cloth. With the output of the Kelvin EPOS 300 being approximately half that of the Aputure 600d, a one-stop difference in diffusion brings their total output to be approximately equal.

And because the Kelvin EPOS 300 is lighting the talent in the back of the room, a slight reduction in softness between half-grid and Magic Cloth won’t be noticeable to the viewer.

The intensities of each light were adjusted until they felt proper for the space, and the crew began filming.

This setup also happened to be the same look as the last shot, so that was filmed too since the team was already lit for it.

scene two

Next up is the hero shot of the IT guy.

This was filmed in a cramped 12’x10′ room that required special considerations to get a soft, ambient-feeling light quality.

To maximize the softness of the key light in a tight space, Tyler made it a book light.

To create a book light in a condensed work area, the Aputure 600d Pro was bounced off the white office wall and back through an 8×8 magic cloth. The bounced light was metered with a Sekonic C800 to verify minimal CCT shift occurred from the white paint.

A double-net was folded in half and taped against the wall in front of the 8×8. This reduced the intensity of the wall, which hides the source of the light to the camera.

To help control the ratio between the keyed and shadow sides of the talent, another booklight was added on the fill side. A Kelvin EPOS 300 was bounced off the wall and back through a checkerboard muslin. This gave the DP, Bailey Miclette, the soft, directionless fill he wanted.

As an aside, Tyler’s a big fan of this checkerboard muslin from the Grip House. It has a warming effect on a daylight balanced light that most DP’s he works with prefer on lighter skin tones, going from 5600 kelvin to about 5000 kelvin.

The checkerboard pattern also more accurately simulates light bouncing in from the exterior environment than bleached or unbleached muslin does.

This is because light doesn’t just shine straight into an office building from the sun. It also bounces off buildings, the concrete, trees, coming in from the clouds, etc.

A checkerboard muslin helps re-create this effect by piecing together several types of muslin into one cloth – day blue, grey, bleached, and unbleached.

To separate the talent from the background, an Aputure Infinibar PB12 was boomed in behind them.

The PB12 was chosen because of it’s light weight, long length, minimal footprint, and ease of rigging.

A piece of tape along the back of it keeps the output from spilling onto the wall, and the wooden pillar here helped hide the stand from camera.

In order to create motivation for the Infinibar rim light, two tungsten practicals were placed in frame.

These were controlled by 300W dimmers to achieve the preferred intensity level.

quick cuts

The next three shots were all about careful positioning of the key light on the talent to avoid being seen in the camera whip.

The setup time for these three scenes also needed to be kept as short as possible, which is reflected in the complexity of the lighting.

quick cut #1

This first shot was filmed directly after the main office setup. As a result, the Aputure 600d Pro, 8×8 magic cloth, and double net could be re-positioned in the same space, keeping transition time to mere minutes.

The 600d Pro and Magic Cloth were placed as a far side key and at a standard 3/4 angle to give shape to the face. Positioning the light camera left also gave the DP room to whip pan camera right.

Since the frame required the camera to be looking up at the talent, there wouldn’t be any room to hide lighting behind him in frame.

So, Tyler and the DP decided to use the available lighting to fill out the rest of the frame.

The 600d output was balanced to the overhead fixtures, using the office lighting as practicals to create separation for the talent.

The green tape visible on the monitor is for the VFX work that needed to be done in post. The tape gives the graphic artist a triangulated plane so they can add in the necessary monitor replacement.

quick cut #2

The DP wanted the eye line of this shot to be opposite the previous quick cut so the commercial would edit better.

Therefore, the 600d and 6×6 checkerboard muslin were positioned camera right this time.

The 6×6 checkerboard muslin was chosen over the 8×8 Magic Cloth because of the size of the room the team filmed in.

Placing the key on camera right caused it to be in frame during the necessary matching camera whip though.

To resolve this issue, the camera was positioned outside the room, behind a little window that gave sight line to talent.

An Aputure 60x on battery power was placed to increase the intensity of this foreground element. Battery power was chosen to reduce the amount of cords near video village.

Back inside the room, an Aputure Infinibar PB12 was positioned behind the talent to give her separation from the background.

Lastly, the Kelvin EPOS 300 was bounced into a 2×4 beadboard to create a soft fill on shadow side.

The 4′ width of the beadboard setup gave a pleasing look, while being only 2′ high means it was short enough to keep from being visible at the top of frame.

This was also the entry to the room, so a beadboard was the safest bounce to choose for a high-traffic area over something with metal sides like a 4×4 ultrabounce floppy.

quick cut #3

For the last of the quick-cut scenes, the Aputure 600d Pro with CTO gel was pushed through the 8×8 magic cloth as key.

An Aputure Infinibar PB12 served as a hair light, adding separation to the talent.

A 2×4 bead board controls the amount of shadow side fill by returning some of the output from the key.

The beadboard bounce was chosen over using the Kelvin EPOS 300 & 6×6 checkerboard muslin as fill because of how quickly the beadboard could be ready and how pleasing the fill effect still was.

scene three

The last shot of the day required the most planning to capture it exactly how the DP envisioned it.

There were two major considerations to light this properly:

First, to create a ‘black void’ room, it was necessary to film in a room with enough space to avoid spill from the lighting hitting the walls.

While this shot could’ve been done in a smaller room, it would’ve been significantly harder to set up and control all the lighting.

Second, to get the overall exposure dark enough, all of the available light sources would need to be turned off and the windows had to be blacked out. As you can see in the below shot, the chosen room was large enough but flooded with light during the day.

Several floppies outside the large glass doorway into the room, and two long sheets of duvetyne clipped under the skylights helped bring it all under control.

As key and general frame fill, an Intellytech Mega Litecloth was boomed in over the talent. This was also positioned slightly in front of him to reduce the shadowed “raccoon eye” look that can appear when a light is placed too directly overhead.

The key was controlled with a grid which minimized spill onto the back wall, keeping the background of the frame close to 0 IRE.

An Aputure Infinibar PB12 was placed behind the talent on either side of him to provide the blue rim lighting.

A black piece of gaffers tape was placed along the back side of each tube to act as a flag and block the light from casting onto the back wall.

Gaff tape was chosen over a grid because the ~1.5-stop loss in output from using a grid would have been too much, and the lights couldn’t have been walked into frame any closer to increase output.

The Kelvin EPOS 300 was placed behind the talent on the floor using a pigeon plate. This helped add to the dramatic background separation. The spill from this light onto the talent’s legs and into camera was controlled with a flag.

Lastly, an MC pro taped to a monitor gave Tyler control over the light that appeared to be coming from the computer monitor.

conclusion

Despite time and financial limitations, Tyler was able to create a lighting package that could be used to light 6 different scenes – enabling director AJ Campli and the Boulder Media House team to surpass all expectations from their client, Nerdio.

If you’ve got a project, please use the contact button below!

Tyler’s collaborative mindset and experience as an on-location commercial specialist combine to make him an invaluable addition on any film set in the front range area!

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Tyler Trepod is a freelance owner/operator gaffer of a 1-Ton Grip & Electric truck based in Denver, Colorado and serves the Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, & Fort Collins markets