The Massimo Motor TV Spot
As the director of photography I would prefer to use a large crew and a lot of equipment when filming a commercial. Due to the remote locations for this project we were limited to a crew of 2 and could only take 5 camera bags and 2 tripods. We filmed for 5 days at beautiful locations in Sedona and Flagstaff. Most of the filming was on Schnebley Hill Road, a rough winding dirt road not friendly to most vehicles.
Frank Salle and I did all the filming with 2 Canon 5D MkII cameras and 2 GoPro’s. For some clips we had a boom mic operator to record the sound of the engines. The equipment traveled in the back dump-bed of one of the UTVs covered with a tarp which did little to keep out the fine dust particles.
With no room for a camera crane we mounted a Wi-Fi enabled GoPro on a 20′ boom pole. We monitored and controlled the GoPro image from an iPad as the vehicles flew down trails. The drivers that Massimo Motors provided did an excellent job of controlling the ATVs at high speeds on rough terrain and, luckily, none of the flying rocks did any damage to us or the lenses. We filmed 2 or 3 takes at each location, played back all the clips on a portable monitor for the director, Jodi Deros, then packed up and bounced off to the next location.
This was an incredible experience with a great cast and crew. Watch the :30 spot here.