Wayne Highfield, a 21 year old phtographer/videographer, writes out a shot list before leaving for Chicago. Wayne does this before each shoot to begin his creative process.

After arriving to the city, Highfield sets up his stabilizer. He decides to not use the two handed attachment so the device will be easier to carry throughout the day.

The exposure of the video is adjusted due to the dim lighting in the parking garage. This is described as one of the most essential parts of the production process.

Model Donald Padgett strikes a casual pose with the skyscrapers exposed in the background. Highfield gets a low, wide camera angle to make Donald seem larger than usual.

Sidewalk plant displays are used as to indicate depth into the scene and add a sense of intrigue. Highfield is unbothered by the eyes of passing pedestrians, wondering why he is taking shelter behind shrubs with a camera.

After touring the inner workings of the Chicago river, the boat takes its passengers for a skyline view of city. This is one of the few moments they stop working and admire the view.

The overcast weather begins producing rain and forces the group to shoot on the lower deck. Model Luke Wolfla is followed through the hallway in attempts to highlight the back graphic of the clothing.

Luke and Donald take directions on the beach. Highfield explains the duration of time they need to hold their pose for so he will have sufficient time to complete his walk path.

The video footage is reviewed before shooting the final clips for the project. A few errors are noticed in the footage and the group retakes them one last time.

All of the clips are imported and sequenced together to finalize the production. This is primarily where his use of creativity is implemented, using video overlays, coloring, and transitions.

You scroll through all of your favorite social media sites checking out the statuses, thoughts, and opinions of your friends and family, but now a few more things catch your eye. Commercial videos have began to flood social media platforms in efforts to attract the attention of hard to reach consumers. Many don’t have the chance to see what life is like from the content creator’s perspective.

Ever wondered what it’s like to create a commercial? The process is not what most people would think. If you want it to be successful, it involves quite a bit of preparation and creativity. Meet Wayne Highfield, a 21 year old student at IUPUI, who loves creating content.

This neuroscience student has turned his obsession for creation into a media production company where he shoots both pictures and video. He loves looking at everyday activities and coming up with a variety of ways to make them visually appealing to your average person.

Today he will be traveling to Chicago, Illinois to film a few short videos for a local vintage clothing store. Wayne made contact with them via Instagram and is helping them boost their social media presence by providing them with more artistic and engaging content. This is what he and his partners does for a number of other businesses in the Bloomington and Indianapolis area. His company, LRG (pronounced “large”), ties in the artistic ability of creators with marketing tactics and forms a new type of digital advertising that he hopes will relocate him to Los Angeles in the future. 

Highfield begins his day by writing out a shot list (a list of places and angles that he knows he needs) in order to complete the video. He explains, “I normally plan to shoot at 3 or 4 locations per video. I write down a general idea so I don’t get lost when I shoot but allow myself to change the locations if I find something better. If I plan something out in too much detail, it never ends up coming out the way I want it to so I try to find a balance between winging it and scripting it.” For these videos, he decides to shoot at a local park with a view of the skyline, the beach, on a boat tour, and on a crowded bridge. Wayne explains that shooting with a general idea and straying away from being precise allows him certain creative freedoms that, in his opinion, increase the overall outcome of the video.

On the trip up from Indianapolis, he goes into further detail explaining the importance of communicating with the client on what they expect from the content and to implement that into his own ideas.  He says, “Most of the time people who are just getting into commercial work don’t remember that what they’re shooting is still an advertisement for the brand. The brands know what they want to be represented as so if you shoot something for them that doesn’t tie into their image, they won’t work with you again. It’s hard to switch over from shooting personal projects for yourself to basing your creativity around someone else’s vision.” Communicating with the client is described to be more important than that actual video production according to Mr. Highfield.

The store that he will shoot the visuals for has given him complete creative control and allowed him to shoot it in a way that emphasizes the clothing rather than people modeling it. Other than this small stipulation, he can shoot and edit it in any way of his choosing. 

After arriving to Chicago, Wayne sets up his stabilizer and mounts one of the two cameras that he will be using for the day. He starts off with a Sony A7S2 which he describes to be great for commercial work because of its light weight and portability. He also goes on to explain that many people who are unexperienced don’t take into consideration the pains of traveling with big and bulky equipment. 

Because he will be walking around downtown Chicago the entire day with friends (and models) Donald Padgett and Luke Wolfla, he brings a light backpack with the gear essential to get the job done. He packs the bare minimum in order to reduce the weight of the bag and to save room for the clothes that the models will be changing into. 

After balancing the equipment and packing his bag, it is time to begin shooting. 

The first thing he does when shooting is testing his exposure to make sure that the video is shot in an environment that is well-lit enough for him to be able to add coloring and additional changes to it later. During this time, he also decides to get many of the slow motion shots so that he does not have to worry about changing his frame rate later on. He explains that shots that he knows he wants in slow motion, he will shoot at 120 frames per second so he can slow it down when he edits it later. He also shoots regular speed shots in 24 frames per second (standard film frame rate), but if he is not sure about a shot or wants to decide later (when editing it) he will shoot in 60 frames per second. He does this to reduce file size but also allow him to slow the footage down if needed.

Because this clothing store provides vintage clothing, Wayne shoots it in an older style that he will later make to look like a film video. He converses with Donald and Luke on the way to the first spot and bounces ideas off of them. Wayne says that being on the same page with your models is very important as well. He states, “If there is good energy, you feed off each other and its a good experience for everyone. If some people feel uncomfortable, they don’t look good on camera and the end product doesn’t turn our as planned.”

On the way to the boat tour, the group sees a light post and a cross walk that remind them of the old beatles’ album cover and decide to shoot some scenes. Highfield has each model walk towards him across the street several times to be sure that he gets the right take. Even minimal movements can throw off the look of the video according to the group. Right after this, he has them converse with one another while sitting down at a table and shoots a few scenes from behind some plants. Highfield does this with a lower aperture to produce bokeh of the plants on the sides of the frame. He explains to the models how this gives the video a sense of depth and also creates the idea that someone is peeping in from behind the bushes to see what they’re doing, an idea that ties into Wayne’s longterm goal with the video (to brand them in a mysterious way.)

Shortly after this, Highfield meets up with a former friend who gets him access on a boat tour of the city. He explains that networking with people is a crucial part of the business and that he has been able to increase his profits by cutting expense costs through many of these established connections. 

While shooting on the boat, it begins to rain requiring him to improvise and take some shots of the models walking through the lower level. Each shot is retaken multiple times at different angles. The explanation of the constant angle changes is that they “help to paint a better picture of the scenery.” 

Highfield takes advantage of the boat docking station’s location and immediately begins shooting by the nearest bridge to be more efficient with his time. He sets up one camera down below the bridge with a wide angle shot to capture the background of the city and then follows Luke while backtracking through a crowd of people with his stabilizer. The shot on his stabilizer is shot at a lower aperture, really blurring out many of the people behind the model. 

Wayne describes the shot as painti
ng the subject in a way that makes him seem like he stands out from the crowd. Since he is the only one in focus, it gives the subconscious idea that you should be paying attention to him and what he is wearing. This is a branding technique used by many. 

He follows behind the two on their way to the nearby beach, capturing candid movements from far away. 

When they arrive at the beach, het gets a few setting shots of the water, buildings, and traffic to help produce a better image of the city. He then places the models a few feet apart from each other and directs them to look out into the distance while he orbits around them with his camera. He explains that this rotational camera movement allows him to use different transitions in editing. Wayne continues to get shots of the models, then panning into the sky to set up other techniques to piece the video together in post production. He states, “I like to have a variety of shots so I can make the video flow together. If there is no flow to it, people won’t watch it.” The flow of the edit is described to be the sequence and movement of the video in a manner that is easy on the eyes, something commonly overlooked by a casual viewer.

After heading to the last location, Highfield checks through the videos that he took for the day to confirm that nothing needed to be retaken. He suggests that every videographer should do this so they can fix any issues before it is too late. He claims, “If you wait until you start editing to notice that you need to retake something, it’s too late. You’ll probably miss your deadline and lose a client.”

Now ready to wrap up the project for the day, he heads to the final location and gets a few wide angle shots to captivate the immense size of the city of Chicago. 

This last shot  will be used to grab people’s attention and will lead off the video. This is according to the imagined timeline Wayne produces throughout the shoot. He tells Donald, “I normally don’t know what the entire thing will look like until all of the footage is taken. Then I get a better idea of what order I need to put things in.” 

Highfield explains that many times the order of locations they shoot at has little to do with the order it will be in the video. 

After the final shots of the video, the group is ready to head back to Indianapolis where they all attend school. Wayne’s night becomes a little longer as he sorts through the videos and begins laying them out on his computer. This process is described as being sometimes more time consuming than shooting the video. He also sheds light on the importance of sound in videos and how he will spend hours searching for the right effects to help the viewer feel emerged in the video. 

As the night comes to an end, Wayne finalizes the project and gets it ready for the business in which he will give it to the following day. The creative process occupies his entire day and as the Chicago journey ends, a new one begins after another client contacts him in need of last minute pictures which he will plan for the following day.