HOOPS!

What can I say about one of my favorite shoots from last year. I am not a huge sports fan by any means but I do get into March Madness quite a bit. Could have something to do with my ties to KU but I watch the games even when the Jayhawks aren't playing. We produced these for Miller Lite and their promotions surrounding the 2011 NCAA basketball tourney. With some great art direction from Integer's Eric Lindgren, a talented crew and some incredible talent we pulled off a definite portfolio piece. It may not look like a difficult gig for the talent but you try to jump for two to three hours in a row. Many thanks to Solomon and Ray for hanging in there. Thanks also to Andrew Webb for his on-set tech support and post stylings.

A GREAT START TO THE YEAR!

To say we have been busy does not say enough. We are currently in the post production phase of what turned out to be an almost two month long project we produced for Level 3 Communications and Carbon8. Our largest production day involved about twenty five people and one magnificent location, OfficeScapes. This photo is of our amazing cast and crew that I owe a real debt of gratitude for all their hard work. Not only did we get to work with some great people but we learned a lot about Level 3 along the way, what a cool industry. Thanks to all.

Dallas Cowboys and Miller Lite

Happy to finally be able to share the two ads we shot last January for Miller Lite. A talented cast and crew of almost thirty people helped pull these two shots together and many thanks go out to them all. An even bigger thanks to the creative team at The Integer Group. It was a great shoot. These are the two ads that were put together along with one of the out takes Andrew Webb and I finished for our own portfolios.

TESLA

Our latest personal project called for a cool sports car and we were lucky enough to get our hands on a Tesla Roadster for a few days. It was a bit unnerving hanging lights around this and it was even more so taking a ride in it. The only thing I can compare it to is something between a jet at take off and a roller coaster on the first big drop. This is just a behind the scenes shot. We hope to have some of the finished pieces up in the next few weeks.

BIG SAVINGS

Last May we had the opportunity to work with Chris White and Shannon Ball from the Integer Group and produce a series of images for Kroger's 2010 Cart Buster campaign. Kroger is one of the nations largest grocery retailers with over $76 billion in annual sales. Locally they operate under the names of King Soopers and City Market and if you visited either one of these chains in early September you could not miss these ads. From what I hear they went over really well so great job to everyone at the Integer Group. We had great direction, everyone knew exactly what they wanted and that made my job much easier. So thanks to the talented cast and crew that helped pull this one off.

HAPPY TO HELP

Got a call from Chris Thomas at Ripcord a couple of weeks back. He was working on some comps for a client and was unable to find exactly what he needed with stock and wanted to know if we might help him out. I am always willing help out a friend especially when it comes to showing a client the advantages of custom artwork over stock. Chris rounded up some talent from Wilhelmina Denver along with a couple of stylists while we got things ready at the studio. Within a couple of days we had gone from just discussing the concept to full execution. This included photography of talent as well as the words and compositing the shots for the final images. The part of this that was the most fun was coming up with a solution for the words. The original idea was to illustrate them in photo shop but I felt we could get a more realistic feel if we built them and then destructed them on set to get the look we wanted. Big thanks to Andrew Webb for managing all of the post on this one. I also wanted to thank our model Whitney, Makeup Artist Sameera and Stylist Tina. We could not have done this with out their generous help.

LEGO STALKER

The nice thing about personal projects is the lack of time constraints. While I enjoy the fast and furious pace we sometimes move at when a client awards us a project with a tight deadline, it is great to just mull something over and complete it at your own pace. I will admit that these shots took way too long. A combination of a busy year and a me dragging my feet for no good reason resulted in these shots taking a year to complete. I am not certain why it took me so long to complete but I am happy with how creepy the little guy turned out. You can see more legos at davidpahl.com Many thanks to all the people that helped bring this together: Andrew Webb, James Pelz, Jennifer Samuel, Ashley Harris, Angela Schwab and Paul Stern.

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

Just posted over twenty five new images and a couple of new galleries to the website. Special thanks to Andrew Webb of Serious Retouching for the masterful post stylings he provided and to all of the crew involved in each one of these shots.

START TO FINISH

Last December we were asked to produce an image of a one show pencil embedded in rock looking as if it was being mined from a cave wall. The image was used to promote ADCD's annual presentation of The One Show. This sounded like a lot of fun to create a real looking rock wall. So with a little thought we came up with an approach that seemed like it would work. We started with placing the pencil on a flat board and surrounding it with expanding foam insulation. To make sure we could get the pencil out when we were done it was covered in vaseline, it was not mine and I did not want to destroy it. Once we had the base form it was a matter of carefully cutting away the foam to give the appearance of tool marks on the rock. This exposed the open cell structure of the foam. This surface would not hold paint well or color washes and close up looked horrible. So we covered the majority of the surface with modeling plaster. The plaster filled voids and made the surface look more organic. After this dried we applied a variety of color washes to give the rock subtle undertones. Another wash of black gave the rock the appearance we wanted. Then it was just a matter of lighting the rock. We needed to add layers of light to bring out the texture of the rock and create a path for the viewers eye to follow. A total of four lights were used on this shot, most all at very low angles to enhance the texture. We also placed about a dozen cards to further sculpt the light. Then it was just a matter of turning the files over to Andrew Webb with Serious Retouching so he could apply some of his post stylings. Many thanks to James Pelz for inviting us to work on this project and for his great direction. Always fun to be challenged by a project.

MILLER LITE SHOOT XL

We produced a two day shoot for Miller Lite and Integer a couple of weeks ago and it could not have gone smoother, thanks to an awesome cast and crew of approximately thirty people. Day one was the largest in scale of the two shots. We had three vehicles, five principal talent, seven or so extras, a whole bunch of props and some food on the grills. My crew hung and rigged fourteen strobe heads, several silks and over 700 square feet of background. The only place in town that could possibly accommodate our needs was Stage 1 over at LSI. Our set was pretty large but it only took up about half of the available 16000 square feet, left us plenty of room for a little football. Now I like it when the room is cold enough to hang meat but fifty five degrees was a little too cold for our clients that flew in from Texas. We did our best to make everyone comfortable but little space heaters did not do much in that size of space, sorry guys. I think we made up for it on day two though. It was an absolute pleasure to work with such a fantastic team of professionals. So, many thanks to everyone involved in this production.