Behind the Frame with Jake Colletta

This Behind the Frame features Jake Colletta. Jake Colletta is a Director of Photography and steadicam owner/operator based out of the South East.

This project was a commercial spot showcasing Microsoft’s new integrated teams program and its various uses in day to day life, specifically for college students.

The project was shot on the Sony Venice, our Canon Rangefinder set (35, 50, 85, & 100mm), and our Canon FD 24mm.

Contrast:

"You said this was one of your favorite spots of the year. Did you expect that from the start? What left you with that feeling when all was said and done?"

Jake:

"Walking into this project, Ian, our director mentioned that this was going to be a tight shoot. We had 8 different setups + location moves to accomplish in a single day. Needless to say, I was definitely feeling the pressure of needing to make the worlds’ look good while being flexible enough to know when our cut off window was and move on.

Ian and l have a great working relationship so being able to speak candidly or voice questions and concerns freely is always super welcome and allows us to create our best work. We were able to discuss what was feasible to execute on the day while still maximizing our budget, creative, and timeline. Once we got in the grove and started to knock out setups, I was super stoked with what we were shooting and our talent had a great look to her that brought added value. I know that image wise alone, I was very happy with what we captured, seeing it all buttoned up in the end was an added bonus."

Contrast:

“The project has a big scope, where you follow the character through a lot of different experiences and settings. Was it a challenge to cover so many different looks and locations? What do you do to prepare yourself to be efficient and balance quality with timeliness?”

Jake:

“Since we had so many locations and such a tight day, scouting was paramount. Finding a location that could house most if not all of these setups with as little extra work as possible. We found this wonderful private college just outside of St. Louis that had everything we needed. There was no big company in the sense of having to pack up the trucks and unload over and over again, we stayed pretty nimble and kept most of what we needed on carts to schlep around the campus. Pre pro was paramount on my end, knowing we would have to work efficiently and move quickly. I made lighting plots and connected with G&E on the front end to hand select fixtures that I figured we could use formulaically to move quickly. I believe in our arsenal we relied heavily on Vortexes, M18s, JO Lekos, LiteMats, and the usual gripping.”

Contrast:

“You mixed lens sets on this production. Have you done that before? What gave you confidence in making that move? Not everyone would think to do that.”

Jake:

“I shot this project full-frame 6k 3:2 on my Venice because I wanted the image to reflect the story, college being this new and exciting thing that usually can seem daunting at first and a bit larger than life, so I wanted it to feel expansive. I knew I wanted to shoot this project on the rangefinders, I had used them previously and loved the character they brought to the table while not feeling too muddy or sterile. Since this specific set of Rangefinders were a 35, 50, 85 and 100, I wanted a wider option to really feel the world and paired them with a Canon FD 24mm, a super fast wide lens that was optically similar enough to the rangefinders being from the same canon world. I had never mixed these two lenses before, but I’ve worked with them separately so I was confident in the pairing.”

Contrast:

“The project has some really dreamy shallow depth of field, yet it’s for a corporate client. How did you decide how far to push the look? Did you ever push it too far and have to reign it back?”

Jake:

“Thankfully the Agency and Director relationship was super solid, as was my DP to Director relationship, so the team put a lot of trust in what we were doing. I think if that trust wasn’t there and we found ourselves critiquing the image constantly we would have never made our day. I thankfully never felt any push back in our setups, it was super collaborative and free flowing. I will say when the project hit post, there were definitely a few setups that got lifted exposure wise per the client's request, nothing drastic, historically I find that usually the case.”

Contrast:

“With such a character centric spot, was the shallow depth of field a helpful storytelling tool? Did you ever push it to f0.95?”

Jake:

“There were a few moments where we 100% utilized the shallow depth of field that the rangefinders provided, specifically where we found ourselves transitioning scenes and feeling a more thoughtful moment with our talent. Like in the dorm room and lecture hall. It was a nice tool to isolate our talent or subject matter to pivot to a different scene. That 50mm f0.95 dream lens is just that, super dreamy, the fall off was wild and really helped sell the moves in my opinion.”

Contrast:

“A lot of DP’s in Nashville shoot music videos. You seem to do more commercial work. How do you want to set yourself apart as a cinematographer? Do your gear choices help with that?”

Jake:

“As a cinematographer, commercials just feel good to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good music video, doc, narrative, whatever. I don’t think you’ll find a freelancer who will turn down work. But commercials typically come with more budget than that of a music video, which I find allows for more opportunity to use new tools with that budget. Not to mention, I have a young family, commercials aren’t usually month long projects like many narrative pieces can be, I like to be home and as present as possible with my family. Which comes to another great, often not discussed enough topic, THEY PAY WAY BETTER. Plain and simple as that haha, music videos are such a great outlet to get weird and creative but music videos just don’t have the budgets they once did and subsequently don’t pay as well, not all, but most. That being said, not all commercials come out great or have a fun look to them, some can be life draining and that’s where I love to shoot music videos to break up the mundane or monotony of commercial work.”