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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Johnny Walker Bruce Lee ad finally released! Epics/Master Primes

Ugh....

I just like lighting and shooting fucking cool shit. I'm going to crawl back under my shroud of mystery and do just that!

This thread sux. :-(
 
Christopher Probst said:
Ugh....

I just like lighting and shooting fucking cool shit. I'm going to crawl back under my shroud of mystery and do just that!

This thread sux. :-(
Click to expand...

True dat. Seriously though. I'm constantly impressed by what you turn out. Hard working dude making things happen.
 
Christopher Probst said:
Ugh....

I just like lighting and shooting fucking cool shit. I'm going to crawl back under my shroud of mystery and do just that!
Click to expand...

Can we please get back on the topic ?
Folks expressed their opinion, cleared out, moving along...
 
Christopher, please forgive my part in derailing this thread. I think you shoot some amazing stuff and I hate to see you back away because of anything I said. For the record, I just found it curious that in this generally tolerant society that others were taking you to task. I did not find the ad itself distasteful at all. I thought the CG was really good, given what they were attempting to pull off. Maybe that just shows that I have bad taste in CG.

Anyway, keep up the good work.
 
Christopher Probst said:
Guys, this is a cinematography forum. Let's not digress into bickering on philosophical debates... I posted this because I wanted to share what I feel is an achievement in aesthetics and mood, production design AND that we attempted to pull off something incredibly difficult.
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Was not my intent to get philosophical. And yes, this is a cinematography forum, but from my point of view, my comments are cinematography related. To me there is always more than just shooting a pretty picture. It's about crafting a story or delivering a message. And that is exactly what is being done here. I was simply pointing out the irony or contradiction that is present. And those are things I do think about when I'm hired to shoot something. IMO, Hollywood would produce much better features more consistently if several down the line people would stand up every now and then and say, "hey! has anyone actually read this script? Has anyone scrutinized this concept objectively? because it sucks."

I'm not attacking you personally, Chris. Please don't see it that way. Although I may have come across as doing just that. The cinematography on this commercial is excellent. I'm not going to pick apart the FX work. Yes, there are flaws, but as far as recreating a deceased celebrity goes, this was a very good effort. There are always deadlines, budgets, technological hurdles, etc.. In terms of TV commercials and to the average viewer, I think this will be successful to their eyes as a valid reconstruction of Bruce Lee. As for how well the intended message will be received, that is yet to be seen. That's the thing with advertising, it either works or it doesn't. And a reaction such as what we have seen on this thread is not necessarily a bad reaction when it comes to advertising. You can bet that we're all going to remember this ad!

We all worked really hard on the product and yet no one here is even remotely interested in film-making technique? So why bother sharing any info? It's funny how no one cares about all of the violence and murder depicted in our media... that is totally fine. When I was in a room with Conrad Hall, I certainly didn't complain to him about the depiction of gun violence in Road To Perdition.
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I don't think that's really a valid comparison. Road to Perdition depicted a time in history that was rather violent and gun violence of the time period was exceptionally high. Something to be expected of a story about individuals involved in organized crime through the prohibition years. That period of American history was definitely not a bright point, unfortunately it is often romanticized as such. While it's somewhat of an inverse of the Bruce Lee ad, something on the same level would be to resurrect Al Capone in a virtual sense to do an anti-gun PSA. Do it in a way that it's composed out of known things he actually said. It may work, it may even be rather interesting. It would also contradict his existence.


Anyway, I don't see any reason to keep beating this, I was only trying to point out the irony or contradiction here. And there's no good way to advocate "artistic integrity" or anything of that sort. First of all something like that is entirely subjective, secondly we can't afford to just turn down work because we don't agree with someone's vision. When you turn down a job, that particular director, agency, producer, etc.. may never call you again and there are thousands of others out there who will willingly take that job if you don't want it.

Ultimately, I think that the broad reaction to this ad isn't going to be unlike that of this thread. Fans of Bruce Lee, especially those familiar with his teachings and quest to perfect himself, avoiding junk food, alcohol, publicly speaking out against those things, will find conflict here.

And with that, I have nothing more to say.
 
Beautifully shot Christopher, the lighting, colour and tone are stunning, and your work is up there with the best stuff I see shot on Red.

On the other topic (and this is in no way directed at you Christopher) I agree it is tasteless to resurrect any dead celebrity and force them into a commercial to sell anything, whether they would endorse the project or not they're dead, they aren't given the choice to say no and in this case most probably would have. Johnny Walker are using Bruce's ideas to sell their product.

This is by no means a fault of you though Christopher, nor does it reflect on your ethics as a filmmaker - we all have to get paid, and if we can love what we do and don't personally feel conflicted by it who cares what anybody else thinks.

Great work cinematically.
 
Guys Christopher was the DP. he was not the creative director with the agency.Some posters appear to not understand how it works in agency land with big multi-national clients. Chris did a great job with a great camera & I reckon had some serious fun in shooting & hopefully made some serious $$$$ .

What I find a little funny is here we are discussing morals & we work in this industry ! I would humbly suggest everyone should look at their own client list & see just how "pure" there own work is 1st. Because I almost guarantee we have all performed work for clients who's products have "questionable ethics" . For those who only perform work of hi moral value I salute you because there is no way I can afford to be that pure .

Finally Christopher congrats on the great work I would luv to have it on my demo reel !
 
On a technical discussion level, I find it curious the model the chose of Bruce Lee. Looks like a mixture of the "fist of Fury" Bruce with the "Game of Death" one, and a bit aged. Being a gamer myself, I also see some inspiration on the "Tekken" Forrest Law character there (which was inspired by Bruce). In terms of CGI quality, the likes of Tron and even Quantic Dream's Playstation 4 demo look better in terms of facial animation. Its getting there, like someone said, just not yet. Like the blue tone. And love the "workaround" you guys did and using the script to "mask" the CGI with the water in both script and visual level. It looks like you knew that the longer the audience looked at the face the more they would notice the CGI, so using the water and the intricate camera angles worked well.
 
When I worked at Alias!Wavefront back in the day, I remember in 1998 this video coming across my desk. It was from Hong Kong by Shannon and Andrew Ma using PowerAnimator and Maya V1. This was over 15 years ago!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-76oUUCxqBw
 
Bob Gundu said:
When I worked at Alias!Wavefront back in the day, I remember in 1998 this video coming across my desk. It was from Hong Kong by Shannon and Andrew Ma using PowerAnimator and Maya V1. This was over 15 years ago!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-76oUUCxqBw
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Great Stuff Bob. Back to Christopher's ad, one interesting aspect about it is that it is spoken in Mandarin. This is for the mainland China market, I presume. It should have been in his native Cantonese. Is this going to air in Hong-Kong? I'm really, really curious to see the reaction on Bruce's hometown.

This advertising technique is called "reverse advertising": Mcdonalds does it by sponsoring the Olympics and using the Olympic arches on their logos, cups and promo material, and Johnny Walker has been doing it for quite some time, example being by them being ( still?) a major sponsor of a Formula One team with the slogan "Keep walking". It works on the psychological level as a counter to all the bad press due to the health issues related to the products. Its actually quite clever.
 
The thing I like about this forum is that there is a sense of community. This is the only place I can think of where talented and established dps like Cristopher Probst and David Mullen are generous enough to give us insight into their work. Cristopher specifically has always been kind to me in answering whatever question i posed to him. I just hope the negativity doesn't turn away their continued participation in the threads here on this site. I for one value their generosity, and encourage them to please continue doing good work. I follow Joseph Kahn on twitter and i was blown away from this ad. If Bruce Lees own family are willing to give their consent to the project who are we to judge it.
 
I think the CGI looks FANTASTIC!!

I have a few ?'s about the awesome cinematography, if I may:

1. Many shots are in low light. Did you expose as we are seeing or did you expose brighter and then lower in post?

2. Related to 1. perhaps, did the VXF work affect how you shot? For example, maybe shooting at a higher exposure to minimize sensor noise.

3. Was the slow motion your idea or more of a group decision? I find it very effective, but I also find that it can be overused. I DON'T believe that is is in the case. But I'm always curious as to why/why not people choose to change frame rates.

And THANKS SO MUCH FOR SHARING!
 
CGI face looks creepy. Not human. Like a video game character on steroids.
 
This is fucking awesome. I liked the shallow dof, shooting thru water, shadows all the stuff that hid the cgi quite nicely. Colors helps blend the reality and cgi as well. A few shots it was obvious that it was cgi but idc. Chris, tell those guys it's time for Bruce to hit the silver screen. Anything is better than those cardboard stand ups and obvious stand ins...Game of Death.............
 
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