luckily this was just 5 minutes away from my studio - so I went in around 5pm. We were going to do the shoot at 6, but he decided he wanted to do the shoot between his 8pm and 10pm show.
SO! - I popped the 70-200 IS 2.8 on the 40D for the live shots - and shot the first five minutes or so of his live set, which was searing with terrible red-lighting - but not too strong that it would ruin the images.
Luckily I saved my batch settings from the last show (Gabriel Iglesias) that I had shot there - and its ALWAYS the same lighting. So post was super easy - i just applied the same batch to all the live shots and TADA! they were skin tone and white balanced perfectly for usage. - check it! - ill even put in a before and after.
So after his live set - I was escorted into his backstage room which had extremely low ceilings and very limited area. Before shooting, he wanted to see some of my work. I had my iPad with me, which is my portfolio - He took a look while I set up my gear. He went on to be really impressed with my work, and with some of the people I've worked with (though, he is probably in the top 20 most well known I've worked with) but very very kind and loaded with complements about my work.
Anyway. We got started on the couch I figured id have him lounge out, I wanted to get some shots that are more condusive to him being more laid back before going all out and getting some fun shots. I started with a boomed dish - i used my smaller dish (the one i got before the iwabo tour) - but still it was extremely difficult due to the very low ceilings - so i set the light down to 1/4th (i usually set it to 1/2) as the light was going to be closer. I was shooting with the Canon 1DS Mark 2 - the 24-70 2.8 L - and at F14 ISO100 - at a 160th.
For the second shot, I had him stand on the couch, which, the ceilings were so low, he would have bashed his head on the light - so i moved it camera right and angled the dish toward him. Because the light was much closer, I jumped the Fstop to F18
After moving away from the couch our options were fairly limited - there was a very small hallway connecting the small dressing room with the stage doors, and just across from them were doors with white curtains on them that led to where a tour bus would park. So I set up a boomed dish camera right. I started with it pointing down toward him but after a few shots i gave it more of an angle toward his face to give more more full light. I shot these at F20 because the light was SO close to his face due to the extremely low overhead. - We did a few poses and then I called it a shoot - because I knew he only had a small amount of time between then and when he went back on stage.
Alas, change of plans! - I showed him the in camera shots and he was so impressed he insisted we shoot more! - which is AWESOME! because I could shoot him for another hour and get awesome stuff. Dude rules and TOTALLY hams it up for the camera.
So we found a little electric panel room - which is usually something id use for a metal band, but he was the one who chose it, then we decided to go with more of a flat light so i unboomed the dish and just had it straight up shooting through the doorway over my back/head - as there was no room to light it in the small utility room. We finished with that set at F14
Afterward, he took a look at the images, and made sure I emailed them to him as he wanted to use some of the shots for his next tour and possibly some other things as well.
All in all its always incredible to get the opportunity to work with something a bit outside of my realm, such as a celebrity or actor or... both, while still being someone who's work I thoroughly enjoy. Bottom line, his movies are awesome, and hes seriously one of the nicest people I've worked with. The images look awesome in print in both the newspaper and magazine that printed them, and hopefully we will get the opportunity to work together again.
One thing to remember - sometimes you need to create your own opportunities to get the shoots you want. I wouldnt have done this shoot if I didn't take it upon myself to contact a few outlets I work with (one I hadnt worked with before) in order to contact the PR agent to lock down the shoot. SO! my advice, if you have the contacts, and the ability, shoot anything you want, anyway you can.
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