The theme for Top Shelf Entertainment’s latest stage show is based on the 1999 science fiction-action film hit featuring Keanu Reeves, known as The Matrix. As you well know ‘The Matrix’ was part of a trilogy of films, and Top Shelf have taken some of the best characters from all three films and incorporated them into their latest show. My job once again was to capture the essence and the characters of the new show into a photograph. The location for the shoot was a building rooftop in the city centre but we didnt end up utilising the rooftop scene as I originally imagined. Instead it just simply provided us a location to shoot in.

So with the boys help, we carted a car load full of camera and lighting equipment up to the rooftop of this apartment complex and got things under way. Hit the link for more…

The main requirement for this shoot was to obtain a photo that could be used for promoting the next live stage show. This means it would be the basis for the flyers and other advertising materials that are used to broadcast the event. We set up a lot of single shots of each character including some motion freezing shots which came out really cool. (ie: jumping and spinning etc). We also did a few shots with the characters together in a group and in fact it was one of these that ended up becoming the ‘chosen one’.  I was happy with that because it meant I didnt have to digitally put all the characters together in post production to create a group shot, so it saved some time.

Obviously I still carried out a lot of digital enhancement on the final image. You will probably notice that we didn’t have identical twins on the set, and Top Shelf’s Tom Ranger on the right hand side has been duplicated in post production to appear twice in the image. Everyone seems very happy with the results.

Tech Notes: I had a white shoot-through umbrella in front of the guys just for fill. It was too powerful though so I think I even turned it around and used the reflected light off the umbrella because I couldnt power down my strobe enough. Two nice big softboxes standing vertical on either side behind the guys gave me that nice light to seperate them from the background. The walls of the building came in very handy providing an excellent gobo from the softboxes behind the guys. I didnt have the usual pocket wizards handy on this shoot, so we had a great deal of trouble getting the strobes to consistently fire using a cheaper alternative. For those looking to buy radio triggers, its really simple… Pocket Wizards.