My favorite TV commercial from last season was the Kindle spot, the result of a contest held by Amazon. A beautiful blonde actress named Annie Little graces the television screen, and she sings the ever-so-catchy “Fly Me Away.” The commercial captivates the audience’s attention with the costume changes and adorable photograph flip-book quality. It reminds us to dream, to suspend our disbelief, and totally dive into the pool of creativity. Part of that creative process, for me, is the ability to reverse engineer lighting and post-processing.
I had an aviator cap and goggles for another self-portrait I wanted to try and conveniently stumbled across some faux snow from the holidays. I set up the seamless background and added the fluffy cloud bits with tape. In the commercial, a fairly obvious light shines strongly from camera-left, and at the 0:07 mark, a rectangular shape appears on the goggles. I set up a medium softbox, put my camera on a tripod, and got my wireless remote ready. Jon assisted by waving my scarf around and kept an eye on Mia and Wasabi so they did not fall off the stool. Boy, those two would do anything for a treat.
After a few minutes of shooting, I popped in the photos into an editing program and processed the images to have a Polaroid 669 film kind of feel. Voilà! Done. Even though the formula differs, I achieved similar results. Just remember, it only takes minutes to come up with something this creative and fun. The winner(s) of the Kindle contest shot an entire commercial in a seven-hour take. It inspired me to get creative and quit making excuses about my time. Congratulations to Ithyle Griffiths, Angela Kohler, Annie Little, Sharon Williams, and Rachel DeSimone. Thanks for the inspiration!
[See the adorable commercial here]
Self-Portrait by: Amy Dunn
Photo assistant: Jon S.
Models: Amy, Mia & Wasabi
Houston, TX 2010
© Amy Dunn
All rights reserved
25 Comments
omg cute!
I RUV THIS ONE!!!!
Don’t you just want to beat the smack out of the kids? It kills me how much they cooperate for photo shoots.
Thanks for sharing Amy, I like those polariod actions, they look like fun to play with!
Hey, Pete! Thanks for the photo comments on here and Flickr. The actions are always a ton of fun, but I’m sure you could have just thrown a yellow layer on top for a similar effect.
Happy New Year!
ohh nice! I like!!!! aww and your babies are adorable. I see your lashes ar poppin! good job!
Thanks, Diana! I love that you noticed that.
I’m bummed you never got a chance to meet Mia when she was in NYC. She loved being on the set, and sometimes she’d pop into a shot with a model. So snuggly!
Hi-larious!! Mia and Wasabi were totally meant to be in front of the camera!
Thanks, Rita! Did you ever meet my kids? Mia lived with me on Wall Street for a couple of years, and I took her out on a couple of outings. Not sure if you got to see her… I’m glad I got to see you over the holidays!
Great process and shot. I really like the Polaroid look on it! I love the thought of Jon off to the side flapping your scarf away as you pose and hit the shutter… Art in action, right there.
Hey, Spencer! It was Jon’s idea, too. I was just going to pin my scarf to the background, but he had that great idea. I also had some shots where I looked straight into the camera like the kids, but they didn’t have that cute little scarf action, so I chose this one instead.
Happy New Year to you!
What a great photo! I had never seen that Kindle commercial before. It’s a great concept and I think you captured the look and feel of it perfectly. It’s very quirky. Awesome job!
Epic, Amy! Great idea and execution! Your expression is priceless and your pooches did a great job too.
Thanks, Cristina! I tried to do the commercial justice. I have zero intention of selling the image – just wanted to pay homage to my favorite commercial from 2009.
Hey, Jaysen! Have you ventured over to Flickr? I dedicated this picture to you over there.
Beautiful shot Amy. And it’s amazing how close you got to the look of the ad. Nice work.
Amy!
Amy, were you ever a model in Taiwan. If so, for Catwalk Agency? If yes, you might know my aunt. She was the director there…
Thanks, Mark! And Jaysen, thank you for the Flickr pro account. I was really touched you did that for me.
Nancy, I did work with Catwalk – they are AWESOME! Who’s your aunt? And how did you know I worked with Catwalk? That was ages ago. LOL
hey Amy, Happy New Year!!
great photo!! FuNNNNNNN!!
my aunt is Tina Chiang ! does her name ring a bell???
)))
I only guess Catwalk because there are only two Top modeling agencies in Taiwan.
Yep! It rings a loud bell. Please tell her I said hi–if she even remembers me.
Catwalk was amazing. I really loved my time there. What’s the other agency?
LOL. Are you being sarcastic when you say it rings a loud bell? I know how my aunt can get ! I will definitely tell her you said hi…. you went by your english name? You know, she’s at another agency now and in Beijing. The other agency in Taiwan is Eelin.
Oh, no! I didn’t mean any sarcasm by it. LOL – just as I typed that, my cousin just walked into my house and shouted loudly. He just got back from Taiwan. hahahaha
hahaha. Is he a model too? My aunt is looking for some talent !
No, but if she ever needs a ninja, he’d be perfect. He came in, said hello, and left again. LOL
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