Blue Screen Photography at Samsung at Crufts 2011

We recently worked for Samsung at Crufts Dog Show. It was physically and technically one of the most demanding jobs we've done, but also the best organised and the most enjoyable.

Our brief was to work with AMC Europe and the stand designers to setup a chromakey studio in one section of the stand to shoot dogs, owners and visitors on a variety of backdrops. Then we were to print and frame each photograph instantly. The best photograph each day would win a Samsung digital camera.

The calm before the storm...waiting for the show to open.

 The stand was immense with a huge central area where various displays were organised each day to attract the visitors. Around the edge of the main area were various pods where visitors could relax and try out Samsungs excellent products including Galaxy Tablets, Andoid phone, Video Cameras and of course Still cameras.

Everything was displayed on Samsung flat screen TV's, with a huge screen hovering over the stand.

 There were free face-painting areas, a kitchen of the future with celebrity chef Peter Osbourne cooking dog treats, free ID tag engraving, an internet access area and of course us. Upstairs was a VIP area and viewing area where we were treated to food and drinks all day,  when we had time which was rare as we were so busy.

We used the latest Samsung NX-10 micro 4/3rds  SLR camera with the Samsung flash on top, bounced upwards to prevent red-eye. Although we had brought every available type of lighting with us including the latest flat panel led banks, we actually didn't use anything! The photo area was so popular an attraction that we quickly realised lighting wasn't practical as people and dogs would be knocking over any studio lights.

Peter Osbourne (aka The Big Chef) in the kitchen

 
 When we helped design the area we made use of the lighting above us to cast an even glow on the photo area. We went for blue screen rather than green screen as this matched Samsung's corporate colours and looked in keeping with the design. The floor and back wall were painted with special Chromakey blue paint like we used in our Elstree Film Studio days.

Blue Screen Photography Area

In the photos you can see the led lighting panels, but they weren't actually used. usually we shoot with pro Nikon gear but were suprised by how good the little Samsung NX-10 camera actually was. We mainly used the 20mm pancake lens as that has excellent low light capacity, it's fixed at f2.8 which really helped. For some shots we switched to a second camera using a 18-55mm zoom, mainly when we needed to get a bit closer to teeny dogs to avoid distortion.

Elaine at work!

To avoid cabling and swapping memory cards we used the excellent eye-fi 4mb X2 sd card which is actually a wireless transmitter. We set this up to connect to our own hub, linked to a really nice Samsung I5 17" notebook which had ample power for the job. We used our own software and the pre-approved backdrops we had designed for Samsung to quickly handle the work flow.

Dog training demo from the VIP area above.

Initially we had some teething trouble as the wireless kept dropping out but when we connected to the Samsung network it all worked perfectly. This was because Samsung had an extremely powerful transmitter covering the stand which knocked ours out, changing channels solved the problem.

We shot a variety of different photos, from close-ups of teeny dogs to large groups of people with their dogs, and many just of visitors to the show. Never work with animals or children is the adage, but we are happy with either or both!

Paul shooting with Korean TV filming!

To cope with the huge throughput of visitors we needed a fast printer. So Systems Insight in Southampton got us the latest Mitsubishi CP-D707 photo lab as soon as it was launched. Their help was invaluable, we were originally

briefed to produce 5" x  7" photographs and all the templates were setup to that size. During setup day before the show we tested the printer which uniquely has two decks, so both were loaded with 5" wide paper and ribbon ready to go. When the frames arrived we realised  that they were 5" x 7", but the photos needed to be 6" x 4" in size. We didn't have any media of this size and couldn't get any delivered until the next day which was cutting things a bit fine.

The winning photo on Day One....cute!

But Paul realised Systems Insight were at the Focus on Imaging show which was ending that day also at the NEC. So a quick phone call and a sprint the whole length of the NEC exhibition Centre saw him return triumphantly with a box of 6x4 media. Thanks to Stuart at System Insight, we also received a delivery of four more boxes at our hotel the next day. 

Live previews on the Samsung LED.

The Mitsubishi CP-D707 is a beast! It can produce TEN 6x4 photographs in a minute using both decks, and it never faltered once in the whole five days. The quality of the images is faultless, very crisp and sharp, and the extremely low running costs are essential when producing so many photographs at an event.

We linked the laptop up to a DVI splitter and had the images displayed live as we worked on them on the stand on Samsung lcd screens. This was great as when we did get a small queue they could watch as we played with the images.

Every day we shot, green screened, printed and framed over 200 photographs. On the Sunday which is always the busiest we did 300. We stopped whenever there was a live event on the stand but no-one ever waited more than ten minutes during the whole show.

World Champion Richard Curtis with Betty the Chihuahua

Workflow is everything on such a busy stand, we had example backdrops printed and on display so people could choose the effect they wanted before we posed them.

Sending the photos wirelessly to the system is also a necessity, as is having a fast printer like the Mitsubishi D707, and a fast operator like Elaine.

Everyone was delighted with their photographs, and we learned a lot about the different breeds and temperaments. Some dogs react to a squeaky toy, some ignore it, some attack it! Getting to the dogs eye level is essential to get a great shot, and black dogs are trickier to capture than white ones:)

The winning photo on the left was a popular background for the kids, they all wanted to be in the dog sled. You can see all the photos at www.fullframeevents.co.uk under galleries.

Here's a few more examples showing some of the backdrops we used.