Push Beyond | Sports Fitness and Athletic Cinematography In Cleveland Ohio
Rogue Fitness - "Push Beyond" (0:30)
Sports cinematography has many challenges and, in the end, creates such an energetic and inspiring advertising video. Sports or athletic videos are all about capturing the athlete's kinetic energy while doing it safely and making the action look natural.
This project drew inspiration from commercials for Nike, Under Armor, and Gatorade, setting out to create a cinematic, energetic, and inspiring spot.
This was a first-time collaboration between director Isaac Williams and I. We jumped right into the story and planned out the pacing and flow. We wanted each workout to intensify through the storyline, ending in the character pushing beyond his mental and physical capabilities to succeed at the last exercise.
We shot in a CrossFit gym, so we had a wide variety of exercise equipment that our talent could use. We wanted to introduce the athlete getting ready, warming up, then starting the workout session. We selected exercises based on visuals and intensity, then chose different areas in the gym for each workout. This is how the shotlist began.
We only had one production day to get everything in the can, so scheduling was very important. We had to make sure not to burn out the athlete or myself before all of our shots were captured. We scheduled the day to have a roller coaster rhythm, moving from slow to intense. This plan made the day achievable and gave us recovery time. There’s always a fine line of pushing talent enough to get what’s needed, but not pushing to the point of exhaustion. Our talent, Michael Blue is in great shape, and was really able to push hard. We even had to add fake sweat to make him seem more exhausted than he actually was. After shooting with us all day, he also did his daily workout routine. What a champion!
We wanted to get natural moments while still capturing the energy of the workouts. The key to realism is paying close attention to talent even when not rolling. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, looking for any natural moment we could use. A few times, I saw Michael moving to the music or panting, and I immediately started rolling. Moments like that are natural and hard to recreate when talent is aware of the roll.
For the story, we needed slow moments when he caught his breath. We had him drink from a water bottle, but it didn’t look natural. What ended up working was one of the moments I kept rolling after a workout set. He was out of breath, bent over, and gave a long exhale. We captured the perfect moment, and that’s my favorite spot in the commercial.
Another trick I often do with sports cinematography is roll even after “cut” is yelled. I wanted to make sure we got any little moments that we could use in the edit. Sometimes there’s little gems at the tail end of a clip. Editor Tim McLaughlin was able to work those into the edit. One of these moments was when Blue finished with dumbbell flies and dropped the dumbbells on his last set. One kept rolling and Tim cut this in with the music perfectly.
Isaac and I connected on the athletic video style and visual approach for this project. We embraced a darker look with color contrast to highlight the athlete. I chose to shoot anamorphic on the Atlas Orion lenses, embracing the lens flares, widescreen aspect ratio and the cinematic aesthetic. We added atmospheric haze, then I lit with a toppy warm overhead and steel blue backlight. This approach gave it strong sports cinematography visuals, which I’ve always loved. I shot all the action elements with the EasyRig, giving it a very dynamic and energetic feel. This lends itself to cinematic sports cinematography visuals.
In the color grade with Brandon Jones we dialed in the warmth and blues. The blue from the flares and the steel blue backlight are not the same color of blue. When a heavily flared shot followed a primarily steel blue shot, he had to cheat the blues a bit so it flowed better. Brandon is a magician with color and I always love working with him!
I’m very proud of what we achieved as a team in this spec project for Rogue Fitness. I love the kinetic energy of sports cinematography and creating excellent visuals featuring athletes. It’s invigorating to use my craft and skills as a cinematographer to highlight an athlete as they exercise their skill all while helping sports and fitness brands create excellent marketing and athletic advertising videos.
Behind the Scenes (0:28)
Take a look behind the scenes with this video shot by Chaustin Media.