Working as a Gaffer on Lawn Care Commercials

Earlier this year I worked as a Gaffer on a series of commercials for a lawn care company called Neds Home. It was probably the strangest time of year to shoot something like this, right in the middle of winter during a major cold snap. It was freezing outside and working outdoors was honestly painful. But the biggest challenge was not the cold, it was the grass. Everything was brown and dead. The director told me they planned to change the color of the grass in post, and at the time I had my doubts. But now that I have seen the final edit, I have to say they actually pulled it off.

Since we were shooting outside I knew lighting would be tough. My best move was to control the light that was already there. I talked with the Director of Photography and we decided to rent a12x12 frame and I use my own 6x6 and 4x4 frames. We used the 12x12 to diffuse the sun in some shots and bounce light in others. Then I used my 6x6 and 4x4 as bounce and negative fill depending on the setup. A lot of the time I would have the 6x6 bouncing on one side and the 4x4 adding negative fill on the other.

I also used my 300D with a Fresnel attachment as a hard backlight to recreate sunlight and give our subjects an edge light. So, we blocked the real sun with the 12x12 and replaced it with a fake sun that I could control.

I had just bought my diffusion frames and the fresnel attachment and they were incredibly useful on this shoot. In fact I ended up buying another 6x6 and another 4x4 after seeing how essential they were when shooting outside.

One challenge I ran into was working with the 12x12. In the future I would not recommend bringing one without a multiple grips to help out. We did not have enough crew to move and adjust it easily and doing it in the freezing cold did not help either. I love the way it shaped the light but unless I have the right team with me I will probably stick with my 6x6s from now on.

You can check out the finished commercial here: