Splash Portrait Photography for 3D Animation

Go through the looking glass and behind the scenes on a truly ‘mad’ project.

As he sets out to create a surreal piece of animated digital art, Karl Taylor enlists the help of the whole team in planning, prepping, testing, staging, lighting and executing a range of shots on the theme of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.

From fashioning fake gold frames to altering clothes, and from blowtorching wallpaper to sourcing vast quantities of crockery, this fast-flash splash photography class covers a lot of ground!

At its heart is Karl’s 12-light setup, which he walks you through once the shoot is complete. It includes Fresnels, softboxes, snoots, coloured gels, and much more.

You’ll also see Karl weighing up whether or not to use a sound trigger, and deciding which lens will give him the best results.

In this class:

  • Photography techniques for 3D animation
  • Splash photography techniques
  • Fast-flash photography techniques
  • Making your own sets and props
  • High concept narrative photography

To discover how Karl and the team transformed his raw image files into a mesmerising 3D animation, watch 3D Animation in After Effects.

To find out more about this shoot, check out Splash and Smash: Welcome to the Mad Hatter’s NFT Party.

Questions? Please post them in the comments section.

Comments

  2. Tori Waterfalls

    I love this one!
    Full engagement video section on Pre-Production of the product being worked on! This kept me intrigued and wanting to watch more, engaging my imagination on the possibilities to Photography and the limitless possibilities you can do with just an idea and a hand drawing of that idea.. Love it, love it love it!

  3. Pedram Photography

    Wow, Karl, I’m speechless. Many heartfelt thanks for your fantastic video and effort. Best regards from Germany

  4. Oh, wow! That was amazing and also absolutely hilarious 😄. I’m wondering, for this kind of photography with flying tea, how fast does the flash need to be please!

    1. Hi, the flash duration speed will depend on how fast the movement is relative to the area you are photographing. For example if you have tea flying across a space 1m wide in your photo, but you had the same speed tea flying across that space but you were photographing an area only 25cm wide then the movement across your picture area would appear faster. In this particular shoot I used the fastest I could but I think I could have got away with 1/2000th t0.1.

  6. Incandescent Photography

    Superb, totally engaging. By far the best video you guys have produced so far. What I personally take away from film is how much prep you do for your shoots, it all starts with a strong concept and the amount of careful consideration and planning involved. From an ex film editor this is worthy of an award for documentary making, the shoot and post production values are as good as any broadcast production. This also reminds me of the Sleepy Robot guys who produce very similar sureal shoot subjects. But congrats Karl and Crew, as usual a masterclass in beautifuly lit and produced digital art piece.

    1. Hi, thank you so much for your comments that is much appreciated and I will relay them to the rest of the team. All the best Karl.

  8. jeahn

    You all have outdone yourselves. This is absolutely the most incredible class so far and production value through the roof. Brilliant all around <3

  9. Another perspective.. my previous comments still stand, love the whole thing from start to finish. I understand some of the comments about not having the budget to achieve this level, but how exciting to see where even a basic idea can create something superb. Maybe we as creatives need to get together and say “okay this project is your idea and we all help as we can, the next time it will be my ideas put into action, lets face it most video producers have to do this on every single project, often on a budget of zilch, sharing time, props, labour and costs between them.

  10. Amazing imagery, great fun and educational. What a team, well done everyone. Loved seeing how the frame and collection of artefacts came together too. 10/10 team.

  11. Kirk

    Blown away by the the whole process start to finish! Amazing team and what attention to detail and technical expertise, not to mention the amount planning. Inspiring!

  12. Irene Schaudies

    Brilliant choice of music throughout, from behind the scenes to finished animation! Where do you find this stuff?! The sound really helps make it work.
    Cheers!

    1. Thanks Irene, the sound for the finished animation I created from several different purchased sound effects from a sounds library and layered them together with a few added audio effects.

  13. You guys are out of your mind 😀 that is why I love you!!!

    Karl: “What a muppet” I am still laughing on that!

    Matteo

  14. powerful set up love it . that was some fun for your staff thanks so much it was a wonderful to watch it well done to you all

  19. KHoinke

    This was fantastic. OMG…I wished I was there to help. I would of love to had been part of this.. thank you…
    The planning was so important. Not something you do over night. .

  20. Great job! Love watching how it is all done and the level of details that goes into it…. Is it possible to get an idea of what the final budget was for this shot?
    Thank you!

    1. Hi Stephane, thank you. I haven’t added it up properly yet and relatively speaking it wasn’t too bad but to give you an idea the model is from an agency £600, makeup for the day £400, set-build/props/clothes/lunches costs probably about £2500 (we already had the mobile wall as that is kept at our store for various projects) So we’re probably at £3500 before I even consider my time the staff time, planning, research and the amount of our crew needed to do it and film/shoot it. But on the other hand I will be selling this work and of course we documented the whole thing for the platform too.

      1. Thank you for sharing this information Karl, this is very interesting.
        Big budgets are my main problem! As an amateur photographer I unfortunately can’t spend $6k every time I have an idea for a shot as I have no way to get any return on it ( even if I sell a few copies of the image at the end). This is what often puts a stop to some of the concepts I have in my head. Of course there are always ways to get it done cheaper, doing most of the work myself etc.., but to get top quality images like you have achieved here then there are non avoidable costs. Good spaces and good models come at a cost (rightly so) and there is no way around it. I worked a few times with ‘free’ models (TFP agreement) and cheap studios but at the end you get what you pay for and end up with a half baked photos with lots of compromises.
        I thought about sharing the cost with other photographers to reduce expenses but I decided against it as it is not practical and everyone else would end up with the same image, without having done the thinking!
        I need to find a sponsor to finance my crazy ideas 🙂
        Many thanks again for sharing this really inspiring videos, KTE is awesome.

        1. Hi Stephane, yes having a budget for certain shoots helps but there are many shoots on this platform and in my portfolio that were shot for next to nothing by just collaborating and either done on location or in much smaller studios. The most important thing is to focus on what you want to shoot and why and then find a way to make that happen. You have to have a reason for your photography, what you are trying to say and how you want to say it. One of my favourite shots of last year just used a piece of cheap fabric wrapped around the models head and 2 lights.

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