Stills and video of Dreamworks Experience for Royal Caribbean Cruise

As a leading commercial photographer, Karan has worked with client Royal Caribbean Cruise on a number of occasions. The most recent project he was involved in was for the Dreamworks Experience, a vibrant and colourful entertainment experience for customers on board the luxurious cruise liner Allure of the Seas.

“Shooting stills and video for the Dreamworks Experience was a busy job,” says Karan. “I got to work with a range of characters including Kung Fu Panda, Po, Shrek, Puss in Boots and all the characters from the Dreamworks animated film Madagascar.”

For the project, Karan was asked to shoot both still images and video. This is something he is seeing more and more of in the commercial and promotional side of the photographic industry, and believes is a set of key skills any successful commercial photographer needs to develop and maintain.

“The most challenging aspect of the Dreamworks Experience project was the elaborate parade,” explains Karan. “We had only one chance to shoot this, and had no option to stage it, pause it or retake any shots at all. The parade only lasted 20 minutes, and we couldn’t get in the way of any of the characters or floats, yet had to capture as much of the colour and movement as possible. We tackled this unique challenge by setting up five cameras to shoot stills and video from various angles.”

See what you think of the final version of the parade video here.

Credits:
Client: Royal Caribbean
Photographer: Karan Kapoor
Production: Jenn Kim/ Anderson Hopkins
Marketing Manager: Addy Lubin
Retouching Stills: Siniisa Savic
Video Edit: Mat Sunderland / Sunipa Pictures

Karan Kapoor shoot stills and video for Royal Caribbean “Barbie Experience”

Karan recently spend time on board the “Allure of the Seas” – the world’s largest cruise liner – to shoot both video and stills for his latest commission from client Royal Caribbean. For the “Barbie Premium Experience”, the Royal Caribbean cruise liner brand will be going pink, as you can see from Karan’s shots here. The “Barbie Premium Experience” will launch in January 2013, and Karan’s shots and video will be used to promote the experience. (Read more after the images.)

This isn’t the first time Karan has shot for Royal Caribbean: he also worked on this big-budget advertising campaign for the cruise brand, with his images transforming NYC’s Times Square shuttle into a cruise ship holiday experience during February 2012.

For this job, Royal Caribbean wanted video footage and stills photography to promote their “Barbie Experience”, aimed at girls aged 4-11. “It was a crazy shoot,” says Karan, “and I had to shoot the stills and video at the same time. With lots of child actors and models involved in the shoot, it was very busy as you can imagine. Each shot had to be replicated three times to include a little girl from each of the three ethnicities which Royal Caribbean wanted represented. It was pretty crazy!”

The shoot was held on the Allure of the Seas (the biggest cruise ship in the world) as it set sail from Miami and around the Western Caribbean. “I didn’t get to see any of the sights,” says Karan. “In fact, on a ship of that size, you don’t even necessarily see the ocean! The cruise ship is so huge, and we spent all of our time inside.”

And here’s the video which Karan shot as part of this job

This was a direct job which didn’t involve an agency. “It was nice to work with this client again,” Karan says.

Look out for a future blog post on the shoot he did for Dreamworks.

Credits:
Client: Royal Caribbean
Photographer: Karan Kapoor
Production: Jenn Kim/ Anderson Hopkins
Marketing Manager: Addy Lubin
Retouching Stills: Siniisa Savic
Video Edit: Mat Sunderland / Sunipa Pictures

Karan Kapoor shoot stills and video for Royal Caribbean “Barbie Experience” is a post from Karan Kapoor’s blog. His main website is here.

Royal Caribbean Cruises video project

Although he is best-known as a successful commercial and editorial photographer, Karan has a keen interest in video and its use in multi-media projects. He was recently commissioned by Royal Caribbean Cruises, the high-end cruise company. As part of a big-budget advertising and awareness campaign, the Times Square shuttle in New York City was transformed into a cruise vacation experience throughout February 2012.

Karan’s input into project had two parts: video work, involving shooting interviews with passengers and staff of Royal Caribbean Cruises and and filming seacapes, and photographic work using seascapes and shots of the ship itself. The videos and images were then used to turn subway carriages into replicas of the cruise ship, as part of the innovative promotional project.

“I’ve done video work in the past,” said Karan. “These days I believe that all photographers should be able to do both, as most commercial jobs demand at least one short bit of video to go on the internet or alongside a banner ad. This was a bit of an unusual commission, though, as I was originally only asked to do the video but then ended up taking the photographs, too.”

Karan describes one particular high point of the shoot: “We needed to get aerial shots of the bay in Haiti,” he said. “In order to get the shot, the Art Director and I ended up on a parasail, which was great fun but a bit terrifying. We got the shot we needed, though!”

These images show snapshots of the resulting installation.

Photographer: Karan Kapoor
Client: Royal Caribbean
Agency: J Walter Thompson
Art Director: Carlos Fernandez
Art Buyer: Sara Clark

Royal Caribbean Cruises video project is a post from Karan Kapoor’s blog. His main website is here.

Friends Life commercial shoot

When Friends Life insurance company launched, they commissioned Karan to shoot for this multi-media campaign. The brand was to be launched with five images and accompanying videos.

The shoot used five different locations, as you can see in the images and videos in this blog post: a beach, mountain, dirt road, dance studio and football pitch and the setting was beautiful Cape Town. Karan recalls a fun and challenging shoot which resulted in great images.

“The Friends Life insurance shoot was exciting,” he says, “because it had a video element to it as well as stills. We had bad luck with the weather and there was a small child crying on the beach throughout the shoot, but we got there in the end!

“It was great to work with Richard and John, the Creative Director and Art Director. All in all, this project was a very enjoyable one to be part of.”

As mentioned, this project involved creating video as well as stills. The video clips are at the end of this blog post; do take a look.

CLIENT: Friends Life
AGENCSY: CST the Gate
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Richard Hayter
ART DIRECTOR: John Taylor

Friends Life commercial shoot is a post from Karan Kapoor’s blog.

Wild in Tuscany: commercial advertising shoot

Here’s a sneak preview of just some of the stunning images Karan created for an international brand when he was asked to shoot a major campaign for them on location in beautiful Tuscany.

The images, which have just been released, were shot last August.

“This was a huge job,” explains Karan. “It was a five-day shoot which involved flying in six models from London and setting up a big fake rainstorm. It represented a great opportunity for me to work with great bunch of models, a fantastic creative team and a major client and agency.

“It was hard work – physical, long hours and strenuous – but there were plenty of bonuses. An amazing location, great food, a wonderful crew and – as you can see – a fantastic set of images at the end of it all.

“One of our biggest challenges lay in creating the rain sequence you can see here. We were shooting at an incredible old Medici palace overlooking rolling hills… lovely views, but not so lovely for those who had to somehow get a huge tanker of water up the steep hill! And, wouldn’t you know it, just before we started to shoot, we had a huge thunderstorm and downpour! It was quite bizarre as that’s exactly what we wanted for the shoot, but as soon as we started work the sun came out. The rain you see in the images is, in fact, fake.”

Tuscany is a part of the world Karan hadn’t visited prior to this shoot, but he’d love to go again. “We shot in various locations, from Florence to Siena,” he says. “The scenery, landscape and light is simply stunning. It’s a great part of the world, very inspiring.”

As well as these vibrant images, bursting with Karan’s trademark energy and colour, here’s a very short video clip, shot by Karan’s assistant on camera phone. It captures the hard work – and the fun – which lies behind just one of the seemingly effortless sequences you see captured in these images. Get a sneak peak into what life is like on a high-end commercial photography shoot!

There are 11 images in total from this shoot. To see them all, visit Karan’s website.

First assistant: Dan Brownsword
Makeup and hair: Nadira Persud
Stylist: Elizabeth Cavatorta
Retoucher: Sinisa Savic

Wild in Tuscany: commercial advertising shoot is a post from Karan Kapoor’s blog.