:: Producer: Sean Montgomery
:: Director: Alan Jaskiewicz
:: Editor: Dave Gal
I had the opportunity to work with a crew of extremely talented people who created the video spot for “Stain in Time”. They brought their own creative ideas into my studio and turned out a product that exceeded my expectations. It truly was a great experience.
If you had to guess what medium Gerard Tonti used to create this and other large paintings currently residing in his basement, how many guesses would it take before you said coffee? Yeah, that’s right … coffee.
Alongside director Alan Jaskiewicz and DP Dave Weldon, I was brought on board to help produce a documentary about Tonti’s incredible works which are created with a variety of stains from coffees and teas. Ger has been experimenting with this unique style of artwork for eight years, and he says it’s taken that long just to get his method down. It’s a complicated chemical process, often with unpredictable results. One of the greatest challenges in working with tea and coffee as an art medium, according to Ger, has been figuring out how to preserve the natural color pigments and prevent fading due to ultraviolet light exposure and oxygen.
Shooting this video on the RED Epic allowed our production crew to get really creative with high-speed photography. Several inserts were shot at 120 and 240 frames per second for slow motion macro images of his ingredients.
Some of our favorite shots were accomplished by shooting upward through a clear pane of glass. With the camera on the ground pointed towards the ceiling, coffee beans and assorted tea ingredients were dropped on a piece of glass hovering 2 feet above the lens. At one point, we even had Ger paint his signature “on the lens”, which turned out really cool.
Ger’s hoping to take his talents on the road and create his work “alla prima” in front of live crowds. He says a lot can be learned this way, and that the spontaneous decisions he is forced to make on-site can often yield “wonderful and unexpected results”.
— Sean Montgomery