Sometimes a miss-sent email is a great thing. Birmingham, Alabama-based photographer Stephen DeVries was hired by the branch in Tampa for a still and stop motion campaign for Publix Super Markets, and for them, it was all about the dough.
Publix, a Florida-based grocery store chain, makes bread from scratch each day, so they wanted to put a spotlight on that. Publix is known for being completely employee-owned and being one of the top-ranked companies for employee treatment. It’s a place where people proudly shop. Stephen himself was pleased to shoot for a place where he and his wife do their daily shopping at. For the campaign, “Scratch Made,” Stephen photographed the dough, the bread, and the tasty snacks the bread could become. Then, they worked closely with a food illustrator to turn the photos into stop-motion videos.
For me, stop-motion is a perfect bridge between still and motion. It allows me to have my hand directly in both sides of the production: the directing and the actual image capture.
Stephen started by receiving several concepts for the campaign, complete with sketches. From there, he and his DP made a production plan. They really wanted to focus on the bread, so their planning had strong direction. The lighting, the illustrations, the images—were all about the bread.
While capturing shots for the stills of the campaign, Stephen also took shots for the stop-motion videos. He set up a timed capture that fired strobes every three seconds. That allowed him to overshoot the frames needed for the final illustrations. The shoot happened quickly, definitely no loafing around for Stephen and his team.
Publix has a very distinct look: moody and contrasty but with a lot of pops of light. It’s a little messy and home-spun while still feeling elevated. All of those things describe my style and also the type of work I aspire to create.
I really enjoy working with a team and when you have a great team everything just flows smoothly and comes together in the final product. I think that was evident in this project from pre-pro to on set to the final project. We had an amazing crew and were able to create some really fun and powerful work!
Publix launched this campaign across all their social media and digital platforms to great reception. After the campaign launched, several clients snatched up Stephen to shoot more stop-motion pieces
See more of Stephen’s work on his website.
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