On The Move With Angela Coppola
Adding motion to their repertoires has become a familiar course for many still photographers, and Angela Coppola is among those branching out. The namesake of Coppola Studios in Boston has dabbled in video for over a year now, and admits it has “inspired me to see a project differently.”
“You think differently about every aspect: lighting, angles, how you want to say something,” Angela says. “Timing and production all change when you have moving parts.”
One of the photographer’s most ambitious motion projects to date is “Urbanites,” a self-assigned piece she’s using as a promo for new clients. With a crew including a set designer and logistical challenges like wardrobe changes, “Urbanites” involved considerably more preproduction than the motion work she’d done before. “My previous videos involved a piece of time,” she notes. “‘Urbanites’ is more a fashion piece with a story behind it.”
Angela has loads of experience working with kids, but took extra steps to make her young “Urbanites” models comfortable. The set consisted of backdrops and props the kids could easily move around – “The kids place each building or pigeon or sidewalk in a certain place,” Angela notes – and the artist also carefully selected music to play during the shoot. “The kids could use the beat to walk through the scenes,” she says. “That made it easier to edit the piece.”
According to the photographer, all that thoughtful preproduction work paid off. After sharing the piece with several potential clients, Angela received a call to estimate three new videos – hopefully, she says, the first of several potential clients who will be attracted by her video skills.
“I think of video as an extension of my photography,” Angela says. “It gives a client a more complete way to say something. My hope is that clients will use the still work for packaging and ads, and the videos would be added to their websites as sizzlers or informational videos.”
Click here to see more moving work from the kid-friendly photographer.