The Floor Problem

Today I had a tutorial with my tutor Miranda about my final ideas and what I was going to do to make them happen. The main things I ran over was that I am shooting long exposures of the body, capturing body movement and motion.  I know I want to shoot on an all black background and will have my model Claire, a pole fitness instructor performing moves on a pole in the centre, this brought me to my next problem .... the floor.

I've mapped out a small timeline of photos to show how I have progressed through this problem and solved it!  The first set of images at the top shows my black material backdrop but when it was on my original backdrop stands, which do not reach the ceiling and also do not fit wide enough across the room.  So you can see in the very first image that it doesn't sit right and it is quite awkward having the stands there as it doesn't go all the way to the wall.

You can see with the images above I tried to pull the material forward to see what It would look like and of course it looks better all black.  Because of the problem with the backdrop, my dad had a very clever idea, and went and found some old shelf bars and drilled and screwed them into the wall at either side of the room as wall fixtures for the backgrounds.  He had to long copper bars to put each background on, my white material and my black material.  This was perfect, it meant that the backgrounds were at the highest they could go, they are on longer bars meaning I could use the whole of the material and how much easier it is when they will both be constantly hanging.  The four images below show how the shelf parts are screwed in and the two copper bars for backgrounds.  You can get a feel of the room size and how much space I have for shooting the pole. 

I took these images of my mum and dad putting up the background, on to the copper poles and up on to the shelf.  The far right image below looks so much better that the very first image, the backgrounds are now across the whole wall meaning i can use more space within shoots.  The floor in the room is a bright laminate, therefore, quite shiny.

The PROBLEM:

I want to have the whole of the background for this shoot black. Which usually means, in a studio you pull the paper or material (in my case) down and cover the floor with that piece of paper or material and then put lights, subject and camera on top of that particular floor.  My problem comes in when I want to put the pole up but cant put the pole on top of the material because it is far too dangerous and I cant have it on top of a paper background because I only have material black.  I pulled the material round to see what it looked like all black and its what I'm looking for so I need to think of something. The floor is a laminate floor, so easy for the pole to go on top of, but it can't go on top of material because there is the risk of it sliding.  I need to find something black and flat to go on the floor.  

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These images below were a very quick test of the idea of long exposures and slow motions with the body around the pole.  This is before the black for the floor was sorted and you can see how bad the images would be in the floor was laminate.  I know that the body movements show up lovely onto black as you can see of the upper part of the images but the floor is still a problem and needs to be sorted before the shoot.  Even with this test using my mum and sister, they were slipping on the material that was on the floor, so it should preferably be as flat as possible. 

The SOLUTION:
When I originally knew that for this project I was going to be shooting low key in a dark room, I needed to have the windows covered up because I didn't want any light to be coming in.  I tried to use cardboard to cover the windows but it ended up being too difficult so for this myself and my parents (who have been my amazing assistants) used a think ground sheet from a hardware store like B&Q or Homebase.  These type of ground sheets are waterproof and quite think but still kind of lightweight and flexible, so we cut a piece for the window and it worked perfectly to keep the light out.  So when it came to needed a black floor, it took a little thinking but, it seemed like the perfect option.  We had quite a lot of the sheet left over after the window and laid it out on the ground in the room.  The pole had to be taken down, and the black sheet was stretched out across the whole room and we duct taped it down all around the edges so it was as flat as it could be.  Then because the pole had been marked out in the centre the pole was put up with a small circle cut out so the pole was still on the floor but partly on top on the black ground sheet so it stayed down.
The images below show the results. It was a great idea, and made the ground a perfect black. These images show my backdrop hanging up before it has dropped down and the ground sheet flattened.

The only thing I was worried about was whether the black ground sheet would shine and reflect.  The only way for this to see is by taking some more test shots.  Theres a normal image with all lights on that shows a shine, but the sheet is actually more of a 'matt' shine therefore doesn't reflect that much.  I then pulled the background down and placed it how I wanted to and folded it back so there was a straight line and took another test shot with my sister.  The lighting settings were quite high and bright so you can see the black backdrop and the black ground sheet with a small shine (middle below), but then I tried making the camera settings lower and a shorter exposure time and then the background and the floor together looked perfect. You can barely see the line of where the two join from floor to backdrop (below right), and even if there is a little, it can be taken away in photoshop.

 I am now perfectly happy with how the black background has worked out and have solved this problem that I had.  I will now have to hold a test shoot for the long exposures to see what settings I will need and then I'm ready for the shoot with my model/dancer.