Re: Are ND grads only used for static shots?

Well in my neck of the woods, what the client wants dictates how I approach a shoot.
For example... I was contacted by a jewelry store to shoot a new commercial for them.
During the sit down it was decided that they wanted to emulate a movie style approach to their new spot.
We finalized the boards and everything was approved and set.
During the shoot the the AE from the agency told me that the marketing rep from the jewelry store was very upset,
because the camera we were using was very noisy, and must be broken... "It will ruin the sound of our commercial" she said.
I explained that it was an MOS camera, (Shooting with my ole' workhorse, an Eclair CM3) and that audio was not being recorded, as we would add music and VO later.
At that point I recapped our meeting highlights... Their budget did not allow renting a 435 or 535,
and they insisted on 35mm, so I shot with the CM3 instead of using the Arri SR II and shooting 16mm.
Throughout the rest of the shoot it was clear that the marketing rep for the jewelry store was just not happy.
After the shoot and telecine we assembled the new spot and were more than happy with the look of the commercial.
The agency thought the footage looked awesome.
Then came the reply from the jewelry store!
It looks old fashioned because you cut between shots instead of zooming like our competitors commercial.

In the end the agency was dropped, and we were rehired to come back out and shoot a new spot with our nice quiet modern Canon XL1s mounted on a jib doing a sweep and zoom.
When trying to push to raise the quality bar closer to the film we shot earlier, we suggested using the Panny SDX900.
Oh no, we like that little camera, it looks wonderful!

Go figure!