Brawndo - The Thirst Mutilator

Brawndo is a fictional beverage, well, was a fictional beverage from the movie ‘Idiocracy’ by Mike Judge. And now Brawndo exists in real life. It’s not like those other drinks where they put sugar water and a drop of food coloring in a can and slap on a label from your favorite cartoon. Brawndo is a real energy drink, it’s tasty and sometimes gets me through the day, night, next day and sometime into next week. To quote some promotional Brawndo videos, drinking Brawndo is like shaving your chest with a lawnmower, riding a dinosaur attached to a rocket or sitting on a 300′ pony covered in chainsaws. You get the point.

What better way to show everyone a few beverage tricks of the trade than to shoot an ice cold, refreshing glass of my favorite beverage?

The can and glass are situated on black plexiglass, now black plexi can be hard to find.. I purchased mine from eBay. You really want this stuff as it’s the absolute best when it comes to shooting something on a mirrored surface. I’ve tried clear plexi sitting on a black sheet, spray painting the underside black and even used a mirror. Nothing looks as great as real authentic black plexiglass.

Behind the plexiglass is a piece of white foamcore, nothing special here.

The foamcore background is lit by a single strobe at 1/32 power. There’s also a piece of white foamcore propped up in front of the beverage. There’s a small area under the foamcore that I will be shooting from. The white foamcore in front of the beverage is being hit with about 1/8 power on another strobe. Since the can and the glass are both reflective you’ll want a large soft light source lighting it which is where this front foamcore comes in. You’ll get a few highlights on the front of the surfaces but if you were to use a hard light source like a single strobe, you’d have a small hot spot where the strobe reflected in the subject. Not good.

Looks cold huh? Cold and refreshing? I can just imagine reaching into the photo and grabbing the cold glass, ice clinking around and downing this tasty beverage.

It’s fake. All fake. Cold things never last under hot lights, or even when shooting strobes. Cold things warm up and warm things cool down. That’s why food photographers have to fake most things, once a food or beverage item is placed in front of the camera, it goes south and quick.

Beverages are the easiest to shoot. In this shot I cleaned the glass with glass cleaner and then distilled water followed by a lint-free cloth. The ice cubes were cleaned the same way, yes, even ice cubes aren’t sacred. These are glass and never melt! Plus, normal ice cubes usually photograph cloudy. Not refreshing! Next we add the water and food coloring, in a gallon of distilled water I mixed green and yellow food coloring until I had my match. Why distilled water? It’s clear and you won’t have any little floaties dancing around your beverage. Why so much? Lets say you need more liquid. Good luck mixing the exact same shade, mix way more than you need ahead of time and you’ll never have to worry about that.

Next is condensation, you can’t play ‘Cold’ without condensation. That’s nothing more than a sprayed on 50/50 mix of distilled water and glycerin. The glycerin keeps the water from evaporating so quickly, not sure how long – but at least an hour.. Probably more. Note that where condensation should NOT be, it isn’t – like the top of the glass and the can. No ‘Cold Liquid’, no condensation. You can use gaffers tape to mask off the top of the glass/can before you spray on the condensation or just cover it with a paper towel.

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