Anatomy of an Advertising Shoot: Part II

It's been a long day. Yesterday started at 4:00 in the morning when I had to get up to fly out to Phoenix for my shoot while today, my first day of shooting, we got started before dawn. But the shooting went great and everyone's happy with the work. We did two shoots. The first was a couple of kids riding on their bikes with groceries.



The whole idea is to use the ad headlines in the shot. In this case, we had the headlines in several places so that we can choose where the headline will appear afterwards and then retouch the type out where we don't want it. This shot was especially tough since we had to get the models situated just right so that it would all fit on the final billboards. Not easy when you're dealing with kids and bikes while sitting on the back of a bucking golf cart.

The next shot was a lot more fun. The idea behind the campaign is to use the headlines to call attention to some of the unique aspects of the housing development. Basically, the development has this feel of Maywood USA/Pleasantville. The high school football team is named the Vipers so we did this whole football fan thing. The concept was that the fans are so into their team that they'll paint its name on their bodies.



We mixed in real cheerleaders with hired models. Unfortunately, the client decided right before the shoot that showing any skin would be too risque so they killed the body painting shot. I liked the concept so I shot it the original way anyhow - as well as a compromise way just to be safe and make everyone happy. (Not an easy job.)

In addition to everything else that we were doing today, we also took some time to scout a location that we'll be shooting at on Tuesday. It's in the nearby hills. This one should be interesting. The model that the talent chose is the most expensive of the bunch. We'll see if he's worth it. Here's the area where we'll be shooting. Should be interesting to see what we come back with.



John

Anatomy of an Advertising Shoot

Greetings from Phoenix. (I'm sitting in a Days Inn about 20 minutes outside of Phoenix as I write this.)

Most of the time, I'm posting about one of the various weddings that I'm doing. This time of year, the weddings have slowed to a trickle so if I wait until my next wedding, you might be waiting a long time before I have something new to report. Instead, I figured that I'd write about an advertising shoot that I'm in the midst of. As many of you know, I had shot advertising for many years before shooting weddings and I still do several ad shoots a year.

Ad shoots are much different from weddings. With a wedding, I pretty much show up and shoot. With an ad shoot, it's like I'm planning the wedding and then shooting it. This photo shoot is for a higher-end housing development in the Phoenix area. It's my responsibility to scout the locations, hire the talent (models), arrange for props and wardrobe, and finally bring it all together so that I can record something (hopefully) amazing on film. No small task.

Here's a shot of the main street within the development.



The good news is that I have a small army to help me. Tomorrow, I'll be doing a location scout with the account exec from the ad agency and a representative of the client. In the meantime, I've got my producer working on getting talent lined up from the talent agencies and I'll have a separate crew putting together a casting call for the people that we want to see. In addition, I'll have separate wardrobe and prop stylists to pull that end together. The ad agency will help with the concepting and finally, i'll have a crew of assistants to get things done on the shoot days.

People often mention that they could never handle the pressure of photographing a wedding. I guess because of my background in advertising photography, I've never thought of shooting weddings as being that much pressure. Trying to plan a big wedding in a week is what pulling off a big ad shoot is like. And with over $100k riding on the shoot, it has to be done right. Fortunately, this ain't my first barbeque. ;-)

Today, I spent the day just cruising around the development so that I could get a feel for the place. I had my shot list and was looking for locations that would work. The tower and flag below will probably work great for a Fourth of July parade that we'll be setting up.



I'd be happy using "real people," but the client decided that they wanted to hire agency talent. (Trying to cast 20 plus models in three days is going to be a challenge even going through talent agencies.) Still, just walking around, I was able to capture some fun, but real moments.





Your typical scouting shots are just boring, here-it-is snapshots. I, of course, got bored of that so I began getting a little artsy with my compositions. Eventually, I just turned the day into an art project of sorts.






Once the sun set, the light was amazing. It rained earlier in the day so there was that beautiful desert light getting the clouds to just pop with yellows and pinks.




That's it for now. As things progress, I'll keep the blog updated. We're shooting this weekend and into the following week. There's a lot of work to be done between now and then though. I return to San Diego tomorrow and then will come back out on Friday morning. Wish me luck!

Jenae & Brian - La Valencia, La Jolla

I have to admit, when I first met with Jenae and her folks, I was a little skeptical about having the wedding inside the Sala Room at the La Valencia Hotel in the middle of December. I was concerned that it might be too dark since the days are so short this time of year. It turned out to be a great location with a very intimate feel.

The weather report predicted heavy rain, but the day proved to be a little cool with light clouds overhead. They say that rain on your wedding day brings good luck, but I'll take the good weather any day. ;-)




The wedding day coordination and planning was handled smoothly by Kristin Garuba of Pink Papaya. We've worked together on several weddings. She's a true pro and everything usually rolls along smoothly - today was no exception.








Jenae's decoration of the La Sala room was not only beautiful - it was perfect. There's no such thing as too many flowers or candles. (She also designed the bridesmaid dresses. My hat's off to her - they looked awesome.)





One of the great things about getting married around Christmas is that you get the benefit of all the lights, flowers and decorations that have been put up. To borrow a phrase, you can have any flower you like so long as it's a poinsettia.









It was a fun (and good looking) crowd at the reception. Mucho dancing and festiveness. It finally rained outside for a while but that just added to the magic.





Well, most everybody was having a good time...





And finally, off into the night they went.



To view more work by San Diego wedding photographer John Mireles, please visit ventanaphotography.com.