If you’re not familiar with the annual Women’s Leadership Panel, here’s an overview: Ad 2 seeks out female leaders in the advertising, PR, marketing and creative industries to participate in a panel, moderated by a speaker from the previous year. It’s a night of conversation and camaraderie around female leadership (or just leadership), and if all goes according to plan, we all leave feeling inspired and motivated.
Our challenge as we plan this event is to come up with new, creative ways to promote and host it. This year, that idea came in the form of a creative concept: a black-and-white, Irving Penn-style photoshoot featuring our female speakers. When our design chair, Nathen Cantwell, first pitched the idea that he had developed with local photographer Stephanie Hynes, we all fell in love.
The only problem? Getting five very important, very busy people in the same room for (pause for effect) three hours. On a Sunday.
We knew we had to act quickly and strategically to pull it off, but the outcome was well worth it. Take a look for yourself.
So how do you plan a photoshoot with five high profile speakers and a complete photo and video team in a week? We’ll break it down.*
- Have a vision.
It all starts with the concept. Together with photographer Stephanie Hynes, the design committee pulled moodboards, examples and inspiration together to pitch to the larger Women’s Leadership Panel committee. The overall concept was to capture the strength, sophistication and influence these leaders bring to the table. (Spoiler alert: they also brought their modeling A game.)
- Pull a(n amazing) team together.
“You’re only as strong as your weakest link” is a saying, right? Or maybe I made that up. Either way, we needed to make sure everyone involved was 100% on board with the idea, and we needed a stellar team to pull it off. Along with Stephanie, we enlisted the help of Tyler Eichorst from Acowsay for video, Amber Young for makeup, Claire Nevaisier for styling and wardrobe, and Antonio Rodriguez for lighting. Each talented team member helped bring this concept alive, and we were so lucky to have their help.
- Pre-pro meeting and dossier.
Confession: I once thought the term “dossier” was reserved for private investigators on my favorite low brow TV shows. Since this photoshoot, the word takes on a whole new meaning, which is: a collection of very important information related to the photoshoot and those involved in it. We started with a kick-off meeting to work through the schedule for the shoot, raising any questions (a lot) and making sure the day would go as seamlessly as possible. In general, when asking important people a favor like participating in a photo shoot, you do not want to waste their time. That’s probably on my list of Top Ten Career Don’ts, right next to spilling coffee on yourself before an interview. Thus, it was important for the team to work off of a detailed dossier outlining all of the moving parts for the photo shoot. It saved a lot of headaches later!
- Delegate.
Speaking of team, there is no “I” in it. (Wow, this is quickly turning into a word version of inspirational posters.) The great thing about having so much support from people with different areas of expertise is that you can really divvy up the tasks so one person doesn’t bear the brunt of the work. For this photoshoot, we had five Ad 2 board members helping out behind the scenes, shuffling models from makeup to styling to portraits, setting up food and beverages, and so on. Amber was all about makeup and making sure every model looked like her beautiful self; Claire brought a rack of supplemental wardrobe pieces and jewelry to bring the looks together; Antonio and Stephanie worked through lighting options and Tyler scouted video locations throughout the building. With everyone’s unique set of skills working together, the day moved along at a smooth yet speedy clip.
- Today’s the day.
Deep breaths. Is the background set? Is the lighting perfect? How are the test shots looking? Did we remember coffee? The day of the shoot is basically running through an endless, looping list in your head. So really, like any other day—except with a makeup artist and impeccable lighting. The photo team spent a good part of a Saturday afternoon setting up the environment. Claire was also tasked with finding set pieces to get that Vanity Fair look, which smartly enough included old ladders, ornate rugs and apple crates. All day-of jitters aside, being part of a photo and video shoot is a pretty cool experience. Especially when your models are spouting pearls of wisdom every few seconds about life and careers and happiness and you’re just like, “Wow, so wise. Can we hang out forever?” But in reality you’re like, “Can I refill anyone’s coffee?”
It was really a spectacular day, considering everyone gave up their time and donated their talents to help out. I’m continually impressed with what people in this industry will do to support each other.
Panelists share advice they would give to their younger selves.
Tyler from Acowsay worked on 5 incredible teaser videos throughout the day. Check them out here and watch for the rest on our twitter and instagram feeds.
- Celebrate.
Celebrate teamwork. Celebrate generous creatives like Stephanie, Claire, Amber, Antonio and Tyler. Celebrate the honesty and inspiration from the speakers (and now models). Pop a bottle of Prosecco and bask in the beauty of collaboration. And then, wait with bated breath until the first images are released.
Want to hear from these amazing women yourself? Register here for the Women’s Leadership Panel on January 21, 2016 at the Women’s Club.
Thanks to our in-kind creatives and the Ad 2 board members that made this shoot possible.
*Editor’s note: This is in no way intended to be a recommendation or preferred method of planning, producing and executing a photoshoot. It’s merely a summary of the (very quick) steps we took and the collaboration that brought it all together. In short, we don’t recommend you try this at home.
By: Gia Bellamy
The post How to Plan a Photoshoot in 7 days or less appeared first on AdFed.