The Brief / Specsavers / Coochie Hart / Kerry Harrison

The Brief is a regular feature on the LPA blog which takes a behind the scenes look at a photoshoot. THE BRIEF Photographer: Kerry Harrison Client: Specsavers Title: Little Angels and Little Monsters Agency: Coochie Hart Art Director: Michael Hutchinson Production: LPA Production Models: Sienna Rose White ( Top Talent) & Charlie Yhap (BMA) Stylist: Alice Timms (LPA Style) HMU: Claire Louise Mazik (LPA Style) Shoot dates: March 2014 Usage: All print media & digital, to include but not limited to POS, DM, Posters, OOH, magazines, press, PR. ATL & BTL Worldwide,

When this fun brief came along from Specsavers, we knew LPA Photographer Kerry Harrison was perfect for the job.

Kerry has lots of experience working with kids (see below) and always makes for a happy and relaxed shoot.

Kerry also recently worked on another Specsavers campaign shooting an older ager group, which produced some great results.

The Brief :

The original brief was to produce 1 final image of a ‘child in glasses wearing an animal style hat with another pair of glasses on top ’ for the Specsavers’ ‘Kids’ 2 free pairs’ campaign. The image needed to be upbeat, cute & fun. Ultimately Specsavers were looking for a photographer who could work well with children and produce vibrant, but natural looking photography. The final images were so good and the models so ideal that our client wasn’t able to decide between them, so the agency decided to go with 2 final images in the end.

One of the orginal scamps.

LPA’s inhouse production agency LPA Production set about preparing the costs and production schedule and organising all the logistics…

The Estimate:

We included: Photographers fees and expenses:

- Shoot fees to reflect the usage and for a 1 day shoot - Recce fee - Photographic expenses – digi-capture, post production and equipment & lighting

Talent:

- Casting Director (to source suitable children models) - Casting studio - Casting expenses (including casting assistant, equipment & lighting and catering) - Model fees (including chaperone fees) - Audition fees (expenses for children to attend the casting) - Children’s performance license fees (children legally need a ‘license’ to perform) - First Aider (this is legally required for shoots with children)

Location:

- Location hire fee - Location library fee

Crew and their expenses:

- 1^st Assistant - Producer (to be responsible for producing shoot) - Stylist, (including prep, shoot and returns days plus expenses for wardrobe) - Hair & make-up Artist

Misc:

- Transport expenses for all crew - Accommodation for the client - Catering costs - Insurance, telephone, couriers etc.

The Preproduction

Once the costs had been approved we could begin on the production. We realistically planned out the preproduction and shoot, confirmed dates, booked crew and had a series of meetings and conference calls to ensure everyone was briefed and models, styling and locations were approved by Specsavers.

Models:

Originally Specsavers asked for 1 boy and 1 girl between 7-10 years old who had cheeky, enthusiastic personalities and looked natural wearing glasses. We cast around 50 children and eventually settled on 2 boys and 2 girls. We organised music and games to keep the kids entertained.

Kerry photographed all 4 children on the shoot day and the client decided on the final x 2 shots afterwards.

Casting shots

Styling:

Wardrobe and prop styling was very important for this shoot to add to the real, upbeat feel. LPA Style’s brilliant and unflappable Alice Timms has lots of experience on similar shoots, works really well with kids and did a fabulous job as always. She actually designed and made the hats working alongside the art director.

Alice says:

“This was a great shoot to work on as the brief required animal hats where we could position the features according to where the glasses sat on the head. So I decided to design them and get them made to get exactly what we needed. I did some research and working with the art director designed some hats for different animals with different features. At the casting I made felt ears and eyes that could be pinned on hats that we tried on the children to see what worked best. I then had the different hats knitted up and sewed the features on the shoot day to get them in the right place for the glasses. The bear was the favourite, and Kerry was great and full of energy all day getting the children to keep smiling while balancing the glasses on the hat.”

© Jamie Mellor / Behind the scenes on shoot. From left to right: Specsavers’ Sarah Marquis, LPA Style Hair & Make Up Artist Claire Louise Mazik, model Sienna Rose White (Top Talent) and LPA Stylist Alice Timms.

We also brought in LPA Style’s Claire Louise to make sure the kids’ hair looked good with the hats and also to provide some really light make-up (kids will be kids so some of them had a few scrapes here and there.)

Location:

Specsavers wanted an indoor location with the option of outside. We wanted a house that felt lived in by a family, bright and airy, and preferably somewhere that would have kids drawings on the fridge, toys lying around and other similar touches. After a recce of several location houses, we settled on a house in Hampstead, north London that also had a garden.

Location library image of chosen location (UK Locations)

The Shoot

“I loved the idea of this shoot from the minute I saw the brief which called for spontaneous, intimate, real and cheeky moments with nothing too polished. Of course a campaign like this has elements that are really specific and in this case that was mainly about meticulous positioning of the hat and the two pairs of glasses. Not to mention reflections in the glass! Also anything in the foreground and background had to be considered carefully both in terms of colour, content and how out of focus it should be. With each shot being used in multiple formats we had to make sure the same information was present in the background whether the shot was used for a web banner or a long thin in-store portrait shape poster. Once all of this had been discussed and sorted it was time to let the kids be kids and enjoy the mayhem (whilst keeping a careful eye on the hat and glasses!).

A shoot like this is very much a team effort and we were lucky to have great art direction, fantastic styling, hair and makeup and production to make everything run to plan. My thinking is that if everyone on set is having a good time then that will come across in the images so we all left the shoot feeling good, if a little bit tired from chasing four kids around a garden for the day..”

Kerry Harrison

Here are some final images to show all the hard work paid off. Well done team, we think they look fantastic!

Photoshoot Glossary

POS: Point of Sale. Advertising in a retail environment where sales interaction with customers takes place.

DM: Direct Marketing – advertising which communicates straight to the customer, e.g printed literature that is posted.

OOH: Out of Home media e.g. billboards.

PR: Public Relations. Information about a company sent out to the press for publicity.

ATL: Above the Line advertising, which includes paid for media space e.g Posters, press advertising.

BTL: Below the line. Anything other than ATL

Recce: Visiting potential locations before the shoot to choose the most appropriate.

Digi-capture: The process of taking the photos on a photoshoot, capturing the images with a digital camera.

Post – production: Digital manipulation of the images after they have been taken.

Talent: The models or people (in this case children) who are being photographed in a photoshoot.

Children’s performance licences: A performance licence is required in the UK (and many other countries) when a child under the age of 16 is required to work on a shoot as a model. This is to protect the welfare of the child, for example to check that they are fit and healthy enough to work and are not working too many days in a given year. They are obtained from the employment officer at the borough where the child lives.

Scamps: Illustrations/sketches created to give an idea of what the photographer should be aiming to achieve in the final photographic image.

Location library fee: A location library is a database of locations like houses and office spaces which are available to hire for photoshoots. A fee is paid when you use a location from the database..

Prep: (In this case with regards to the styling) Initial preparation for a shoot, e.g preparing moodboards, online research.

Returns: When a stylist returns the options of clothes, props and décor which are not used on a photoshoot. Time for returns usually needs to be factored into the total photoshoot time.

Preproduction: The production which takes place before a shoot happens, to make sure everything runs smoothly on the day.

LPA/, LPA/Production, The Briefadmin25 April 2014advertising photography, behind the scenes photoshoot, child photography, kids expressions, kids images, location photography, north london photoshoot, photography agency, scary hats and glasses, specsavers campaigns, specsavers capaigns, the briefComment