© Jim Smithson - http://www.smithsonphoto.com
Recently Jim Smithson had the pleasure of working with RR Partners shooting for their client Norwegian Cruise Lines. He and his team produced 6 ads of NCL’s associates in New York, Alaska, Bermuda, Hawaii, Italy and the Caribbean.
The catch is that he shot them all at Smashbox LA in a 10 hour span.
“Naturally, my preference would be to shoot them on location so this gig was going to be a real challenge. We had 6 stock images that our real people talent had to be inserted into, with each location requiring a total re-light. In addition, issues of perspective and focal lengths had to be visually matched. Throw in a full compliment of agency and client in the studio and 10 hours to get it all done. His first though was, ‘What the hell was I thinking!’
In order to maintain the tight schedule, production had to be seamless and efficient. Sr. AD Hosea Gruber was instrumental in communicating the expectations of the campaign, which meant I had a clear understanding of each locations relationship to the travel agent and vice versa.”
Hosea had this to say about working with Jim, “From an art director’s perspective, working with Jim was just about as good as it gets. We had a challenging shoot, followed by some challenging compositing to get the campaign that we needed. Not only did Jim deal with all the pre-shoot changes, the during-shoot pressure, the post-shoot curve balls, and still deliver the beautiful art we needed — he also made our clients feel listened to and taken care of throughout the entire process. He was a true collaborator and that’s what I look for.”
Jim’s experience with post/retouching also played a key role, ensuring all the visual cues were in sync while he shot and retouched on the fly. “It was pretty smooth. It generally took a few takes to get lighting and perspective matched. Being able to drop them into the backgrounds and quickly treat them was very helpful to me and reassuring to the agency and client.”
© Jim Smithson - http://www.smithsonphoto.com