As I’m sure you noticed in the last post, the crew list was pretty extensive. This project was no small feat.
The pre-production process took about a month, and even if we had wanted more time, it would not have been possible to get it. The phone was shipped from Taiwan under lock and key and was on a very tight schedule to make all of its appearances as there where only 4 in existence at that time.
After reviewing the production notes, there were obviously 2 things I needed to do right away. I had to build my team and I had to start location scouting. The idea for the shoot was to follow 5 young people through their weekend in a metropolitan area, specifically San Francisco. I quickly realized the scenes that HTC wanted were also available here is Sacramento. There was also the issue that the original schedule had us shooting in December which meant most of San Francisco was decorated for Christmas.
Kody, Christine and I went out and shot location images of our city to send to HTC and they agreed Sacramento was the perfect backdrop for the project.
Upon the decision being made that we would be working in Sacramento I was able to confirm the rest of the team and get to work reaching out to local businesses and resources. From city agencies, to restaurants, to casting agencies we had everything we needed to start building the schedule and the storyboard.
Even though California was having a beautifully sunny winter, there was concern that some of the outdoor shots would be disrupted with bad weather, so we also had to put in place backup plans for all the outdoor shots that could be implemented the day of shooting.
The next step was to cast the models. We had the pleasure of working with Amber Collins of Cast Images. There were 5 characters we had to cast in this project. Amber built some galleries for HTC to look through based on their descriptions and we had our models selected in no time at all! Sacramento has some amazing talent!
Now that we had our models I could send the wardrobe details and measurements to Simone to start pulling wardrobe for the project. We were given very specific requests for each model based on the character that was created for each of them. We scheduled a fitting and sent some images to HTC for final approvals.
So that was it, I had my team, my locations, the models and wardrobe, I had the storyboard and shot list on repeat in my brain. It almost felt like planning a wedding, all the pieces were in place and the last few days were spent waiting in anticipation of putting it all to work.
Next up, a behind the scenes look of our week long photo shoot!
