While on my work experience, I was lucky enough to witness the promotional photoshoot for balletLORENT’s latest production, Snow White and Snow White: The Sacrifice. I learned about the process of photoshoots and the creativity and patience that goes into culminating each shot.
The day before, the poses and props were all experimented with and planned, so that instead of trying to improvise the photoshoot on the spot, there was a rough plan of who was needed in each shot and what props had to go where. The extra preparation the day before helped for the actual shoot by saving everyone time on these kinds of creative decisions. For example, sixty red apples had to be bought the day before to fill up the cart, and that morning sixty more had to be brought in as sixty wasn’t nearly enough. On the morning of the shoot, time was taken to make sure that everything was where it needed to be and that we were fully prepared for the photographer. I knew that there was a lot of preparation involved in photoshoots, but I didn’t realise just how long they take to complete and how long it takes to get the perfect shot. The photographer would look at each and every shot, and either make adjustments to the performers, the lighting, or the editing of the shot in order to make sure the final one came out perfect. There was many, many takes for each desired shot so that at least one of the many takes could be ‘the one’. Seeing the equipment and lighting gear was great too, as it showed just how much technology is used in for a single picture.
Some shoots took longer than others to complete and needed more takes. This was especially so with scenes such as with the Queen and the heart, where a lot of fake blood was used on the backdrop and on her, and more time was taken in configuring her position on the chair and how to place all her props. The scene with the queen ripping out Snow White’s ‘guts’ took a long time as well, as the perfect angle and position of the knitted ‘guts’ was needed in order for the composition of the shots to work. There was also quite a few people helping out with the props, whether it be polishing each of the many apples or Snow White’s shots, arranging fabric and camp for the floor or pouring blood onto a pretend foam heart. I spent a lot of time observing the team and seeing how the photographer and the subjects of the pictures worked together to decide what was best for the pictures. It wasn’t one person calling all the shots, but it was more that several people would chip in with their idea, and the pictures ended up coming out gorgeously thanks to these little ideas or moments of improvisation. For example, the mirror was just standing holding her shoulder, and when the photographer happened to take a picture of it, it ended up being a really lovely shot. The team at balletLORENT all worked together to make this photoshoot happen, and it was amazing to see just how many pictures were able to be shot in the span of a day.
It was great to see the other side of photoshoots that, especially young people not in the industry, might never get to see. It was an informative experience that taught me about the whole photoshoot process, and how despite how things may be planned sometimes a shot might just not be working and another idea must be come up with on the spot. The balletLORENT team created some gorgeous pictures for the two Snow White productions, and ran an incredibly successful photoshoot.
The photographer was Luke Waddington.
