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The Assignment: Himalaya Pre-Pro

(bright tone) The assignment, so, like I said earlier, the assignment is for a high end brand that makes, sells, you know, Himalaya sells cars for between $100,000, $250,000. So they're not cheap vehicles. They're very boutique, limited edition things. So from the get go, I know from seeing the product, from having seen the product in person that you need to get a clear idea, as somebody who's going to browse the website and see the photos as a customer, as a potential customer, you need to get a clear idea that this thing is worth 200 grand instantly when you see the photos. So the way that the vehicle is presented needs to feel high end, so very clean, sharp stuff. I'm going to use zoom lenses to compress background so the vehicle stands out even more, and I'm going to have, I'm going to be making very clean and sharp images with minimal editing, just very commercial, which is something that I don't get to do as often as this, and honestly, it's very nice to do that because it's ju...

st very liberating. It's, there's a clear set of rules to respect like the right, you know, right lenses, and the right way to edit, and the right way to clean up the file. So this is something I'm very excited to share. So the way I connected with the client is actually through Instagram, again. We ended up working together on this giveaway project, so the client, Omaze, and I are giving away a Defender to somebody who enters this giveaway, and the giveaway serves to, you know, to benefit a nonprofit like the Nat Geo Society. So anyways, I was hanging out with a client on set, and you know, we're talking, they needed images. So this is how the thing happened. So I didn't go seek them out, they didn't come and seek me out, it just happen like this, and, you know, because you're out there chatting with the persons who own the company. And these are always good opportunities, whenever you're hanging out with potential, you know, clients to sort of spark some ideas. You know, when I was like, "Oh, I saw your website. I think that, you know, some of the photos we could do better." Just like very politely I was saying how we could improve everything, and next thing you know, we were shooting for them. Okay, deliverables. So this is a very, again, very commercial shoot. I'm going to be doing photos for their website, for any brochure they print, newsletters, and then some social too. But essentially, my deliverables are about 20 images that they can use. And 20 images in about one and a half days is a lot of work. So I'm going to show you how I approach a small window of time to get the maximum amount of photos possible, the maximum variety possible, while still being, you know, top notch quality. Now the scouting process. This is probably one of the most exciting parts because you get to pick geographical areas and go there and make things happen, right? Things happen out of nowhere. So I usually start with where the client is based. In this case, Himalaya is based in two places: somewhere in South Carolina, I think it's Charlotte, and then their other base is in Alpine, Wyoming. I visited that place a few weeks ago before doing the shoot, which was very convenient, so whenever you have this luxury to just go and scout the place, please do it before your shoot because it's going to save you a lot of time. And with regards to the location, I went there a few weeks ago to shoot something else in that area, and I was like, "Ooh, this has a lot of potential," because, and whenever you can, you should definitely scout the places you're going to shoot before, you know, in person, not just online. Just because it's going to save you a lot of time and remove stress from your shoulders. You're going to show up there and you know exactly where you're going. And then you can just focus on making good photos. So I saw the place a few weeks ago, and what really struck me is the fact that there is an airplane hangar very close, which again, the kind of people who buy these such expensive vehicles probably like airplane hangars as well, and airplanes. Then near it, there's a lake, just in Alpine, which has a road that drives straight into the lake because it's a dam and then the road was covered by water when the dam was, existed. So there's the old road going into the lake. And then, flying into Alpine last time, I noticed sand dunes, just from the plane, like down below, not too far before we landed. I'm like, "I never knew there was sand dunes in Wyoming." So again, it just comes down to noticing things. If I didn't see the sand dunes I would've probably, you know, never thought I'd go shoot there, but I'm pretty sure we're going to go shoot to the sand dunes right now in, you know, in the field. Rambling. So after seeing the sand dunes, you know, if you're not paying attention to what's going on, I might have missed them, but after researching the sand dunes, they're called St. Anthony Sand Dunes, and we're going to go shoot there, I think as well. So we have hangar, lake, and then about two hours away, the sand dunes. So if you only have a day and a half to shoot, or two days, you want things to be close, you don't want to spend time driving around because it's a waste of everybody's time. So whenever I can, I like to have all my locations within two hours max of each other. Okay, we're still rolling? Yep. All right, four gigabytes after, we can pick up. Let me show you the treatment I've put together for the shoot because it always gets everybody on the same page, right? My goal is to be completely in sync with the client. So there's no, yeah, I just want to make sure that everybody's expectations are on the same page, and the treatment/mood board definitely does align everybody. There's no more room for questions because the visual vibe is there, and the deliverables are there. Again, usually what I need, taking a step back, is I need to know who the audience is. So where are the images going? Where's the what, you know what's the audience? Is it the website? Is it social? Okay, then I need to know the deliverables. How many do we need? And then generally I need to know the budget, so just so I know the scope of what I can do, and that's pretty much it. So once I have that, then I can just put together the treatment. So in part three of the workshop, I will walk you through some of the treatments I've built, and tell you how you can build them. But this is a little bit of a scoop. This is a little bit of a sneak peek. I use Keynote to make most of my treatments, if, especially if time is limited, sometimes there's not much time. If I have time, I go into InDesign, otherwise Keynote is the guy, but there's more coming on that in part three. So we're in Keynote right now. This is what I send the client. So Himalaya Defender and then our logo at the bottom. So I'm going to focus the shoot in two different parts, first part, craftsmanship, so that's the first half of the day is craftsmanship. And I'm going to shoot that at the air park, you know, where the hangar is. We have access to the hangar, so we're dialed on that. The, I call this craftsmanship, I took that literally from their website, right? So when you're working with a client, they're going to appreciate if you just take the time to go to the website and read interviews of the founder, just read as much as you can, educate yourself on the client, so then you can put something, you know, treatment together that makes a lot of sense. So craftsmanship is one of the words that comes up, you know, time and time again, on their website. They're really proud of the craftsmanship of the product, which it's, yeah, it's pretty high level. So I'm going to focus on that in the first part. So here's some photos that, inspiration photos that I have. Left one you might recognize from my friend, Aaron Brimhall. Really good car photographer, and then the right one is from Singer. So when you go to Singer's website, you really get an idea instantly that the cars are worth, you know, half a million dollars or more because the photos are very clean, so I definitely want to show the same level of quality in the photos. That's why Singer's on the mood board. So continuing on craftsmanship, this is the ideas of shots I'm going to take. So side profiles, interior details, logos, and then interesting framing, you know, side of the hood, engine bay, because they put Corvette engines in them, on their Defenders, so some, you know, something you don't see often, and I want to be able to show that because I am guessing that their customers, people who buy these kinds of vehicles, will be excited to see that as well. And then more rugged photos, but still keeping it really about the product. This first part of the day is only about the product. So in theory, it's always in theory, right? We don't know exactly how it's going to go. If it's going to rain, not rain, but in theory, we should be done in the first half of the day, have lunch, and then move on to the sand dunes. So the dunes are about two hours away. We've mapped everything. We know where we're going to go. And we have a stunt driver there who the, you know, the brand put us in touch with. His name is Troy Johnson, and I heard he's quite sandy, so he's going to be the guy who's going to drive the Himalaya in the sand dunes. Hopefully we don't get stuck, hopefully we can get there. Hopefully it doesn't rain, hopefully we have good light. Hopefully many things, right? But this is, the treatment is where the dreams come out. It's like this is what I want to do, high level, and I want to get everybody behind this. So I just pulled up photos from similar locations. This is a Morocco photo from my buddy, Xavier Sinue, but the landscape should be pretty similar. This is some photos that I shot for Land Rover, back in 2017, in Utah, so bringing the desert again out. So this is more like the adventure part. We've done all the details in the morning, now we're going adventuring, because again, on their website, Himalaya is for craftsmanship and then what the vehicles can do: capability and adventure. You don't buy a Defender just to go to the grocery store, hopefully. More photos from Morocco, and then on the right side, these are from Nick Dimbleby, this photo on the right side, who is Land Rover's staff photographer, who takes outstanding photos of Land Rovers. And then at the end, I have my deliverables. So like I said, 25 earlier, but 20, I'll just tell the client we'll get them 20, and I want to leave room so I can, you know, go above and beyond and have 25 to 30. It's going to be broken down at getting to 10 craftsmanship photos and 10 outdoor photos, adventure photos. So then, you know, with this in hand, the client can be really chill. They know what's up, like, "All right, this what we're going to get." If they have more questions, and on this, I like to walk them on the phone for this plan, right, so they can ask any questions they have. Because on email, people don't always want to ask questions too much because it requires a back and forth, but on the phone you can clear the air really fast, so like when you send this, tell your client you're happy to walk them through it on the phone and explain and answer any questions, just be available for them. So that's the treatment I sent out to the client, typically happens a week before, two weeks before, depending how, you know, busy things get. And we got on the same page, we're in sync. Then we moved to sort of the execution of it. So I had to hire a producer to get us down there. We rented a big car, and yeah, we're actually going to drive. So I've hired a producer down there to drive us and take care of all the arrangements. We've rented a massive car. I usually like a good suburban so you can have everybody in the same unit, all the gear in the back. We've rented all the gear we needed. We have hotel bookings down there. So it's good before you head out that everything's kind of dialed, so you don't have to worry about these things, and having someone like a producer who can take care of paying for everything, you know, like just give them the card and then they pay for things, just so you can have more mental space to think about the shoot and have new, you know, new developments. So we sent out an email schedule to the client, and we're going to go down there and meet them the night before to go over the plan, and then the next morning we'll get shooting, and hopefully I'll see you down there.