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Show: Scheduling Run of Show

so scheduling run of show. This is actually the order of a show, so music cues are really important. A lot of times, if you give the go ahead. If someone says over the head said, Okay, we're ready to start. I almost put it in the music person's hands. You don't say. I'm not gonna get, you know to controlling about this, saying we're ready to start. When you start the music, we start the show. So when they're ready, Boom! The music goes on, Andi. Sometimes that could be the lighting, you know. But often the music will go on before the lighting. Eso it will be the music than the lights come up as the first girl comes out. That's just one strategy. Could be absolutely anything. So that's just, you know, sort of a basic Now. One of the things that I specify here is live or pre recorded, and by live I don't necessarily mean a live band, but sort of alive D J. That's mixing as we go. That could be really great if you have a great relationship with the deejay and you really are on it about, y...

ou know, having certain songs hit when certain girls comes out like myself, that is a really luxury to find the right person and to have the time to plan all that out. And I've been lucky enough to find some incredible people who do that. But often you want to not worry about when the girl is coming out to a particular song. Because again, this is a new experiential show, you know, for the audience. So if you have a great set of music and it's premixed, then the model comes out when she comes out, and she may hit that tune or not. But you want to think in terms of sort of zones of the show, so you might have three CDs and you do the first act the second end of the third act. Or you just have one flowing CD. And it's all variations of classical with little pops of something. Whatever. Your strategy is music wise, and you can still work with the deejay to do that. If you don't have those skills, so remember that you want tohave. You don't always have to rely on a deejay cause sometimes DJs are really good in clubs, but not fashion shows, it really is an art form to do it well for fashion shows eso that's a great option if you just have always have at least half of half mawr of the music that you need. If it's 1/2 on hour, well, 20 minutes show you want for 30 to 40 minutes of music just to be safe, okay? And the one thing that you can sort of do that that's kind of feasible. Like if you have a really simple set up for music is have that showed music that's premixed and you're not worried about where models hit, but then have ah, separate piece of music that is the finale. Because as the last girl is working out, you can fade out and then bam control the ending so that it has the atmosphere that you want. Okay, um, OK, go staying on schedule. Don't hold up the show unless it's something really, really dire. If a model hasn't shown up, skip that outfit or sign it someone else. But just move on because again, making people wait is, I think, one of the worst things. I once had a show where guests showed up as guests were leaving the show and she was like, Uh oh, yeah, we're here for the show was like it just ended and I mean, it was a good half on our, you know, away from the start time. And it's because they were used to show starting late. New York shows traditionally start 20 minutes past the time they're assigned, but that's planned, and it's sort of anticipated. But once you go past that like 20 minute mark, you start to really irritate your audience again, unless you've got something planned for them. The order of things, the model rotations you. You don't want to worry too much of about the perfect model for the perfect outfit that starts to get a little precious If you have something like that, like this outfit, Onley fits this girl, or she's the epitome of my look. Keep her out of the rotation and make her a special add on, so have her ready at the beginning of the show and then send her out. When you want her, you like to make an impact, but as a rule, if you have 12 girls, the 13th outfit should be that first girl? Yeah. Do you? Aside from the rotation of the actual models, how do you decide how to display your creations? You're telling a story. So let's say you're going from day to evening. Your collection is data evening You go. You break up the show in half and you start to show day. And then maybe you start to show a little day. That's a little glammed up by adding some accessories. You're taking her to dinner, and then all of a sudden you really glitter up and do some something really fun. Evening where? So that's just one strategy. But it just really depends a story you want to tell. I like to think of theater or movies. I mean, which you have a lot of experience with. Think of the arc. You know, the acts of of a play. I break it up that way. You know, sort of that that introduction, when you capture their attention, you know that conflict in the middle will read this and then the resolution and tell the story you want to tell. You know, it could be sweet. It could be dramatic. It could be whatever you want to dio sometimes organized it in colors to tell that story. Yeah, because you can say, OK, I want to show I want to start off with fiery red, and then the second phase maybe has red and another color. Maybe that color starts to pick up in the next phase. But again, this is all personal choice. This is I'm giving some very basic examples. But this is where you could have fun. You know, any? Actually, this is where your stylist could have fun, too. I mean, working with your says you can have fun because you can really play with them to create. Because when I say story, it doesn't have to be literally. Could be the story of the emotions or the responses you're gonna have to that color or two that you know that that category or whatever it iss. Okay. All right. Um, okay, this one. I hate to almost make it a bullet point, cause it should be almost a class into itself is documentation. You want to really think about who you have photographing and videotaping your your project or your event And by multi purpose, I mean, there are different stories to tell at an event. We talk about the step and repeat. That's one story that photographer should be doing that and nothing else. You have someone in the state I mean the front of house. If you have celebrities or if you have, you know, local people that you want or, you know, even the people from the charity, you know, or the bank that's supporting or whatever it is. Often you want to get them in the front row, you know, talking with someone or posing for so that they have that experience. You know, bacon pretend to be on a winter for a few minutes, then you have a back of house now, back of house. You want someone you can really trust, and especially if you have women who are changing backstage. I'm really picky about this. Not that it has to be a woman, but I have. I feel more comfortable having someone backstage shooting the shots that are telling the story. I want to tell which is capturing the hair come from the makeup. If you get I don't want toe. If you get someone who's maybe a little too excited by women changing backstage, you don't want that person backstage because you never want to make a model. Feel uncomfortable. Eso keep in mind. But that's a great place to get images, because when you're telling stories afterwards online and through social media, those are that behind the scenes that are really fun. And a lot of times you can take care of that at the beginning of the show, like right before the show starts. You don't want a photographer backstage during the show, you know, unless you have a particular project in mind with him. But before they can get that whole process, I get models hanging out and not going stuff in it. It's fun visual, and then you have the runway photographer themselves, and this is someone either in the pit, you know, which is usually at the runway, or he's just on his own, and you need to ask yourself a couple of questions. Do you want him higher than the models on level with the models or below the models? You know what angle like, Do you want that straight head on, or do you want to feel very dramatic, like the girl you know is a statue and you're getting some dramatic angle, whatever it is, you know, have it designated and plan on it and also remind. Remember that very few photographers, until they do it, know whether or not they can handle a fashion show. And some photographers I know who photographed everything else have done shows and been successful but never want to do it again. It's, I would say, if you can find a sports photographer, that's the guy you want. You want someone who can shoot action and motion. And the other thing is, ah, lot of photographers don't pay attention to this. I, uh, when the models coming on the run, my the shot for me and again everyone's different. But the shot for me is I click. When I when I used to shoot the shows, I click right before that girl's foot lands in front of her. So the minute she lands, you have this beautiful silhouette. And if you give that advice to a photographer, you can say just before she lands like when she's about to land Bam, that's the shot on. And then, of course, when she's posing at the on the runway, that's a little easier for most people to shoot. You also want to come up with a strategy for your guests. Um, everyone's gonna be taking pictures, just like with the cross feet. You want to make sure they're not bringing their phone out into the runway to take a picture. And then But you do want to empower them and maybe give them a hashtag for your event or, you know, give them. You know your your your name, you know, on Twitter or whatever, so that you can have them identify it online. And that's something great that you can tap into later. So lots of sources of imagery for the video. Same exact thing. You might have them just front of house. You might have them at the event party aspect of it. You might have them backstage or any combination of and then finally, a question for you. Jay, before we get into the final, one can talk to us about finding those photographers that you do work with, or if somebody out here is looking to work with a photographer, what should they be looking for? Is it just based on their body of experience, somebody who takes direction well or sort of How have you found that toe work? Well, it's different from its very personal. You know, I think you want to feel like you can communicate with the photographer If you feel like you're intimidated by the photographer is probably not a great thing, because, I mean, they might get great shots, but they might not be the shots that you want. So I would say it's almost like working with the stylist where you want to say, you know, what do you like to do? You know, how do you see? And I would love these kind of pictures and just like we did collected images for the hair and makeup team. And for your mood board, you can collect images that you like for for money shots. So if you're working with someone who's brand new, then you know you have a little ah, little wiggle room there because you could be forgiving because it could be a student, a photo studio photography student. And but you again work together to come up with a strategy for shooting it, Um, and for you, even if you're you're not ah, photographer, that you can still show them what you like. You can do tears. You could do Pinterest. You can say I love the way this looks because sometimes some photographers like working with, like, blasting the model with light, you know, with a flash. Some people like more ambience, so that gets moody some more grainy, just like everybody has a different strategy and different aesthetic. So if they haven't done it before, you want to work with them? If they have, you just want to check out the work and and ask them What are some of their needs to? Because often the first photographer, first question photographer is What's the lighting like, you know, and you want to have an answer to that. You know? Do I need my flash doing? Not all these questions that a photographer might ask. Okay. Yes. So do you kind of go through that same process? I know this is on a higher scale, but for videographers, because I feel like most most fashion shows that I've seen online. I know you gave a few other examples, but are pretty from like a standstill camera. Yeah, that is that is the flat documentation. So if if the camera is at the end of the runway and you press on. You mean and that's it. And that's fine. That's a nice basic documentation. But with the videographer you want to figure out, is that what you want? Because often there's very little you can do with that. You know you can edit. It may be, you know, take out the walk and get the model halfway coming towards you and then boom the next one. And that could be kind of this. This faded, faded cross fade, you know of models like Bam, bam, Bam! And if you have a store window and want to show that that could be great because it's like thes models walking towards you. So it's almost like a photo, you know, uh, like photos passing. But there's live action, so that's fine. But then you might want more of a story, and you also might wanna have both your photographers and videographers concentrate on one element of its style that communes to do a great job with this, which is you. Shoot that there's a photographer who shooting the dress. There's a photographer who's shooting the hair and the makeup and the photographer is concentrating on except like bags and accessories. A photographer was concentrating on shoes. S O. I mean, that's a really luxury, and often that's not the designer. Often that's the media outlet. So a magazine will say, You know, we were writing about the bags of the season, so I need you to shoot every bag. So depending figuring out what your strategy is so unjust Mint, for instance, to say to a makeup and hair team, I'm gonna have a photographer just shooting the hair and the makeup on the runway, and you know, you guys can coordinate to get images and things like that. So that's again how you can build these relationships so that they can work together and everybody gets something out of it. They had one other comment commands last comment Such question about periscope when you're talking about documentation and also perhaps back into just behind the scenes, all of that is that something that you have seen be successful, or are these other tools where you're trying to get people who are there? You okay with them? Show behind the scenes. Well, I mean, it depends who you allow behind the scenes. I mean, in terms of backstage, but at the event, Yeah, that's a great way to share the the event. And I think periscope is a great example because it's kind of like, you know, the video of the Instagram Ah, video in terms of they're these little moments that happen and boom, that's it. You know, it's like there you can live that experience with the person in real time. And, um and you want Teoh again. Empower people to share that, you know, to say and be ready because you if you haven't already, if you don't have a presence on those channels, then you want to think about well, do I want one? And, uh and if I do have one, what tools and my giving my audience to support my efforts and to share the experience with their guests. So, yeah, so and then last but not least in the running of the show, take your bow and enjoy it. You know, a lot of designers air very shy when it comes to going out on stage, and it doesn't mean you have to walk down the runway. If anything that looks a little a little much to go all the way down to the runway and come down depending how long it is. But you want to come out. And I would say the standard is at least 1/ to 1/2 way down. Take a little bow. Sometimes The designer will come up down to the runway if you've left models out there. So if you have models sort of come out for a finale in stand, the designer will come all the way to the end and walk back with the model and their lead the models off. So whatever your strategy is, don't don't be invisible, I think, uh, the key, the key to find finding out how how invisible you want to be, is what you need to figure out. So, you know, if you're shy, you come out like Carolina Herrera. She comes out just a step beyond the entrance, smiles and God, and that's okay. But she's acknowledging the audience. You never want to forget about that. I always used to like, not want to go out, and everyone around me just wouldn't have it, You know so and people want to say who did that because I think some of the shows I've been to where the designer doesn't come out. It's this dead flat feeling at the end of a show. So give them a little something, and if it makes you feel better, go out with part of your team, like bring out the hair and makeup people or, you know, your assistant or whatever it is so that you can feel more comfortable if you're shy about that.