Lessons

Lesson Info

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 headset, 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 too 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. And sometimes that could be the lighting, but often the music will go on before the lighting. So, it will be the music then the lights come up as the first girl comes out. That's just one strategy. It can be absolutely anything. So, that's just 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 a live DJ that's mixing as we go. That can be really great if you have a great relationship with the DJ. And you really are on it about having certain songs hit when certai...

n girls comes out and all that kinda stuff. That is a real 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 an experiential show, for the audience. So, if you have a great set of music and it's pre-mixed, then the model comes out when she comes out, and she may hit that tune or not, but you wanna think in terms of sort of zones of the show. So, you might have a three cds and you do the first act, the second, and 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 a DJ to do that if you don't have those skills. So, remember that you want to have, you don't always have to rely on a DJ '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. So, that's a great option if you just have it. And always have at least half of, half more of the music that you need. If it's a half an hour, well, a 20-minute show, you want 30 to 40 minutes of music just to be safe. Mm-hmm. Okay. And the one thing that you can sort of do that's kind of feasible, like if you have a really simple setup for music, is have that show music that's pre-mixed and you're not worried about where models hit, but then have a separate piece of music that is the finale. Because as the last girl is walking out, you can fade out and then bam, control the ending so that it has the atmosphere that you want. Okay. Okay. Go! Staying on schedule. Don't hold up the show. Unless its something really, really dire, if a model hasn't shown up, skip that outfit or assign it to 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 a guest showed up as guests were leaving the show, and she was like, Oh, yeah, we're here for the show. It's like, it just ended. And I mean, it was a good half an hour away from the start time, and it's because they were used to shows 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 and past that, like 20-minimum 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 don't wanna worry too much about the perfect model for the perfect outfit. That starts to get a little precious. If you have something like that, like this outfit only 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, like to make an impact. But, as a rule, if you have 12 girls, the 13th outfit should be that first girl. Yup. So, how do you, aside from the rotation of the actual models, Yeah. how do you decide how to display your creations? Yeah, you are telling a story. So, let's say you're going from day to evening, your collection is day to 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 something really fun evening wear. So, that's just one strategy, but it just really depends on the story you wanna 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 a play. I break it up that way so that that introduction when you capture their attention, you know, that conflict in the middle or maybe in this, and then the resolution, and tell the story you wanna tell. It can be sweet, it could be dramatic, it could be whatever you want to do. So, do you, sometimes, organize it in colors to tell that story? Or? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Because you can say, Okay, I wanna show, I wanna 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. I'm giving some very basic examples, but this is where you can have fun. And actually, this is where your stylist can have fun, too. I mean, working with your stylist, you can have fun because you can really play with them to create, 'cause when I say story, it doesn't have to be literal, it could be the story of the emotions or the responses you're gonna have to that color or to that, that category, or whatever it is. Okay. All right. Okay. This one, I hate to almost make it a bullet point 'cause it should be almost a class unto itself, (audience member laughing) is documentation. You want to really think about who you have photographing and videotaping your project or your event. And by multipurpose, I mean there are different stories to tell at an event. We talked about the step and repeat, that's one story. That photographer should be doing that and nothing else. You have someone in the front of house. If you have celebrities or if you have local people that you want, or even the people from the charity, or the bank that's supporting, or whatever it is, often you wanna get them in the front row, talking with someone or posing for the, so that they have that experience, they can pretend to be Anna Winter for a few minutes. Then, you have 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 feel more comfortable having someone backstage shooting the shots that are telling the story I wanna tell, which is capturing the hair, capturing the makeup. If you get, I don't wanna, if you get someone who is maybe a little too excited by women changing backstage, you don't want that person backstage. 'Cause you never wanna make a model feel uncomfortable. So, 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 unless you have a particular project in mind with him. But before, they can get that whole process and get models hanging out and all that kind of stuff, and it's fun visual. And then, you have the runway photographer themselves and this is someone either in the pit, which is usually at the end of 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? What angle? Like, do you want that straight head-on or do you want to feel very dramatic like the girl is a statue and you're getting some dramatic angle? Whatever it is, have it designated and plan on it and also 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 have photographed everything else, have done shows and been successful but never wanna do it again. 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 a lot of photographers don't pay attention to this, when the models come in on the runway, the shot for me, and again everyone is different, but the shot for me is I click, and 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. And then, of course, when she's posing at the end of the runway, that's a little easier for most people to shoot. You also wanna come up with a strategy for your guests. Everyone's gonna be taking pictures. Just like with the crossed feet, you wanna make sure they're not bringing their phone out into the runway to take a picture. Mm-hmm. And then, but you do wanna empower them and maybe give them a hashtag for your event, or give them your name 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, I have a question for you, Oh, yes. Jay, before we get into the final one. Can you 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 we found that to work well? It's different from photog, it's very personal. I think you want to feel like you can communicate with the photographer. If you feel like you're intimidated by the photographer, it's probably not a great thing because, I mean, they might get great shots but they might be not the shots that you want. So, I would say it's almost like working with the stylist where you want to say, what do you like to do or how you see it, and I would love this 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 money shots. So, if you're working with someone who is brand new, Yeah. then you have a little wiggle room there because you can be forgiving, 'cause it could be a student, a photography student, but you, again, work together to come up with the strategy for shooting it. And for you, even if you're not a photographer, you can still show them what you like. You can do tears, you can do Pinterest, you can say, I love the way this looks. Because sometimes, some photographers like working with like blasting the model with light with the flash. Some people like more ambience so that it gets moody, some, more grainy. It's just like everybody has a different strategy and different aesthetic. So, if they haven't done it before, you wanna work with them, if they have, you just wanna check out their work and ask them what are some of their needs, too. Because often the first photographer, first question for a photographer is what's the lighting like? And you wanna have an answer to that. Do I need my flash? Do I not? All these questions that a photographer might ask. Okay. Yes. So, do you kinda go through that same process, I know this is on a higher scale but for videographers? Because I feel like Yeah. most fashion shows that I've seen online, I know, you gave a few other examples, but are pretty from like a standstill camera. One, yeah, that is the flat documentation. So, if the camera is at the end of the runway and you press on, you know what I 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 can edit it, maybe 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 crossfade of models, like bam, bam, bam, and if you have a star window and wanna show that, that could be great, because it's like these models walking towards you, so it's almost like a photo, like photo is 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 it. Style.com used to do a great job with this, which is there's a photographer who's shooting the dress, there's a photographer who's shooting the hair and the makeup, and there's a photographer who's concentrating on bags and accessories, a photographer who's concentrating on shoes. So, I mean, that's a real luxury and often that's not the designer, often that's the media outlet. So, a magazine will say, We were writing about the bags of the season so I need you to shoot every bag. So, figuring out what your strategy is, so an inducement, for instance, to say to a makeup and hair team that, I'm gonna have a photographer just shooting the hair and the makeup on the runway, and 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. Good, all right. Or you get Jay, I had one other comment slash question about Periscope, when you're talking about documentation it also Yeah. bumps back into just behind the scenes, all of that. Yeah. Is that something that you have seen be successful or It's this other tools where you're trying to get people who are there, are you okay with them showing the behind the scenes? Yeah. Well, I mean, it depends who you allow behind the scenes. Yeah. I mean, in terms of backstage, I guess, yeah, that's true. but at the event, Yeah, I mean that. I mean, that's a great way to share the event. And I think Periscope is a great example because it's kind of like, the video, the Instagram video, in terms of they're these little moments that happened and boom, that's it. It's like there, you can live that experience with the person in real time. And you want to, again, empower people to share that, to say, and be ready because if you haven't already, if you don't have a presence on those channels, then you wanna think about, well, do I want one? And if I do have one, what tools am I 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. A lot of designers are 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 much to go all the way down to the runway and come down depending on how long it is, but you wanna come out, and I would say the standard is at least a quarter to a half way down. Take a little bow. Sometimes, the designer will come out down to the runway if you've left models out there. So, if you have models sort of come up for a finale and stand, the designer will come all the way to the end and walk back with the model, and they're lead the models off. So, whatever your strategy is, don't be invisible. I think the key the key to finding out how invisible you wanna be is what you need to figure out. So, if you're shy, you come out. Like Carolina Herrera, she comes out just a step beyond the entrance, smiles, and gone. And that's okay. But she's acknowledging the audience, you never wanna forget about that. 'Cause I always used to do like, not wanna go out. (audience member laughs) And everyone around me just wouldn't have it. So and people want to say who did that? 'cause 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 your assistant, or whatever it is, so that you can feel a little more comfortable if you're shy about that.