Last month I finished up the photography and retouching on an ad campaign in conjunction with Intermark Group out of Birmingham, AL. The creatives, Jason Corbin and Noah Williams, had created a fun concept around a new mascot for the university bookstore. The ads are for what is called “Book Rush” so what could be more fun than students chasing the mascot in three differing scenarios. We needed a “Spring-ish” backdrop and since the mascot’s construction wouldn’t be ready until late October, we all traveled to the campus in September to scout and photograph the locations. Out of five or six the client selected the three and we went to town drawing out the scenarios for each.

Leap of Faith:

With roughed out concepts, we hit the studio on campus in mid-November where we proceeded to photograph the students. When photographing and building composite imagery, the students(models) really had to engage their imaginations in order to pull off what we needed in camera. With not much else to go on but instruction from Jason, Noah, and myself they actually did a fantastic job! As the day progressed I was able to show the later groups some samples of our work on the computer screens to help demonstrate what we were after but they really didn’t need it – except to maybe reassure them we weren’t completely crazy!

After a full day shooting, and another day of travel, I was set to begin the task of assembling the images. We ended up have a very tight deadline so sorting, selecting, and rough assembly were all completed in a matter of days. Another couple of days were needed for the final touches and changes that had to be made due to the thirty plus layouts that were needed for the full campaign. Check below for an animation of one of the images coming together – it’s probably 16+ hours of work condensed into a few seconds!

Composite Animation(may take a second or two to load):

Creating composites for this campaign proved to have several advantages. First, we were able to work around the mascot’s construction and still produce imagery in December that will have a “Spring” look and feel. Second, we avoided any weather issues and other problems that occur shooting on “location”. Finally, we were really able to stretch the creative end of the concepts with students flying in the air, jumping off platforms, and repelling off buildings!

That’s a Wrap!