After having a fairly quiet first week back at Fabulous, I was really excited about the prospect of getting stuck into preparing for a much busier week of multiple large-scale photoshoots. Last year, I got to assist on a shoot with Nadia Begum, a contestant in a past series of The Great British Bake Off. The shoot was a great introduction into the somewhat daunting experience of celebrity photoshoots, but at the time I was secretly very hopeful that I would get the opportunity to meet some slightly more famous faces along the way in my placement year!
I was thrilled therefore, to find out that I'd be assisting on the upcoming cover photoshoot starring Professor Green as preparations got underway to call in an extensive amount of men's clothing for him. It pleased me even more so because during my time as PR Intern at Coach, I had already overseen the sample distribution for a number of magazine shoots starring Pro Green and I hoped that I would get chance to one-on-one tell him how much the Coach team love styling him. It's funny how much of a small world it is, and how often my path has crossed in different ways with all of the people I've made connections with this year.
I didn't know very much about the shoot before the day-of, which potentially was a good thing as I was blissfully ignorant about what we as a shoot team were letting ourselves in for. This was my first shoot on location (as opposed to in a studio) so I was a little bit unsure about what I could expect in terms of steaming and dressing. The location of the shoot, I soon discovered, was an abandoned warehouse tucked away in a nondescript street of East London, covered entirely in bird poo and dirt. Celebrity shooting isn't necessarily all about glamour and A-listers!
To get around the challenge of hanging and steaming clothing, arranging accessories and keeping everything clean and presentable - given the unhygienic setting - a minibus was hired specifically to house the clothes and given Stephen (Pro Green) somewhere to change. It wasn't easy to manoeuvre within such a confined space, especially when we brought 6 suitcases full of clothing with us onto the shoot, but it was completely manageable and realistically, our only alternative in that location. Myself and my group had to produce a similar plan of action for our second year marketing and branding project, where we carried out a photoshoot in the Yorkshire Moors. Rather than using a minibus to act as our base for the day, we had an actual Mini Cooper - which was inevitably a bit more of a struggle!
The structure of the day was unlike any other shoot I have ever experienced before; while usually the pace of the day would be dictated by the stylist and photographer, today we worked by the celebrity's pace. This included his late arrival, the late arrival of his dogs - who were planned to be brought over by a friend towards the end of the day - and an unscheduled thirty minute break for him to take a phone call. The structure was also made hugely different by his refusal to wear any of the clothing from the 6 suitcases we had brought for him. I'm not sure whether this is a common thing for more high-profile celebrities to do when they undertake photoshoots and interviews for magazines, or whether it was simply a diva moment, but it was slightly odd and somewhat frustrating that out of the several rails of clothing that filled up the majority of the rented minibus, Stephen wouldn't wear any of it. Instead, he brought along a small selection of his own designer clothing. This meant that Nana, the celebrity stylist who I was assisting, had little say in what he was wearing and effectively couldn't fully do her job. As a result, neither could I!
Despite the clear frustration from Nana and the rest of the Fabulous team, the day seemed to be a success overall. It's always a great experience to see creatives collaborating to produce such exciting content, especially when the shoot was in such a challenging location! It was also really insightful to see how celebrity shoots are managed; as well as the Fabulous team, comprised of a stylist, stylist's assistant, features editor and project manager - and the usual shoot additional cohort of grooming, make-up and photographer - Stephen also had assistants and friends on hand to manage his day.
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