People are often surprised by how much of a shoot day is not shooting. The photography is the visible part; the day is really about keeping the set moving so that the photography never has to wait for anything.
Before the crew arrive
Lighting goes up first, against whatever setups the shot list calls for. Backdrops are set, the still life table is built, and the shot list is run against the brief one more time to catch anything that changed since it was signed off. The kitchen fills up with coffee, which is not a joke about studio culture so much as a practical requirement for a ten hour day.
Samples come off the rail and get steamed. This is the least glamorous hour of the day and the one that most affects the finished images, because a crease that reaches the set becomes a retouching line item.
Two stations, running in parallel
For ecommerce and campaign days the room usually runs two things at once: a still life station for detail and product frames, and a main set for ghost mannequin or on model work.
Splitting the room that way is what keeps the day moving. While one look is being styled and fitted, the previous setup is already being shot. The alternative, one station and everybody waiting through every change, is how a forty product day becomes a two day booking.
Production runs quietly in the background
Casting, styling, hair and makeup are coordinated ahead of the day rather than on it, so changes between looks happen fast and the crew can concentrate on the shot. When production is working properly it is invisible; you notice it only on the days it is not there.
Capture, checked as it goes
Shooting is tethered, so frames land on a screen large enough to judge rather than on the back of a camera. Colour gets compared to the physical sample on set rather than corrected from memory a week later, which is the entire reason the samples stay in the room.
Frames are checked against the shot list as they are captured, not at the end. A missing back view discovered at six in the evening is an inconvenience. The same discovery a week later is a reshoot.
The end of the day
- Every frame on the list is ticked off, or explicitly deferred
- Cards are offloaded and backed up in more than one place before anyone leaves
- The lighting setup is photographed and noted, so the next drop can match this one
- Samples go back on the rail in the order they arrived
- Anything that needs a decision from the client goes out that evening rather than sitting until the morning
Then the work moves upstairs to post production, where the same team retouches what it shot. Keeping those two things in the same building is not a convenience; it is why a ghost mannequin fix is a five minute conversation rather than a round trip through a supplier.
TODO (needs the studio): add real timings and a real recent example here, for instance the shot count and crew size from a specific day. First hand numbers are the part of this article no competitor can copy.
The Motherlight team
Written from the studio floor at Holborn Studios in Shoreditch, where we shoot ecommerce, campaign and product work for fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands.