Planning For Heroes And Villains

Sometimes a concept for an image comes easily. Sometimes the concept comes easily, but then the realization of “how do we fit 27 characters into one shot?” pulls you straight back to reality. For this image, the planning involved questionable stick figure drawings to map out the basic placement and determine who was a part of which group, references to religious iconography, and deep conversations about what it means to be a hero or a villain. It helps and hurts when you have characters who are both and neither (hello, Nebula).

It also took long conversations with both the photographer and post-production team before we even shot one frame, to make sure that what we were shooting would make sense for the end result. These details can seem pedantic, but getting the technical aspects correct ahead of time means that the final product looks and feels right. Ultimately, that’s the difference between creating something that a consumer responds to, or just scrolls past. And when you’re in the business of marketing a product, that’s everything.

We were lucky that the group of performers we were working with were insanely talented, enthusiastic, and trusted us with a vision that we could only mostly explain. Where we were able, we had groups together to be able to play off of each other’s emotions. When we had to shoot people individually, the rest of the cast stayed around to give off-camera motivation. Without a group that gave us that much of themselves, the image would not have been as successful.

It’s always a thrill when the result turns out as you’d imagined it, and the next time around it’s easy to forget the work that it takes to get there. Planning and preparation may not be the things people want to hear about when they ask how a shoot went, but they’re always the things that ensure the answer is: “great!”.