400 PRODUCTS/ 2000 SHOTs in 2 DAYS!!!

‘CAN DO’ is always our attitude here but it's not that often that we embark on a project not knowing if it's actually possible! We have worked in e-commerce now for over 17 years now and never have we had the challenge to try and shoot 400 products across 2 days. With each product requiring 5 angles this equated to 2000 final images to submit, the deadline for turnaround………10 days from shoot! THIS MUST BE SOME SORT OF RECORD?

Before you clients get big ideas about us being able to shoot all of your products in a matter of hours… these images are for B2B use and allow the client to be able to show all of their products ‘on model’ increasing conversion from their clients who can't see the product in the flesh. There are always compromises, it's a trade off, the less we shoot the more detail and quality there is, the more we shoot and the less retouch (zero), more styling issues slip through and so on.

Stage 1 - the brief

The project started with the brief,  Throughout 2024, we’ve been proud to work with True Religion, producing all their look books and line shots for their latest collections. With a tight two-week maximum turnaround for each project, we’ve completed over six full-production e-commerce shoots, capturing hundreds of pieces in total. Having said this, we haven't before been tasked with the amount of products and shots within this timeframe, the shoot number increased and the time we had on set decreased! We always try and tackle challenges and actually thrive on them! We decided that by booking a male and a female model for the same times and alternating them on and off set this would give us the maximum chance of completing the collection in the designated timeframe.

STAGE 2 - CASTING THE MODELS

2812 handle the full production for TR, from casting the models, through to edit, output and pdfs to send to their clients. One of the major challenges with this is finding the correct models, not so much the right ‘faces’ as usual but more on the right ‘fits’. We always have to have in mind what the aim of the final images is, in this case, it's to simply show the products, fitting correctly on a well proportioned physique allowing the sales team the maximum chance of showcasing and selling the products.

Finding the perfect fits for the client is always a challenge, we spoke to 10+ agencies and pulled a shortlist of 40+ models. rom this shortlist of 40 the client saw 15 models for fittings eventually deciding on Bruno from W and Carla from Base Models.

Stage 3 - the shoot

We hit the ground running on Day 1 and as with a lot of e-commerce it's all about rhythm, the rhythm of the changes, the shots, the file organisation. We had a long day and extended the models for an hour at the end of the day to hit our mark which we were delighted with. We didn't have a digital operator to sit on the Mac watching and organising the images coming through which made it tough on the day to organise and select the files which would of streamlined the process and been more efficient (however budgets have limits!) . This meant a late one in the hotel that night making sense of the 1500+ images shot that day! Day 2 flowed well as we picked up where we left off, due to the extension of day 1 we actually managed to wrap a little early and even have time to queue in a few editorial images for the client to use in the final document as covers etc.

“The 2 days went well, everyone was happy. Only trouble now was that I had exactly 3745 raw images shot, that I needed to go through, select, output and put into folders! ”

— Ben Benoliel, Creative Director + Photographer

STAGE 4 - RETOUCH

The 2 days went well, everyone was happy. Only trouble now was that Ben had exactly 3,745 raw images shot, that we needed to go through, select, output and put into folders! This is the first occasion where the sheer amount of what we had done started to show. Shooting the models simultaneously made for a super quick process but what it also meant was that as I finished shooting 1 look, the model was there ready to shoot their next look! It made absolutely no time whatsoever to digest and organise the files in my Capture One session efficiently, what we learnt from this was that doing this real time on a job of this scale becomes important at this stage. This was compounded further by the client needing everything outputting and sending in the very order it was shot. A folder out of place here, a few sections missing there and the whole order was messed up, working through the session and a few of these oversights ending up costing us dearly! After quite a few back and forths and many unforeseen hours later we got there and other than the extra time, the client was happy.

Look count was crazy let alone the image count itself!

SUMMARY AND LESSONS LEARNT

From the outset we knew this was a steep task, we almost pulled it off smoothly. In the end it was the lack of time available to organise the session as the images came into the laptop that cost us valuable time and extra effort. This is obviously something we hate doing as it was as frustrating for the client as it was ourselves however we have learnt a lot and know exactly how and what to prioritise next time we try something as ambitious. Albeit a few days over the initial deadline, all images were submitted and better than that the feedback from the clients has been excellent and having the full collection shot on models which is a resource they haven't been able to do previously made all the difference. Here's to the next few thousand.....they say with trepidation.........Watch this space!