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Control Freaks
It’s not a pretty picture; the perfectionists, the detail nuts and the anal retentive. Once you set aside the stigma and learn to read these labels as compliments, you have earned the title art director—it’s your job. This doesn’t mean you can’t be a nice guy and lavish compliments on everyone to cajole them to do their best work. Director Alfred Hitchcock was notorious for expecting upwards of fifty takes when filming, struggling for perfection. But like every good parent, sometimes he had to be the bad guy. And sometimes you have to insist on a reshoot, new makeup, a different model or change of set. It’s up to you to know the difference between solid advice from the photographer or if he’s just advocating what’s easiest for him. As the art director, everyone working on the shoot works for you and you’d better keep your wits about you, nice or not. It was that nice guy cheap printer who screwed up the last job because you didn’t know a small press can only run solids one way; and your design wasn’t going that way. And that printer couldn't be bothered to pick up the phone and let you know because he's just about cheap, not perfection. You don’t have to worry about that if you have a production manager . . . well, then, you’re just spoiled rotten and can concentrate on aesthetics, you lucky dog.
An unfortunate fold created an embarassing gap in the model's pants, making it appear as if they were unzipped. I spotted this just as the photographer snapped a polaroid. I mentioned it to the stylist—who immediately alerted the model. “Oh, that isn’t necessary,”said the elderly man, “you can stick your hands in there. I don’t mind being touched.” The stylist discreetly declined, suggesting he take the pin into the men’s room to made the adjustment.
Part of being an art director is preparedness (and to borrow a tidbit from Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, “to boldly go where no (wo)man has gone before.” Especially on photo shoots, where every mismove costs someone money or time, every save of the day keeps things smoothly running and on track. One company finally relented and agreed to use a professional photographer for their corporate head shots; yes, I finally convinced them that K-mart Dave’s Wedding Photography no longer suited their corporate image. Laugh if you will, monkey boy, but it happens more often than we would like to admit. How could anything go wrong? Anything that involves human behavior seems to encourage the unpredictable.
My photographer and I had faced this rehab equipment before; it presented a unique challenge because one of the selling features was the control panel, a must-see part of the main photo. The general rule for product sheets is immediacy—you may not get another chance to hook your audience. Parts of the world are still stuck in the put in a babe in a bikini and the fitness product managers weren’t far from falling into that cliche. Instead, I had to choose models who would not detract from the rehabilitation equipment, and clothing that was modest, except once—more about that later.
