We are on the road before the sun rises, it is another outdoor production day.
We are on our way to Istanbul’s and perhaps Turkey’s largest film and TV series set plateau, Beykoz Kundura to shoot a theme for the Tiburon’s SS22 collection. At the entrance of the plateau, caravans of different series are lined up waiting to enter. And right behind them are our vehicles.
Our theme for the Tiburon SS’22 Motto line is the road story of a biker couple. We combine biker fashion with our collection prepared with modern touches. Bandanas, rings, hats, bracelets… Styling has chosen complementary accessories for every combination and placed them in the styling room reserved for us, even before breakfast. The team is here, everyone is having breakfast, except from Serhat Hayri and his team as usual… Well, being “fashionably late” becomes a trend when you are a fashion photographer of celebrities.
An unknown model sat at our breakfast table and even started chatting as if she was working with us. As such, everyone thought that there was a model change at the last moment. She was called Jane. When some of the team asked Jane questions, it turned out that she was not one of us, and it turned out that the team that Jane was working with was looking for her everywhere. After the Jane crisis, we took our briefs from our production manager Burcu Selanik for the last time and got back to work.
Hair and make-up started first, Suat Ürün and Şeyma Erikçi worked wonders as usual. Then we handed our models – Lola and Tony – to our stylist Tuba Çolak.
We were working as four separate teams on this campaign photography shooting. Burcu Selanik was the head of the photography with Serhat Hayri; Rahman Görede was on the campaign video shoot with Turgay Şafak; Can Uzun was working on backstage and product scans; and the juniors were everywhere, taking photos of props and tissue from the surrounding area.
Until Lola and Tony came from the styling room, each team was clarifying their angles, frames, and stories based on their own mood and plan board. Then the models arrived and the shooting began. Since the most beautiful light of the day in the production life is at sunrise and sunset, photography team took the models first. Then product scans were made. When they went to change their clothes, the teams would change places and prepare for the next plan.
Towards midday, the sunlight started to fall too steep and the photography team took a break, Lola and Tony were kidnapped by the campaign video team to take indoor shots. Commands were given, different takes were taken from different angles, and the shooting was completed.
After spending the few hours of the light with indoor shots and lunch, we continued on the road at full speed. We were wandering around the plateau, going from place to place. We even waited for each other to continue when we encountered another shooting for a while.
Coffees were drunk during the breaks, chocolates were eaten; we were sitting under the trees. We took care that our models, we made sure they rested frequently and that they are not dehydrated. As we saw that Tony and Lola’s harmony is amazing, when we finished the combinations we had, we dressed them with a few of our spare combinations.
Every team, especially the campaign video team, has a bit of a panic as the sun begins to slowly descend. It’s really stressful to be able to do video and photography on sets with only one production day, but our team handles this very well. However, when the sun had half an hour before it sets, Rahman took the models once again, as he well knows that he had two more plans. They started shooting the closing scenes, first on the rooftop and then with the sunset in the backlight. These minutes were literally golden seconds, the entire team was watching the recording with great attention, quickly entering the frame when something needed to be fixed. Then we took the sun down together and got amazing frames and videos.
The photo production crew met in the room to rest. Some were chatting while collecting their belongings, whereas the others were lying down. In the meantime, of course, backups were taken. As everyone was ready, they began to leave the set. We said goodbye to the team until the next time. We also brought the SSDs that we have double backed up to our production agency where the selection and retouching will be done safely.
