Behind the Scenes: Shooting photos & video for Halloween

Hello friends! We recently had the pleasure of working alongside Nuvol Digital Marketing agency to promote La Palina Cigars. We just finished their October campaign which was a blast to produce. It was nice to collaborate on something with so much room for creativity. After an initial brainstorm session that lasted for several hours it was decided to stick with a monster theme for most of October. With limited time and budget we transformed a friend’s home into a haunted mansion suitable for our monster and friends.

Here's how the final video turned out (as well as the photos posted below):

The first task of the day was to photograph this classy gentleman, sporting a miniature ring bearer vest and a La Palina cigar… he later modeled some whiskey and felt the effects late into the shoot.

Bones, after a long day on set.

It’s been awhile since we’ve worked on a project which required theatrical makeup and on camera effects. So it was thrilling to dip our toes into the true film-making world once again. This is truly where we thrive as a team. Makeup is always a fun challenge, things don’t always go as planned. Our first test run was total disaster, but we learned from our mistakes and improved the look.

As Gabe so eloquently put it, “insert disc here.”

Some improvement...

Echo is great at making use of what’s available but, as with any set, the desired product is never reached without a bit of (okay a lot of) mess. Michael and Sarah were kind enough to open up their home and were eager to tear apart their living room to accommodate the spooky aesthetic we were looking for.

Nuvol also provided so many great props for us to use: vintage magazines with comical ads, a vintage radio and more. All these elements helped transform the space into a playground for imagination.

With limited means and budget filming in Black and White is a life saver. When color is omitted you can more readily focus on texture and lighting, and easily achieve that film noir feel.

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