Theatre production poster photography in Canterbury Kent
There are some behind the scenes pictures in this post of theatre production poster photography on location in Canterbury. There are times when you can’t produce a picture without some form of post production and in fact when you’re shooting specifically with retouching / digital artwork in mind.
The brief from the Marlowe Theatre was to create an image for a production called Creed of Spies and the mood board was to produce a colour palette and look with a nod to Assassin’s Creed – an elevated view with a city skyline and a real person perched ready to jump. The frame size and crop had to be suitable for both use in large format posters, a brochure and social media. First up, here’s the finished products:
To get there required shooting a number of elements separately in order to overcome some practical issues. We needed a sunrise for the sun to strike the cityscape and rooftop location at a particular point which meant a pitch black 6.30am shoot, in January, in a hard to access rooftop location. We booked some dates, did a site recce, packed a woolly hat but the weather wasn’t in our favour. Additionally, the rooftop was not that safe for rigging up lighting and working by head torches. We also needed a particular set of poses from the model that we best shot on something like a green screen back at the studio.
In the end I opted to shoot the model on location with a low wall that would closely match the rooftop location. By matching the lighting directionally with a daytime picture of the cityscape, we shot the model outdoors and then used a white reflector panel to provide a cleaner line for helping cut it out later and place the model over the cityscape. Finally, we shot the wall separately with a warm-look, gelled light to help blend it all in. Here are the separate elements before post production:
Creed of Spies is running July 16th -20th and is performed by the Marlowe Youth Theatre. It will take place across the city as a combination of a promenade play and parkour.