The third Monkey

This here is Alison Beach, military, law student and actor at the Footlight Club.

She and the two previous portraits are for the Footlight Club's All in the Timing.

The Monkeys #2

All in the Timing, Poster Shoot OutTake. Brad Reed, an actor to watch.

One of my guilty pleasures is working with actors. They make it so easy to create fun and interesting images to market their productions!

Brad Reed, who is making his debut on the Footlight Club stage, had us rolling behind the camera.

Stay tuned! I have one more before I reveal Christine Conrad Lane's poster design!

What is cheap photography?

This is from another client conversation. We were talking about stock photography versus assignment photography.

One of his in-house designers kept wanting to use images from a royalty free disk. The boss kept adamantly saying no.

Here was his reasoning, as he said it to me.

1. The people always look like models, not our customers, or even an idealized version of our customers.

2. The concept always has to be warped to fit the royalty free image the designer found, which means compromises.

3. Our product is never in the shot. Or if there is something similar, it is still not OUR product. Or, we have to spend time and money retouching.

4. The selection is so big that you end up spending a day looking for the image, a day re-concepting and a day trying to make it all fit together. Again, with compromises.

5. If the designer happens to find an image that fits our marketing goal, it also certainly fits our competition's goal. And, the marketing plan of everyone else who bought the disk. Which means that the image is not unique to us and our customers.

6. If the customer sees that image on our competition's site after ours, who is he going to associate the image with? Not us!

7. Our brand, our marketing, and our company is worth more than a $10 investment. And, we will get a better return, more sales, with a good, custom image.

8. If that $10 image loses us just one potential customer, it has cost us a heck of a lot more than $10 dollars!

The ASMP have a great article about Royalty Free photography available to the public here.

A Good Marketing Quote and Hair

I was sitting in a client's office the other day, talking about an upcoming project for a concept based still life. The conversation rolled around to the effectiveness of cutting back on marketing to save a buck.

He pulled out a piece of paper with one of the most apropos quotes I have seen in a long time.

"He who stops advertising to try and save money could just as easily stop his watch to try and save time."

Neither of us know who said it. He got it from one of his clients. If you know who to credit for it, let me know!

The poster above is another in the series I have been creating for the Footlight Club, America's Oldest Community Theater.

As always, a lot of fun and creativity went into the preplanning for the shoot. In retrospect, the shoot itself was kind of quiet, as Jason, the stylist on set and our model, wrestled with the wigs to get strategic coverage.

Speaking of good marketing quotes, I found a very interesting article on the Freelanceswitch.com site that talked about marketing and publicity design. It was specifically about designing for publicity, but, like most marketing, the principles can apply anywhere!

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Ugh! August in Boston. 90 degrees and sweat pouring down.

It's a little like the scene we recently created above.

This was part of a poster and marketing project for The Footlight Club, and another opportunity for me to work with the wonderful and passionate people there.

We started out studying the classic posters and dvd covers from the Paul Newman movie and reading over the synopsis of Tenessee William's play. And, then we distilled it down until we answered the questions, what is the ultimate theme and what is the audience going to be looking for?

In the beginning of the process, the layout was very busy and full of people. By the end, when we showed up to shoot, it was just Brick and Maggie, played by Peyton Pugmire and Elissa Jordan. Both put on their characters and played the moment to perfection. Susanna Crampton, the producer, and Artie Leger, the director, were both on hand to approve the final shot.


If you want to see great community theater, check out the play at the Footlight Club.

Posters and Composites

One of my constant inspirations is the art of the movie poster. Where else does the art of compositing come together to express the idea of a two hour span of time? It makes heros and villans larger than life. It conveys the central theme and drama (or comedy or whatever) to an audience through the common visual language. It is a dialog that happens in one composition.

For a while now, I have been exploring this art with a local community theater. (Yes, the same one that I just completed a 31 portrait series of its members. You can still order the book by clicking the link to the right.)

Once again, I was able to team up with Kristin MacDougall, on of the fine producers at the Footlight Club, and we brainstormed a poster design for Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Sleeping Beauty or Coma, two Charles Busch plays.

Principle photography took place over a few short hours, photographing the available actors, in costume, on a white background. Compositing and final design, however, took around 6 hours to put together the poster and banner to advertise the show.


This makes my sixth poster series for the club and I look forward to our next project together!

The Most Fabulous Story

I do pro bono projects from time to time. Generally, these are conceptual based projects that are interesting and give me a chance to explore work or a subject that I have not had a chance to tackle before.



This particular project was for a friend of mine, who was producing a production of "The Most Fabulous Story."

As I understand it, it is a funny story about an alternative Adam and Eve scenario in the Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, I never did manage to get to the show.











I did get to work with some marvelously talented people, who work in "ordinary" day jobs.

But, at night, they have an incredible passion that they exercise every chance they get.

That is reward enough.

Matt