Our Houston-based lifestyle photographer Jill Hunter was recently contacted by MarketVision about a project for Hershey’s. The agency’s goal was to create assets for their Easter campaign, while also capturing family lifestyle images for advertising targeted toward Hispanic consumers. After reviewing a detailed spec sheet and learning more about the project, I helped Jill compile an estimate. In a nutshell, we knew it would be a two-day shoot, and we’d need to capture a variety of images of a family participating in an Easter egg hunt, baking in a kitchen, and other Easter-themed shots. Given the Hispanic talent requested for the project and the fact that we wanted a location with great weather, we ultimately decided Miami would be the best choice.
We were awarded the project not too long after submitting the estimate, and while I was excited for the opportunity, I knew we had a lot of work ahead of us. My first priority was casting to find our Hispanic family of four. While we’ve arranged and held castings in the past, I decided that it would be best to work with a Miami-based casting agency to find exactly who we were looking for. After doing a bit of research, I contacted Casting Partners. In no time, we had a variety of options pulled from their database. After sharing these with the team at MarketVision, we were able to narrow down the talent and decide who we wanted to invite to our live casting day. Thanks to Skype, I was able to tune in and watch the casting unfold live.
My next item of business was finding a location. We knew we wanted to shoot in a kitchen and in a backyard setting at a residential property, and I reached out to a handful of scouts in Miami to get the process started. We ultimately decided that MiamiSites had the most to offer in regards to their internal library of residential locations. Fortunately, we were able to find a location that offered both a fantastic kitchen and a yard. This was great as it allowed us to stay at one location over the 2 shoot days.
After casting, I began to research and hire the crew. I produced a shoot near Miami earlier in the year, so I already had a great list of people to reach out to. Jill was planning to bring her first assistant and digital tech with her from Houston, and I lined up a local second assistant, hair/makeup stylist, wardrobe and prop stylist (both of whom had their own assistants), production assistant, and a food stylist. Even though we would be shooting in a house with access to bathrooms and plenty of space, I still felt it would be necessary to reserve a production RV. I called my friends at Route 7 Productions, and they came through with their spectacular mobile production hub. This helped serve as a staging area for hair/makeup and wardrobe stylists to prep the talent, and with a crew this size, it helped to reduce the number of people unnecessarily hanging around inside the house.
With a few days to go before heading to the airport, Jill and I worked closely to line up the final details including talent selection, shoot schedule, catering, pre-pro documents and call sheets. At the end of the week, I confidently headed to PHL airport to catch a flight down to sunny Florida. Once off the plane, I met up with Jill, her assistant, and her digital tech.
The next day was busy. We started by meeting our contacts from MarketVision at the house to scout locations. Awesome kitchen and backyard? Check! Space to park the RV? Check! Extraordinarily nice homeowner? Check! After a few laps around the house, we headed back to the hotel for our pre-pro meeting and wardrobe fitting. The rest of our afternoon was spent with our wardrobe stylist as she helped our family try on various outfits for approval. This was a huge help as it streamlined our mornings over the next two shoot days in regards to getting the talent ready.
The next two days went by very quickly, and thanks to our incredibly talented team, Jill was able to take some fantastic images that conveyed all of the happy family moments that Hershey’s was looking for.
While the family baking images will likely be used later in the year, a few of the Easter shots were placed on in-store displays as well as on Hershey’s website:
See more of Jill’s photography at jillhunter.com.
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