Los Angeles-based celebrity photographer Steven Simko has been working for Vogue Magazine for several years now and has a good relationship with their director of photography. It was this relationship that got him recommended for an interesting shoot for Vogue.com. The Vogue.com photo team contacted Steven asking if he’d be interested in shooting a behind the scenes, fun and candid look at Drew Barrymore as she directed a music video for the indie rock band, Best Coast. He accepted, of course.
Turns out, this wasn’t your normal, run-of-the-mill music video shoot—this was an MTV Supervideo. Supervideos are a new music video series featuring young actors. According to New York Magazine, MTV is hoping Supervideos will help “bring back the ambitious music video.” This meant that Drew’s video was filled with top notch talent such as Chloe Moretz, Alia Shawkat, Miranda Cosgrove, and Donald Glover. For Steven, the shoot day was, “non-stop action” and he found it somewhat difficult to keep up with high-energy Drew Barrymore. Most of Steven’s past Vogue shoots were fashion portraits, so it was both fun and challenging switching to a behind the scenes type shoot—”I haven’t done one for ages and forget how crazy it gets on set.”
However, it quickly all came back to him. Steven also made sure to stick to his own BTS shoot advice, “It’s not your set. Stay out of the way and you’ll still be able to get the right images for your client.”
Steven, who also shoots his own motion work, took away some pointers from Drew’s production, “Hire the best producer your budget can afford and your schedule will stay on time.”