BTS: Hey Balls

I’m going to be real honest with you all on this post. Never in a million years did I think that we would be creating images for a ball trimmer company. Yes, you read that right. A ball trimmer. Let me explain. When this UK client first reached out to us, Elle and I were literally scratching our heads. Like WHAT?

We were so thrown off because one, we’re two girls who know very little about this subject (lol) and two, we were scared of the kinds of doors that might open up by taking on this client. Also, the fact that they chose to work with an agency that isn’t even based in their own country was quite interesting. But of course, as soon as this company sent over their millennial AF inspiration, we were sold. Also, who doesn’t love a good challenge right?

So here we are. Two women working on a project that involves something we know absolutely nothing about. It takes a lot of courage (and balls) you know? Lol! Sorry everyone. I may add a couple of puns in this BTS post because it is just too funny not to do so.

Anyway, one of the really great things about working with this client was that we had such a great amount of lead time to really plan and prep every single aspect of the shoot. We don’t typically shoot with a lot of people and so when this client was willing to spend the money to hire a couple of models, we were pretty ecstatic. There’s something really cool and unique about a shoot whenever we get to add a human element into the scene even if it’s just the model’s hand, part of their face, or even half of their body.

Working with this company was surprisingly a breeze. We always love getting to work with a client that gives just enough brand direction to get you started but then lets you do your job if you know what I mean.

So! Moving on to the concepts of this shoot for Balls Co. This company was actually going though a complete rebrand when they reached out to us which was actually such a bonus on our end because it gave us a chance to lead the visuals. From their inspiration and branding, their goal was to create images that showed the playful and humorous personality of their brand. Yes, that included a guy lawn mowing the “yard,” shaping a round hedge, and any type of action that resembled men’s grooming. We also focused on finding props and objects that were round and “fuzzy” to use in a smaller set that would focus mostly on the product. There were so many fun and suggestive concepts that we were stoked to execute.

Making the main set for this shoot was the largest we had ever worked with before. We typically shoot smaller products and so this was a new kind of challenge that was equally scary and exciting. Our intention was to create a cool monochromatic scene that included grass so that our model could pretend to be “mowing the lawn.” We purchased these large particle boards from Home Depot that would serve as the backdrop of the scene.

Elle also ordered fake grass, a rectangular hedge, a round bush, and several gardening tools from Amazon mostly. The only item we ended up buying used was the actual lawnmower. We were looking for a very specific type of lawnmower and since we were just going to spray paint it blue, it didn’t make sense for us to spend a lot of money on a new product.

There was so much work that went into producing this whole shoot, including both the large scale set and the smaller set for some of the product focused shots. Elle primed and spray-painted all of the props to make sure they didn’t have a tacky texture. She painted all of the the particle boards and also created these fun grids on several wooden blocks and flat circle shapes using masking tape as a guide.

It was a crazy amount of work but it was worth it to see how the final product came together so well. It was probably one of the most cohesive set of images that we had ever done. Even though we only worked on a total of 8 final images and 1 GIF, it just goes to show you how much actually goes into creating such a small set of photos. Quality over quantity, you guys!

One of the things that we made sure to do before the day of the shoot was to test our lighting because working on a larger scale set that includes models can get a little tricky. As I mentioned in a previous post about troubleshooting tips, it’s so important to test concepts or lighting beforehand whenever possible. It just helps ensure that things will go more smoothly day of. While we plan to expand our lighting equipment at some point, we decided to rent some gear from Borrow Lenses to help fill in what we didn’t have.

Having that extra light helped tremendously because we were able to not only light our subject but light our background for an even tone throughout. This was especially helpful because I knew that in post-production, I was going to be extending the background.

Aside from all the fun shots we got to take of our model pretending to mow the lawn or cut down a hedge, we also got to create this fun little animation for the client. They wanted to illustrate the statement “knick your sack, send it back” in the form of a GIF. Hilarious right? Initially the client was exploring the idea of a balloon popping to illustrate a knick but then we all realized that we probably didn’t want to put that idea into people’s heads about what might happen to their balls if they were to get knicked. Lol!

So that’s where the idea of the blue “blood” drips came from. We had a lot of fun with this shoot and at the end of the day we were really happy we took on the project even though we were hesitant at first. It was a completely different ballpark for us (lol) but I think it really helped to push us in the right direction for the kind of work we want to be doing more of in the future. Hope you all enjoyed this #BTS post and feel free to check out some of the final images here.

Is it the weekend yet?

Arabela