Diesel does Chris Buck

As a follow up to last week’s post on marketability, I thought it apropos to share a conversation I had with Chris Buck about his super cool Diesel work. This is the best recent example I can think of in which a photographer was successfully able to overlay their style on the layout and produce work that perfectly fits the brand. Turns out, the agency was also able to retain a ton of control- structuring the production of the shoot to meet their needs and maximize the creative potential of the photographers. Chris’s work for Diesel:

© Chris Buck

© Chris Buck

© Chris Buck

© Chris Buck

© Chris Buck

I’m a big fan of Chris’ oeuvre. It’s clear that if you give him an interesting subject and some leeway, you’ll get a great portrait. But, I do find that some of his commercial work isn’t as successful as his editorial. Here’s my theory: what we love about Chris is his ability to create wonderful work by connecting with people and creating an interesting bit of action or story in the frame. Problem is, in advertising, we are rarely working under the conditions which best allows this to happen. There are many reasons for ho-hum photography- mostly this is due to Art Direction (and there are many reason this goes wrong), sometimes it’s because the necessities for sublime photography just aren’t present.

So… when I saw the Diesel work I thought I had proof positive of how to achieve photography that truly strikes a chord for the brand. This campaign (at least Chris’ contributions to the campaign- there were two other shooters involved in the project) paired a strong brand with a photographer who’s work matched that brand’s tone (somewhat irreverent). My presumption was that this best work was created by leaving Chris alone to play. Turns out this is only partly true.

Immediately after I received the email promo from Chris’ US rep Marge Casey announcing the work, I called him up. During our conversation, Chris walked me through the process of production which involved a sacrosanct mood board, a bunch of rejected ideas from the photographer and then heaps of freedom on set. Chris described this as a very different process than he had expected but one that produced work that he’s very happy with. In the end, in a kind of a hybrid editorial/ad way, Chris was allowed a lot of leeway in a very controlled (approved through many levels of agency Creative Direction and Client Marcom teams, with a mood board which was likely researched to the public as well) situation.

Here’s how Chris described the process, from a phone conversation, transcribed by me:

It’s not like they hired me and were like, hey Chris, we want you, they came to me and they said “we’re interested in you”. They definitely expressed interest in a certain part of what I do, odd, funny things that I do. Awkward body stuff. So, I did a treatment of how I would approach it.

They showed me a mood board of images that they liked, not from me but just in general. the stuff they were interested in doing. I saw stuff that looked like my work and drew from that for my scenarios. I wrote up strong variations on what they were suggesting and they took some ideas but for the most part they were very loyal to their mood board, they were very inspired by the things they had found and wanted to capture that but with the added spontaneity of the moment.

I didn’t know how it would go down because on ad shoots you map it out ahead of time and look for spontaneity in terms of expression and movement and otherwise you’re going towards the layout. In this job, there was no layout but on the day of the shoot there was a lot of flexibility.

(Me: So did it work- the mix of being buttoned down and spontaneity?)

Yes, the way I got the most clarity was by suggesting ideas and then have them reject them. This helped me realized that I’m not the leader, I’m the actor. I’m a creative element, I wasn’t the leader of the project.

Where they were smart, they cast us well and we played our roles. In a way, what you’re seeing, they didn’t show us a script, they were hashing things out as we went along. They weren’t looking for suggestion from the actors. I’ll show up on set, I know my lines, and I’ll do my part. I felt good about what I shot, and in the end I felt good about the shoot but it was unusual in that we were cast like actors to play these roles. And that’s why they had three photographers and not one and even though any of the three of us could have shot the whole thing but in the way they chose to work, they did it the right way. They cast us well and we played our roles.

And because I had that understanding well before the shoot, I was able to relax.

And then once we got on set, I was very much listened to. I set the shots, the angles, the locations, all of the things that a photographer would usually do, more actually because there weren’t layouts, Less prep than I would usually have on an ad shoot but more on set, even more so.

As I said above, I think this shows tremendous intuition by the agency- it’s tricky to get the best out of our creative partners and in my opinion this Diesel campaign has harnessed the Best of Buck. Kudos to all involved.

Chris is represented in Canada by JK Reps.

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In a related note, I’d like to call your attention to a passionate comment that came in response to last week’s Marketability post, from Tim Lee: Photography has become crippled with lazy art directors, no-nothing producers and power hungry resentful retouchers. Agencies will forever be the thorn in a talented photographers side and an angel of mercy for photographers who lack vision and confidence. I propose a new generation of photographers. I would like to formally submit a gloves off to the system that exists now. Photographers stand up and unite against the Art Directors! We will become the Art Directors and Creative Directors.

Two (opposing) things to say in response:

1. Believe it or not, the AD’s and CD’s and even the client knows the brand a lot better than you. They’ve spent years and ridiculous amounts of money to develop the brand identity with a solid look and feel and tons of supporting evidence. So… don’t always presume that you know better how to realize their vision.

2. On the other hand, as facetious as Tim Lee might have been, there is something absolutely spot on about the last half of his comment. I think there are tremendous opportunities for image makers to start pitching directly to clients, showing them innovative ways of creating/presenting content and bringing energy and style to their brand in a more pure way- to skip the middle man. Is this right for Bell Canada? Likely not. But for Diesel it certainly might be.

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And, in another side note, if you haven’t already checked out the super fucking brilliant Andrew Hetherington’s (What’s the Jackanory) Dinner for 5 Photographers Phototainment video project, you-must-do-that-now. Including the super chatty Chris Buck, it’s hilarious, and includes many many many nuggets of pure goodness too. Seriously, Andrew- more please. So fun. Here’s the first of three installments:

Dinner for 5 Photographers: Episode 1 Part 1 from andrew hetherington on Vimeo.