Behind My Campaign: Volume Stage For Fashion Shoots

An honest, reveal-all, of what actually happens when you make a campaign

Art direction, the fashion industry—they have this aura of mystique, like some exclusive club you need an invite to join🔐 But this publication aims to change that, beginning with a BTS of what goes into making a campaign.

So grab a tea, settle in, and enjoy this longer read—I hope it helps even one person get closer to where they want to be.

Ps. This is too long to read in email, so please click to view in app.

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Do you ever see a magazine editorial or a jaw-dropping campaign, and instead of thinking: wow, amazing—you find yourself waningt to know exactly how the hell did they actually made that? This one’s for you!

Today, I’m diving into a project that really tested my adaptability and creative problem-solving skills. A project I still think about often. Why? It went against all odds.

The brief:
Create a high-summer, surfer-inspired campaign for a luxury jewellery launch.

The catch?
We were stuck in rainy northwest London, with no budget to fly anywhere.

So, what do you do when the client asks for sunshine and waves, but the British weather is doing its usual thing? You get inventive.

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Before I reveal all the secrets, watch this video with sound. Do you notice anything off?

Did you notice? No, we didn’t magically receive an injection of cash that allowed us to go on the work holiday we were all dreaming of. Instead, we actually did stay in London. This campaign was captured on a gloomy, drizzly day, in a volume stage.

What’s a volume stage, I hear you ask?

In this article, I’m revealing all the things no one tells you about campaign shoots—what the concept and pitching stage was like, where my inspiration came from, finding the right teams, learning a new technology, the shoot day (what went wrong and how we fixed it), the post-production process + what the final campaign looked like.

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Okay, let’s start at the beginning.