Last month Rachel Holmes and I were invited by London design agency JWT to help with the ‘Be a Calpol Star’ competition and finalise an image for the FSDU and Header cards we had designed at White Creative.
We designed instore point of sale for independent pharmacies and retailers (Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Boots etc) that brought together the complete Calpol range and linked in with the proposed TV ads that JWT would produce. Our design showed a group of children wearing Calpol brand coloured T-shirts, lying together smiling and looking up to the camera framed within a bright paint coloured rainbow (signifying the full Calpol product range).
The image for the campaign was to be taken on the same day that a lucky 24 children of ages between 1 and 14 travelled to London from near and as far as Scotland, to audition for the TV ad at the Calpol casting day. More details on the competition can be found here. (http://www.facebook.com/CalpolUK?sk=app_221030941253745)
Our task was to art direct all 24 children for their individual photo (which they took home with them as a memento of their day in the big smoke) in a professional studio environment. I personally had a lot of fun welcoming the children into the studio area and trying to get them to relax in front of the camera (excellently taken by Jasper the photographer and his team).
Getting the kids to the studio was a task in itself, as they were to be found in one of the 5 or 6 rooms that catered for all their needs. A cinema room with a popcorn machine and fancy dress photobooth was particularly popular. Other rooms included a games room with a ballpit, a chill out area for the parents, a diner with endless amounts of food and drink (mini hamburgers being my particular favourite), a casting room for the advert and a makeup room!
Once we had shot each child (with a camera of course!) we had to choose our favourite five, which was extremely difficult as they all had unique characteristics. Our final choices reflected the age range of Calpol and were an equal split of boys and girls.
With time flying by and the mini burgers all gone it was straight down to the business of getting the best picture for our FSDU. The task of getting five children of all different ages to look up at a camera and smile whilst lying on the floor in a studio whilst surrounded by parents, strangers and large flashing lights may sound like a piece of cake (which JWT supplied in the diner room as well, yummy!), but you would be very, very wrong!!
Luckily Jasper and his team had obviously worked with children before and had plenty of props to draw the smaller children’s attention to the right area. I was jumping around with a glittery butterfly attached to a long bamboo stick for over an hour before we were all happy that we had at least one good image which we could use.
The children were free to leave after their exhausting but enjoyable day, but nobody wanted to. The environment in the building was unbelievably upbeat and nobody wanted to go, desperate to take in every moment. Slowly but surely though they did begin to disperse with a goody bag in one hand and their own portrait picture in another. Rachel and I made our way back to White Communications Group satisfied with our day’s work.
There is a well used phrase that says you should never work with children or animals, but I disagree. I really enjoyed the unpredictable nature of the day and the wonderful moments that would melt the hardest persons heart. So anytime you need somebody to art direct a childrens photoshoot or a pet commercial give me a call!
