Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Grot, grot and more grot

Under the category of "non-architectural," this assignment was to shoot high-res stills for a film producer. The studio then used these images for packaging and promotion. As a photographer, production stills assignments pay a decent hourly rate and are a welcome diversion from the volume of homes and hotels that I usually shoot.

Steve Kemsley of London-based Sassy Films hired me for two very memorable production stills jobs. The first was an exercise video featuring Penny Lancaster (aka Mrs. Rod Stewart for people like me who don't read the tabloids) and the second job was shooting the exercise video shown above.

What? It doesn't look like an 'exercise' video? Well, think of it as a bunch of British Victoria's Secret models doing high-impact aerobics.

I'd like to say that this salacious combo is just something for the English commoner. But as an American, I know all too well that our own culture eats this stuff up. The creative direction I received from Steve's cockney producer is "shoot as much grot as you can." When I asked him the definition of 'grot' he pointed to one model's derrière and said, "That's grot."

(According to the Urban Dictionary, 'grot' has a few colorful definitions and I'll let you do any further research at your own risk.)

When I got home that evening, I immediately showed my wife the images so she couldn't accuse me of not showing her. The video title is Pump It Up from Ministry of Sound.

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