Kia Shoot Alicante April 2011.
Kia Photo Shoot Alicante April.
At the beginning of April we received a call from the studio manager of the well known automotive photographer Igor Panitz. Sta Monica had recently successfully shot the top secret Mercedes SLS AMG with him and his crew on a hidden location in the badlands behind Granada.
It had been a 19 day shoot in average temps of 35 to 40 degrees centigrade with a massive build beforehand. The technical side was extremely challenging as the set measuring 20 m long by 6m high had to be able to withstand the 40km per hr wind gusts that occur in that area.
The brief for the new Kia job was to find him a private platform where he could shoot the six cars from dawn til dusk with a minimum of re-touching in post. This job had to be done almost at once so we contacted all the local platforms and spaces but regretfully they were all booked up for our dates.
Then our location scout came up with a previously unknown option in Alicante that we thought might work.
He was immediately sent off to scout the new site and the pictures sent off to our photographer.
The new site received the OK and we set to work prepping the shoot.
Fifteen days would be required to shoot all the cars plus a selection of vignettes including a donkey, a bride and a small child. All this would need to be sourced locally or in Valencia, where the nearest agencies were based (thanks to Carmen Duran Models).
Offices needed to be allocated and set-up, overnight security, secure storage for the cars, stabilized generators for the computers and camera equipment, catering for approx 16 days , rental vans, hotels booked etc, all the many small details that go into making a shoot run smoothly.
Santa Monicas production crew kicked-in and within a short space of time all was ready.
We would be staying about 20 km away in a quaint little hotel on the beach for the first week and then switch to a larger base only 250 m from our location for the rest of the shoot.
Our in house production manager and plus a runner driver would drive the 8 hrs to transport the production vehicles up from Malaga. In the meantime the two photo assistants were driving a fully laden cargo van down from Stuttgart with all the camera and computer kit.The photographer and post-production technician would fly into Alicante and be collected there.
Day 1 rolled up and saw us at the platform checking out the site, the transporter with our hero cars would arrive with everyone else the following day. We were ready to start.
Over the following 2 weeks we would do child model and adult model casting, fittings and even a donkey casting!
During the next few days the routine began to flow smoothly as we got up to speed, a quick dawn breakfast at the hotel then into the van and start setting up ,
Sergio our ever cheerful runner driver would set up the running hot and cold drinks, fuel up the espresso machine and then go in search of lunch and re stock the stores, while the photo team cracked -on through the shots.
Near the end of the shoot we had to do the donkey, bridesmaid and little girl shots, so I ventured out on my first “donkey casting” found the right one and signed her on.
See pictures below…
our lovely little donkey, needless to say the cases were empty!
Shortly after shooting these scenes we wrapped, packed up, said goodbye to the crew and the day after commenced another shoot , this time for fashion in the natural park of Cabo de Gata Almeria.