Total MADNESS

So, this is a little blog about my time with The Madness of King George company for the Nottingham Playhouse. A shoot that seems not so long ago but time does indeed fly!

My first introduction to the cast / lead was shooting the the poster for the play. I met Mark with Adam Penford and I can honestly say I was a bit starstruck as I have enjoyed Mark as an actor in some of my favourite TV shows as well as finding out he wrote many episodes of Sherlock which prior to the shoot I was binge watching and really enjoying! 



Mark is an incredibly kind and funny man and at no point did we have to rush or stick to a plan. He was extremely accommodating and we were all happy with the images. The idea was to capture Mark / King George in a state of inner struggle to depict the madness going on within is mind. Mark got into character and the final few shots of him looking lost and despondent it all clicked. The emotion he created in those final few frames were fantastic and left me personally feeling what he was sharing was special.

Looking back there is a lot I would have liked to of done different but I luckily got the chance to not only shoot Mark again but also the rest of the cast portraits prior to the filming of the NTLive live streaming of the play. 

The video below gives a taste of the shoot for the portraits - due to costume, lighting tests, TV interviews, I only had 15-20 mins to do the shoot of the whole cast! So, 19 shots to get in a short period of time of the cast being in character… no pressure then!

 

I used a simple light set up, and shooting on the actual set of the play was great, utilising a fake window as a starting point, I used my Siros Broncolor Octa as my main light source with a Broncolor softbox shooting through a scrim to give a very soft fill / highlight to the portraits. With shooting handheld I also used a silver reflector to add some highlight / catchlight on the actors. In post, all l did was soften contrast, add sharpening and saturation to a few colours and that was it, all done!



Alongside this shoot I was also commissioned to photograph behind the scenes of the cast and filming which was fantastic to get to capture moments of the actors getting ready prior to a performance. These alongside everything else I shot for the production was an amazing experience! Definitely a highlight of my career.