hundreds of corporate portraits--logistics and scheduling

[peterlyons]

<p>I'm bidding on a job to shoot 300 people between two different offices; 200 in one, 100 at the other. (The portraits are needed only for internal use.) At each location, I'll set up a studio in a conference room, and will leave it there until it is no longer needed.</p>

<p>I am trying to figure how much time will be reasonable for each shoot. At first I figured 3 days at the larger office, and two at the smaller one. But trying to save my prospective client some money, I'm thinking it can probably done at a rate of 100 employees per day. That cuts the overall from five days to three.</p>

<p>Anyone here with experience on a similar shoot, I'd love to hear from you. I found a thread talking about school portraits at 30 seconds per person. I'd like to take enough time to be careful with each subject and shoot maybe 6 - 12 frames each, to give them a choice of expression, and to give me some room in case of missed focus or other technical trouble.</p>

<p>Should I also maybe book an extra half-day at each location to catch people who weren't around for their scheduled time slot?</p>

<p>Any advice is most appreciated!</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>What sort of post-production work are you on the hook to provide? Are you delivering prints, or handing over JPGs before you walk away each day? That will have a lot to do with how long your days are (or need to be).<br /><br />If you take 10 minutes per person, that's only 48 people per 8 hour day, with no break, at all, even for the bathroom. And that presumes that dozens of employees can be ready and there when they're supposed to be, down to the minute (or won't mind waiting in line). It's not like you're going to shoot non-stop for 10 minutes, but juggling and communicating with people can take a couple of minutes. Five minutes goes <em>way</em> faster than you might think.</p>

[peterlyons]

<p>Matt, thanks.</p>

<p>This is for a succession planning project that they are beginning. It's new, and they haven't done anything like this before, so are counting on me to come through with ideas and workflow and all of that. I can probably tell THEM what to expect and when it can be delivered. I'd like to provide a few options for them. But having a core, default selection would be great.</p>

<p>Bidding at 5 minutes per person, costs overall run over $8K at a $1600 day rate, plus expenses. Then I read posts by people who do high numbers of individuals (like school portraits) all the time, and start worrying that I've way overpriced.</p>

<p>I guess I need to submit a proposal including several options, ranging from firing 'em through as quickly as possible, to taking 15 minutes with each, and also factoring in delivery times. Shoot wired and have a professional assistant on-site preparing jpegs as we go, or do post-production myself later?</p>

<p>I also intend to ask for an HR person or someone to be there with me to coordinate who's coming and when, getting info for who I'm shooting, and keeping things flowing.</p>

<p>I really appreciate the help!</p>

<p>Peter</p>

 

[tom_mann1]

<p>I did a job like this about 3 years ago. Fortunately, my job was only ~100 people at 1 location.</p>

<p>I'm too tired to work through the cost and time estimates, but I just wanted to comment that having at least two wranglers (aka, assistants) present at all times was the only way to keep the subjects moving through the system. One of the assistants was the beauty / clothing person. She did everything from tidying up men's ties to helping the female sitters with their makeup. When needed, she also helped position / pose / distract / chat / relax the subjects when they were in front of the camera. Another person like this would have been really nice and certainly not overkill.</p>

<p>Assistant #2 was the secretary of the operation. She logged people in, checked phone numbers and email addresses, helped locate no-shows, etc. Don't forget to budget for the assistants. Without them, my shoot would have been somewhere between bedlam and impossible. ;-)</p>

<p>Because the client specifically wanted to avoid a single yearbook-like pose for everyone, to help offset my mental fatigue when trying to achieve different poses for 100 subjects that were coming at me at the rate of one every few minutes, I kept a cheat sheet of poses hidden inside my Pelican hard case. ;-) . It was worth it's weight in gold. I was delighted to see that in the next major corporate publication, about 2/3rd of the scores of photographic images in it were mine, many from that shoot.</p>

<p>Finally,don't forget to schedule a break every hour or so for yourself and your assistants. You are not a robot, although you might feel like one after a few days of this ;-) .</p>

<p>HTH,</p>

<p>Tom M<br /> Washington, DC</p>

<p>PS - BTW, I did all editing and post-production myself, well after the shoot.</p>

[John G.]

<p>I just did an internal company shoot. I did 40 salespeople in 2 hours. And we didn't rush.</p>

<p>A sales manager wrangled up (at first three at a time, then we stepped it up to 5) and brought them into room. I set up a mirror with a umbrella light so that they could see themselves. coffeee water and donuts.</p>

<p>I sat them on a backless chair, told them to face the light and then directed them back to the camera. Sometimes saying something funny, or directing their expressions. All the time telling them how good they looked!</p>

<p>I took four to twelve pics each and chose the keeper right there with them at the computer.</p>

<p>In post, (which you can bill at another day half rate, if you like), I spent maximum two minutes each by using an action, size to web, convert to web, curve, sharpen, etc. I used liquify to thiin faces, and clone tool @ 12% to de-wrinkle and bags/eyes. sometimes I blurred at the end too.<br>

<br /> I also used a pretty soft light to cut back on skin reflections. Miraculously, I had no problem with anybody's glasses, I just would have raised the light. Single light with a reflector nearby, raw scoop on the white background.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

[peterlyons]

<p>Tom and John, thanks very much to both of you for the additional advice!</p>

<p>I've decided to go with just one day in each location.</p>

<p>John, did you have a digital assistant? How did you achieve such quick turnaround--camera to computer while the client is still there?</p>

[John G.]

<p>Peter, I was tethered directly into the computer. I didn't need an assistant, I marked them in Bridge as I went along.</p>

<p>Let me get back to this post when I have some more time.</p>

<p>I'm assuming you're just doing head shots.</p>

<p>I'll tell you more about my approach if you like.</p>