Our marketing team reveal the fun – and challenge – of putting our 2012 Season on the page.
Hopefully by now you will have seen a copy of our Season 2012 brochure, either the printed edition or the digital edition. We hope it’s given you an insight into our season and whet your appetite for some great nights out next year.
What you might not realise as you flip through the glossy pages and examine the images and text is just how much effort goes into creating our brochure each year. The process begins in April – five months before the season launch – when we start working on the theme for the season. And there’s plenty to organise: for the 2012 brochure we held 16 individual photo shoots in the first three weeks of August, each of which need to be scoped, have photographers booked, and have all transport, props, costumes and special effects arranged well in advance. It really is a game of numbers – here’s just a few:
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The number of minutes that actress Helen Thomson spent rocking out to 1950’s dance tunes so we could capture the image for Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. Such incredible dedication – and a serious aerobic workout!
photography by Marcel Aucar
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The number of aquariums throughout Melbourne that we called to try to arrange a fish tank for a photoshoot. Eventually we managed to find a two metre aquarium we thought would do the trick. During the shoot, we filled it with water to capture some unusual effects – only to discover the concept didn’t work in post-production. Can you guess which play this might have been for?
photography by Earl Carter
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The number of phone calls and emails to local councils, emergency services and the port authority in an attempt to procure a flare for The Seed photo shoot, which in the end, we never managed. It turns out that if you’re clever (and have a whiz graphic designer) you can create the desired effect with a few packets of sparklers and incense. Much less of a fire hazard!
photography by Marcel Aucar
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The number of paint splattered shirts we created for the Red photoshoot. Just like in a cooking show when you hear the hosts say ‘here’s one we prepared earlier’, we meticulously prepared our paint splattered shirts pre-shoot; creating two looks that ranged from ‘just a touch of paint’ to ‘I can barely see any of the shirt’. But things look different on set, and you never quite know how the costumes will look on the actor. So instead, the pre-prepared shirts were sent packing and we painted directly on to Colin Friels – right down to his face and fingers. It’s all in the detail.
After choosing our favourite twelve images from the hundreds of pictures that came out of the photoshoots, we began putting it all together into a brochure. Copy was carefully written and edited, the graphics team finalised the design, and then in late August, we sent our baby off to the printer. Why so early? With 60,000 copies to print – 35,000 of which have to be sent to the mailing house to arrive the day after launch – we needed to get cracking!
Now it’s out in the world, both in print and online, things have quietened down a bit – on the brochure front at least. Because there’s still plenty more to do in the lead up to our 2012 Season…
Which was your favourite image from our brochure? You can share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
Coming up next: Learn more about Clybourne Park.
Published on 6 October 2011