Earlier this year I had the extreme pleasure of shooting some set stills for the folks behind the comedy-fantasy webseries Standard Action. Shortly after, I approached them with a concept for the promotional poster you see below, and we gathered in the woods to shoot the base images for several layouts. This was a first exercise for me in taking an image and processing it beyond the realistic expectations of what a natural photo should look like, and I’m ultimately quite pleased with the result.
Here you can see the original RAW photo, and the final composition that sits in the poster layout.
Beyond the time-consuming work of knocking out the characters, cleaning up blemishes and inconsistencies, and modifying the background, there were two detail pieces that really helped finish off the final composition. Wendy’s knife blade was barely visible in the initial image, and Edda’s sword was tilted at an angle that caused it to pull too much distracting skin and tree reflections. Both were redrawn and added as semi-transparent overlays to enhance the original blades.
As a small aside, I’d like to ask you to consider for a moment the state of the media industry as you know it. With the majority of studios dumbing down their shows and movies to reach as broad an audience as possible, it becomes less and less common to see a show that decides to reach out directly to only one specific demographic. Sure, you can still find humour and value in Standard Action if you’ve never played D&D, read a fantasy or sci-fi book, or ever played any related board or video games, but odds are you’re just not going to get a lot of what’s going on. I used to consider myself something of a geek, but several jokes in each episode still go rocketing over my head.
Here’s the thing about that: I love it. I love that such a large chunk of the cast and crew are unabashedly geeky. I love that the show caters to a specific demographic. I love that they don’t seem to have any intention of dumbing down the subtle and obscure references that make the show truly great for those who catch on. I also admire them for putting so many hours of their time and money from their pockets into this labour of passion.
That said, Standard Action‘s first season has taken a toll on the creators and producers, and they are now looking to fund a second season. Regardless of whether or not you consider yourself a fan of the genre that Standard Action falls into, please consider making a small donation to Standard Action’s IndieGoGo campaign. If not to specifically support an extremely deserving group of actors and filmmakers, then think about kicking a few dollars their way to support a growing industry of indie content producers who care more about the product than the revenue it might generate.
To check out the reward and donation options, please visit Standard Action’s IndieGoGo page.
[...] to my Standard Action Poster Design post, the cards are in from the printers and I’m happy to share the finished product. As [...]