Sapporo

Monday January 16th, 2012

After spending 15 years in the advertising business—creative director—Brian Cummings left it all behind to become a professional photographer. First starting out, Brian created a personal series titled “Dead of the Class,” photographing friends and friends of friends in before and after zombie outbreak shots. One of the “zombies” featured in the series was an art director who, inspired by the resulting photos, later used the “before” shots in a client pitch for Sapporo, a Japanese beer brand.

One of Brian's "Dead of Class" diptychs.

This pitch lead to Brian being hired to shoot the resulting Sapporo campaign for Moosylvania. The client had agreed that Brian’s unique style and take on a simple portrait shot was a “perfect fit” for the projects. The print advertisements would have the same look and feel as Brian’s “Dead of the Class” project while depicting “awkward interpretations of iconic elements from Japanese culture.” The copy would read, “Not Every Japanese Tradition Translates as Well as Sapporo.”

To make the project even more interesting, Brian and Mooyslvania chose the print models for the campaign via video castings, much as it would be done for a television spot. Brian explains,

We knew that a traditional model casting would have its limitations. We posted a casting call and asked each actor to submit a video audition of the part they would be playing. The actor selected for the Wasabi ad actually ate a spoonful of wasabi (for the very first time). His expressions were off the chart. He won the part hands down. For the shoot, we actually made the poor soul eat about six spoonfuls on set to get the shot.

On top of having spoonfuls of wasabi on hand, Brian and his team also put together a nice set up,

It was a rather tight set. We built a 12′x8′ wall that we could mount new wallpapered panels to per shot. The lighting needed to look rather flat and yearbook like, but still have some edge and dimension. The main fill light was a ringlight mounted to a Hassleblad H3, with a beauty dish, 2 open reflectors framing out the subject and a open reflector behind the subject aimed at the wall. Each subject was positioned on a stool—camera center—and we adjusted for height. All three shots were captured in a one day session.

For the actual shoot day, things went smoothly, apart from the fact that the client got snowed-in in NYC. So, unable to make it to St. Louis, Brian and his team skyped with them throughout the entire shoot. The crew even set up a camera on the capture monitor. Brian recalls, “It was like Max Headroom or something, but it worked.”

After the shoot wrapped, the entire crew took turns eating spoonfuls of wasabi while being photographed. They then put together animated gifs with the resulting photos:

Brian eating Wasabi.

Brian's assistant, Monica, washing down Wasabi with Sapporo.

Both Moosylvania and Sapporo were very happy with the outcome. The campaign was recently rolled out in magazine, newspaper and web ads.

So what’s Brian’s favorite shot from the shoot? That would be the wasabi photo,

A copywriter once said to me, “Good copy needs no image”. The same is said about an image. I get what is happening in that visual before I read the text. It was fun to shoot and I love the image.

Check out more of Brian’s work on his website, briancummings.com.

- Maria Luci