Actors from L.A.’s legendary Groundlings Theatre
What’s a publicity session?
A publicity session (or PR session) is a photo shoot with an entertainment industry subject whose career is established or on the rise, or for a group of subjects who’ve participated in a project together (e.g. a film or a series), being photographed for the purpose of promoting that project. Typically the subjects are actors but often are performers in other disciplines – music, dance, comedy and so forth.
Publicity sessions are commissioned by individuals (or their representatives) or by film studios, networks or streaming services. The shoots are designed to yield images for distribution media outlets, both digital and print.
Sometimes these sessions take place on location – on a film or tv set, for example – but more often they take place in a photo studio or on a sound stage. The photo team consists of a photographer (obviously), one or more photo assistants, a hair and makeup artist, but may also include a wardrobe stylist and set designers, who provide backdrops and/or set elements rented or built for the occasion. The larger the shoot, the bigger the team – and the bigger the budget.
The Life Magazine “Steel Magnolias” shoot
The most elaborate shoot I’ve done of this sort – not a PR session, actually, but a cover shoot for Life Magazine – featured the stars of the film “Steel Magnolias”. I was allowed to rent a Hollywood sound stage for a week. Prior to the shoot, over the course of three days, a set designer and his crew built a housefront, 30 feet across, lit from the inside, with a wide porch and an exterior dressed in prop plants. The day after that, we lit the set. The cost for the production, catering included, was $90,000 – in 1989 dollars. All this for one setup.
On the day of the shoot, Shirley MacLaine, Dolly Parton, Sally Field, Julia Roberts and Darryl Hannah showed up, each with their own wardrobe stylists, makeup artists and support teams. (Olympia Dukakis had a scheduling conflict and couldn’t participate.) Approximately 90 people were present for the shoot – such was the value of the combined star power.
The Life shoot wasn’t a PR session per se – the film studio behind “Steel Magnolias” didn’t arrange or pay for it .But Life Magazine, in those days, meant big publicity, and a lot of publicists were present at the shoot.
Most PR sessions are more modest affairs, often focusing on one personality and nowhere as costly to produce as the one for “Steel Magnolias”.
How do smaller publicity sessions differ from large productions?
Nonetheless smaller sessions may involve scaled-down production elements – hair/makeup and wardrobe stylists, props, set elements, backgrounds. Or not: sometimes a publicity session involves only the subject and a photographer, a photo assistant, a makeup artist, and perhaps the subject’s publicist or manager. (In the studio we have enough backdrops and set elements to forgo having to rent them for lower-budget bookings.)
Former Saturday Night Live cast member Julia Sweeney
What’s the difference between an economy publicity session and a full-day publicity session?
An economy publicity session is essentially an extended headshot session. After several headshots setups have been shot, broader coverage happens – medium and full length setups with custom staging and lighting, during which play is the focus. (If you’re an improviser – and even if you aren’t – we may explore different actions and emotional states.) Economy sessions last longer than headshot sessions, but don’t require a full day.
A full-day publicity session is a more comprehensive undertaking which involves planning and pre-production, for which additional expenses may be incurred. Likely you’ll want the full-day option if you and/or your representatives have in mind specific publications or outlets to which the take will be sent.
Both economy and full-day sessions have the same objective – to create a set of compelling and appealing images that show the subject (or subjects) at his/her/their best. And both session types follow the same path to successful results. Fundamentally my PR and headshots sessions are about play. We’re in the studio to have fun. How often does it happen? Always.
The importance of post-production in publicity sessions
Post-production (editing) – the work following the shoot – is the same as for headshot sessions. It’s a thorough, careful process.
In Adobe Lightroom, the entire take is reviewed; rejected frames are marked and discarded. There are always more rejects than “keepers”. “Reject” doesn’t necessarily mean “failure”. Many potential “heroes” – the very best images – survive the first edit.
During a second edit, the “keepers” are processed – balanced and adjusted to optimal levels. In a third, selects are marked. This is the group that gets sent to you for review.
Finally, we’ll have a phone call to review the set together and choose the best of the best, after which further adjustments to the select set may happen.
All post-production activity is included in both the publicity and headshot session fees.
