Viva LOST Vegas - Avari Magazine
- Russel Frank
- Apr 10, 2015
- 6 min read
Theme: Traveling & Maps
Fashion Stylist: Myself
Wardrobe: Macy’s | Fashion Show Mall
Photographer: Antonio Abrego
Hair: Cole Blake
Make Up: Alysia Tavidagian
Recently featured as an artist and stylist for Avari Magazine for their March 2015 issue, I became exposed to a new fashion and art magazine. Skimming through their Pinterest boards for their submissions, I became inspired by their May 2015 issue themed, Traveling & Maps. After reviewing their guidelines and what they were looking for, for submissions, I jumped on building a team. As you may know, from previous post, I am not the one to build a team and to make plans for a shoot. You come up with hik-ups and issues, that you become responsible for. I knew for sure, I wanted to do the shoot with a male and female model. I immediately reached out to Mackenzie Claude, following female model, I wanted someone who would compliment him, so Halie Nichols was a no brainer! She’s been on my list of someone I have been wanting to work with. There’s been other projects, but due to schedule conflicts, we never matched up. Following the talent, I reached out to my good friend and industry co-worker Alysia. From there we go Cole on board as well. As for photographer, I always want to try to work with someone new.
I follow a lot of photographers on Instagram. There was one I seen his work and we chatted back and forth. I love his work. His editing and his style was absolutely flawless. I sent Antonio Abrego an email, and with in hours, he emailed back saying yes to the project. Was even excited that the story board and team was already lined up. Which I agree, going into projects, it’s so much easier to plan the shoot, when you already have everyone in place. Between Antonio, Alysia, and I, we messaged back and forth some areas and location we thought about. From local, to Boulder City, to Mesquite. Me wanting this shoot to be as legit as possible, I called around to get location conformation and restrictions out of the way ahead of time. A lot of the places weren’t good at call backs or giving me the right answer I was looking for. So we had to move on to other options. We wanted random locations, deserted, stranded on the road locations. By the time we finally got on the same page and figured out a location, we ended up choosing downtown Las Vegas as our location, but around the motels, and low budget motels. In a way these location worked perfect in our scene for beat up locations.
Models: Mackenzie & Hailie on set of motel parking lot.
For wardrobe, I reached out to local retailer at Fashion Show Mall, Macy’s. I pulled from Calvin Klein, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Free People, David Bitton, Guess, and DKNY. The wardrobe was cohesive to create a color story – story board. I stuck with oranges and greens, to keep it bright for spring and summer issue. Ready to wear is one of my favorite styling to do, because of the mixing of textures, prints, and layering I am open to do. I also had the model bring spare suitcases as props to feel and incorporate traveling and road trips.
The day of the shoot, everyone was caught off guard with call time. Due to finalizing the shoot details, emails and text were sent out in the middle of the night. So we had a later start than we planned. Some of the team was on time, and the other half had to rush to get their gear and supplies in order. We had a late start, but the team ended up pulling it together. Which, for being the director for the shoot, organizing everything, made it a little stressful when we down to the wire, the last hour of planning. We got to the location and pulled up to the art district area down town. We had tough start, we kept driving from one spot to the next spot, before we ended up starting shooting. We did walk into this shoot blind, and there was no pre-scouting for location(s). Seeing this was our third option for location, and time was running out for the shoot. No time to scout was given to the photographer for locations. We ended up finding a low budget motel, we pulled up into a parking lot and finalized the styling of the models. Cole and Alysia touched up on the models for hair and makeup. The first location was on the back side of a motel PERFECT scene. Was actually exactly how I imagined it. In the back ground of the shots, you can see beat up paint on a wall that read, MOTEL. The paint was chipped and old and scratched up. The motel also had stairs, just like the ones you see in the movies with motels on the side of the road. We pulled out the suitcases for some props.
Models and photographer on set in DTLV corner store.
We then went to the front of the same hotel, where Antonio seen an old school Coke-a-Cola machine. It wasn’t functional, just there as if it was operational. This scene the models were placed like they were stranded and dehydrated. Antonio went out to buy some Coke bottles, to make it look like props for the shoot. Imagine an old Coke commercial, where the models drink coke, sweating and dehydrated, stranded in heat. That is was we recreated. Our next looks, we drove down by a corner store. There, we wanted to capture the scene of when stranded people look for directions, with a map and ask locals for help. We found the corner store, but there was no map!! We went to other corner stores, and yet still no map. It was kind of bizarre that no corner store or gas store downtown Las Vegas had no maps. In a city like this, Las Vegas, tons of tourist come and go, and more than likely get lost and need a map for directions, there was none around to use or buy for props. We changed the concept to the couple, Mackenzie and Haylie buying food and drinks on their road trip in the corner store. It was actually pretty great, how the owner was cool about s shooting in the store. He didn’t give us any issues, or said only five minutes. He just let us shoot!
Across the street was this sort of trailer park, but not like your typical trailer park. It was more of a high-tech trailer park that had solar power trailers of some sort. We snuck in, in a way, just walked into the park which was gated. But in our defense, there was no sign that said “Do Not Enter”, and it wasn’t locked. We needed the shot, we needed the scenery for the storyline. A few shots into it, we did get stopped. The manger or some sort, stopped us asked us what was going on. They did let us finish the shoot, which was a plus!! We were super stoked, but we quickly did the scene to get the shot to move on.
Our last shot, I wanted to use a “Las Vegas” sign. This was a traveling theme shoot, and being in a monumental city like Las Vegas, we needed to use the obvious to our advantage. Since we been using vintage as our cohesive shots, there was this vintage Las Vegas sign close to Freemont Street that fit right in. So our last shot, we moved to that location. Antonio had models walk across the street multiple times, it reminded me of the Beatles where the band was walking accross the street for the cover of their album. Since we were just blocks away from Freemont Street, there was a lot of people and tourist walking around. That grew a crowd around us. It was something you see at a behind the scenes of a movie where you see people and extras trying to get into the shot or walk around, stop, look and stare.
On location, DTLV Freemont Street with Las Vegas retro sign.
From this shoot, we had a lot of obstacles and challenges that came up. Honestly without the collaboration of a team, we all chipped in ideas to make this shoot happened. There was some moments where I thought maybe, just maybe it wasn’t going to happen. As a team , we collaborated together in our own areas, and on solution for the shoot. I find it when I have challangeing shoots, my best work is given. Moments like this you know it’s going come out magical with the final shots!!!
These images are submitted for Avari Magazine – May 2015 issue.
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