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There is no right or wrong or even clear way to go about making a clean mess. And by "clean mess" I mean a mess that won't be too much of a pain in the ass to clean up. That's exactly what we had to do for the ad in Soggybones Magazine: Tangible Fools.
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| The idea was to make a room look like we had thrown one of those outrageous parties like the ones you see in the movies. You know, the ones that usually happen at a frat house, where there are cups and cans everywhere, broken furniature, writing on the walls and faces of those passed out, farm animals, bras swinging from the ceiling fans, and lipstick on a wall-mounted moose head that really has no place being there in the first place. Something you would see in Animal House. Since we didn't have farm animals, we had to work with what we had (which turned out to be pretty damn random). Here's a breakdown of the random elements that came together to form a beautiful mess: |
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| Wall Scribble Over the years, these walls have been littered with random drawings, then painted over, then drawn on again, and so on. The day of the shoot, the walls were looking a little bare, so we decided to liven them up. While I was gathering our random props, Andy Ortega [photographer] was taking requests from Laurie [model] for what to add to the wall... we ended up with a narwhal that looked like a guppy, the Fruit Srtipe zebra, and some other random scribblings. |
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Briefcase of Gold The story behind the briefcase of beer is pretty funny (at least to me). Whenever I go out on a photo mission with photographer, Andy [Ortega], he is always hauling around at least 80 extra pounds of equipment, which has to be a pain in the ass when you are having to keep up with the rest of the crew. One day Andy was setting up his flashes and I noticed he had this extra briefcase with him. So thinking I would help him set up his equipment, I opened it... only to find that it was completely filled with beer. The only guy I know who carries his beer around with him in a briefcase... |
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| Sticky Icky Icky Since we already had the beer in the scene for us alcoholics, we had to add a little greenery to the mix. Don't worry, its just a few bags of oregano... |
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Naked Gun Our model, Laurie, was great. We wanted the photo to be as raw as we could get it and we didn't want to have to photoshop anything in that wasn't actually there. So she let me spraypaint the 6Gun logo directly on her back. We went to the backyard, sprayed it on, then walked back inside to see Andy's dad making an sandwich and staring at us with a puzzled look. I wonder what he must have thought, seeing a half naked girl with spraypaint on her back walk into his house and back up to the his son's room. |
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| SexXx Sells When you turned the page to this ad, where did your grubby little eyes go to first? Liar! You immediately checked out the naked model on the bed (I know you ladies did too!). And I don't blame you. A big thanks to Laurie for adding some sexy to 6Gun. |
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The Gas Mask Originally I had brought the respirator mask that I use when I'm painting, so I could wear it for the photo. But once we started going through the random objects Andy had gathered in his room, we came across this gas mask. So of course it had to go in the photo, just to make it that much stranger. |
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| Make It Rain Like I said, it's hard to make a mess that is easy to clean up. Once we had a good mess going, it still didn't look cluttered enough. We looked around the room and found a bag of old Cheetos knock-offs (hard times in this economy) and box full of packing peanuts. So we made it rain on our model... with cheesy snacks and packing materials. |
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Fear of Snakes I'm not a big fan of snakes and neither was our model, Laurie. Once Andy took his python out of it's tank and put him on the shelf support, it never took it's eyes off of Laurie. It just stared at her and flicked it's tongue, which made Laurie really uneasy throughout the shoot. |
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| Beast in the Tank Since the snake was on the shelf, what better to take it's place in the tank than a gorilla head? And just for fun, we decided to give him blue glowing eyes for the ad. Look for the mask in our next ad coming up in Soggybones Magazine: All Sorts [Click Here to see the promo video], which will be dropping soon. So make sure you grab a copy and see what ridiculousness we conjured up. |
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Cup Quotes Since Andy and myself had just come back from Soggybones Magazine's first official skate trip, we thought it would be cool to throw in some references to the trip (especially since the ad was placed directly after the article). So we thought of a few of the phrases that were repeated throughout the trip (such as: "Was Good Naw" and "That's Taraval") and wrote them on some of the cups. To the generous guys that let the 8 of us crash on their floor for our entire stay in SF, this one's for you. By the way... what's your name again? |
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| FRANKENBERRY! This was the best and only halloween costume I have ever spent money on. For those of you youngins that missed the age of General Mills monster-themed cereals, Frankenberry was the mascot for a sweet, strawberry cereal. Along with Count Chocula and Boo Berry, Frankenberry's popularity only lasted from the 1970s to the 1990s. But Frankenberry can still be found in a few grocery stores during the Halloween season and sometimes lurking in the closet during a photoshoot. |
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| A few weeks after the magazine's release, Andy Ortega and I were told the ad was getting quite a response over in Australia, so we were asked to do a quick interview about it. Check out the interview at: SOGGYBONES or SWAMP ASS |
