Happy New Year all and welcome the Year of the Black Water Dragon!!
Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, our blog was down for much of 2011 but don’t worry, we were actually shooting and had fun, productive and jam packed year.
Chee Productions (CP) has welcomed 2012 with open arms (not really been given much choice with how quickly 2011 passed us by!!) and have already produced a number of shoots this year. 2011 was a “wham bam than you mam” year and I thought it would be nice to relive some of those memories and give you a few highlights……
2011 could not of started better when the guys from Radical and Publicis NY came knocking with a shoot for Hilton Honors. Originally a 1 week shoot in Sydney, turned into a 2 week adventure ending at the wonderful Conrad in Bali. The schedule had the Hilton crew hitting Japan after Sydney but when the devastating Tsunami hit, the scramble was on to find another location – Bali was confirmed, Matt & Tam’s arms were twisted and Chee Productions were in Indonesia!
With the unflappable and very talented, Troy House shooting (along with sidekicks, Dave and Pat (AKA Justin Timberlake)), we knew that we were in for an exciting and wild ride and that is literally what we got!!
The Sydney portion of the shoot saw CP sourcing million dollar yachts, glamourous sports cars, beach pools, bridge locations and hot spots at the luxurious Hilton Sydney. With the challenge of limited shoot time, dodgy weather, harbor tides, peak hour traffic and the job of organising a huge shoot in Bali at the same time, Sydney came together wonderfully and some magic moments and shots were produced! See some of the behind the scene shots below from Sydney:
So off to Bali we go and to our new home the Conrad for the week. With little time to savour the luxury of our new digs, we made quick work of finding suitable talent (monkey’s and elephants along with the human talent we flew in from Sydney, London and Hong Kong) and scout some of the incredible locations that Bali had to offer. See some BTS shots below and one of the finished images:
Back to Sydney and no rest for the weary travelers….
David Knight commissioned by the The NSW Government’s, Department of Health and Ageing (DOHA) with the great crew at Loud to shoot the latest very poignant anti-smoking campaign. Featuring images of what a family meal is like after the loss of a loved one due to a smoking related illness.
Portrait specialist David Knight also manages to be selected as finalist for the Olive Cotton Awards and is selected to exhibit once again in the British National Portrait Gallery for his image of “Andie” as finalist for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.
When the email came through from the guys at BMF with a brief for Cracker Barrel cheese for chee-ky photographer Brock Elbank, we were not expecting what a “Cracker” of a campaign it would be!!!
The tongue and cheek campaign with a touch of cheese (sorry…had to do it!), took us to the stately property of Werribee Mansion in Melbourne. Cassandra Scott-Finn did a stellar job of transforming our talent Zander (flown direct from LA) to the character Rojar Chedderer, international man of distinction. Have a look at some of the BTS shots below and some of the finished images:
2011 was another extremely busy year for Adrian Brown (AB) with possibly the highlight winning AIPP 2011 Advertising photographer of the year (and also coming runner up in the fusion category for his Red Centre TVC ad). CP was extremely proud of Adrian’s achievements, and his never ending pursuit to improve his craft (even taking pictures from the winners podium!!! – see below).
CP also collaborated with AB on a very special campaign for the Australian Red Cross Blood Supply. Doing what Adrian does best, capturing real life magic moments, we got the privilege of shooting people who’s lives have been saved due to blood donation. From tiny twin babies to people involved in horrific accidents, the shoot at various locations in Melbourne was a real highlight.
For the third year in a row, we had the pleasure of producing a series of bankers portraits for Commonwealth Bank, shot by US celebrity portrait photographer Michele Asselin. CP’s collaboration with the guys from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners NY is always a blast and this was no exception! See some of the work below:
Little dynamo photographer Michele Aboud had another great year, shooting some lovely campaigns. CP collaborated on a number of really cool projects including flying down to Melbourne to shoot for Metro CBD in conjunction with Myer and the cool cats from Junior QLD. Braving the chilly, rainy weather at some of Melbourne’s chic outdoor city locations, we got some very very cool shots!
Michele and CP also did some very cool work for the guys at Fuzebox with their client Riccadonna. The latest campaign took us to a $15 million property in Mosman with a bevy of beauties relaxing poolside with of course a Riccadonna in hand!
Continuing the glamourous run that Michele was having, CP and Michele were approached by the cool kids are Merivale to recreate the Lady Godiva for their Melbourne Cup promotions. Check out some of the fun below:
The one and only Gary Heery had another impressive year, shooting some of the biggest local and international stars, exhibiting his stunning bird images entitled “winged” and also collaborating with Reverend Graham Long, shooting images of some of the characters that come to the Wayside Chapel for help. There is a reason why Gaz is known as one of the best in the biz for portraits and animal shots – check out a small selection from 2011:
Gary was also commissioned by the guy’s at M&C Saatchi to shoot a really fun campaign for Optus that took him on the road to Coffs Harbour to visit a seal and then to Featherdale to shoot a pelican, bearded dragon and kookaburra. No animals were harmed in the making of this campaign!!!
When Juliet Taylor came to CP with very quirky and clever brief from Oz Design to help bring to life the “Wizards of Oz Design”, we leapt at the chance.
The campaign centered around creating characters ‘wizards’ that were real life experts in their chosen area of furniture making (For example, we had wizards of fabrics, leather, ideas, design & homewares to name but a few). Our wizards were magically transformed through the expert styling hands of Cassandra Scott-Finn (and some very clever costume makers!). Take a look at some of the wonderful wizards below:
Last year saw CP, Gerrard Needham and Whybin’s collaborate on a number of great campaigns for NRMA. One of our favourites was the “Your Never Without a Car” campaign. Below are some of the shots that were created with the help of pocket-rocket super stylist Ali Griffiths. Quite a challenging shoot (especially for the poor talent that had to hold the incredible models that Ali had made) but we think the shots turned out super cool!
This is just a small taste of some of the work from 2011! It was an amazing year and we were very fortunate with some of the briefs that came our way…
We are only the start of February and already we have had a string of really great jobs that we have completed (stay tuned for more blog spots soon!) and looking forward to a lot more and a great 2012.
A big thanks to all the wonderful photographers, stylists, hair and make-up artists, assistants, agencies and clients that have made the last two years of Chee Productions existence such a fun and exciting one!
Matt&Tam
