Guest Blog From My Assistant on a Recent Advertising Shoot

This past fall I was asked to shoot the Spring 2012 running campaign for The North Face in the Lakes District of the UK. It was a fast and furious production — and epically beautiful. Check out Caroline’s thoughts below:

Operating a Man Down

Caroline Treadway

One minute it’s me, Tim, Matt, and Hennie at the Amsterdam airport. We’re eating sausage rolls, drinking coffee and checking email before our flight to England for a week-long shoot with the TNF global running team. The next minute, we’re in the boarding area and Hennie comes up with this long face and says, “I can’t get on the plane.” I thought he was joking. Apparently South Africans need visas to enter the UK, due to a recent legislation change we were unaware of. Hennie’s South African. And we needed him, not to mention the video equipment in his bags.

A few hours later, three of us entered England’s prized Lake District. As Tim sped through the narrow, stone-walled roads, it was easy to see why The North Face chose to shoot their Spring ’12 performance line here. Misty mountains, shiny lakes and neon green pastures were everywhere - a rugged paradise begging to be explored on foot. Plus, the area’s vibrant fell running tradition made it the perfect place to shoot some of TNF’s fastest ultrarunners: Sebastien Chagneau from France, Jez Bragg from the UK, Tracy Garneau from Canada and Kami Semick from the US.

We had two days to scout locations before the athletes arrived and find Hennie’s missing video equipment (he was now in Ireland figuring out how to ship bags). So we broke out the maps for a little recon. The Lake District’s surprising variety of terrain gave us lots of options - barren, rocky mountaintops, steep heather-carpeted slopes and high grassy plains. But with few roads, each required a long, steep approach.

Two days later the shoot kicked into high gear with a fully assembled team. For the next week, the athletes, who were happy to run around after long travel days, tested TNF’s new spring line against a typical English mix of cold rain, hot sun and coastal wind. Our job was to capture the action.

We couldn’t replace Hennie, but we had to try. Everyone carried extra gear, including the athletes. Matt regularly humped 150 pounds plus a crane on his back up the fells. I’d quickly set up a time lapse and run between Matt and Tim, to see who needed what.

When you’ve got all the equipment and people you need to do a job, it’s pretty easy. When you don’t, and you gotta make it work in a foreign country, the key ingredients are patience, hard work and cooperation. Not super glamorous but extremely effective.