Fembots Don't Grow On Trees
My Daft Punk cover that came out January this year attracted all sorts of attention and I still get many emails about it.
Therefore I wanted to elaborate on the creative process that preceded this shoot and is a good example of a successful collaborative effort which I am quite fond of in this case.
The Task At Hand:
The assignment was to shoot Daft Punk for the cover of Bigshot Magazine.
If you are familiar with Daft Punk, you'll know that their appearance is always the same: custom made leather suits by Hedi Slimane & LED helmets.
It is also the only thing they'll ever shoot and perform in.
But how could I make this shoot special ?
The Competition:
After some investigation I learned that at the time of my shoot, these 2 Covers were out.
How could my cover hold up against Spin and Paper? It better!
The Birth Of The Fembots
The first thought that popped into my head was having Daft Punk pose with "Girl Robots".
Since they did not exist, the closest relative of the yet to be born 'Fembots' would probably be Barbarella, but I feared that a too literal translation of the original inspiration would look like a robotic Halloween Parade.
This and This hopefully demonstrates how easily these things can be misunderstood.
Making The Fembots From Scratch
The first step: getting my fictional Babe Robots an interesting costume that had a retro-futuristic feel (which did not exist , either.)
yet!
I was very excited that Brian Lichtenberg had agreed to design a custom outfit - a fusion of his newest bathing suit design and his Hologram Leggings.
Giving Head.
I wanted to make sure that my Fembots looked more like robots than models in skin tight outfits.
Some kind of helmets sounded good, however I had to toss that idea. I was hoping for a smarter solution that would make this creation perfect!
I was curious what my lovely friend and retoucher genius Kristen @ Gloss thought about it.
She always has amazing ideas and I love that she's involved in both ends of many of my shoots : from bouncing thoughts around to post production.
In this case she sent a handful of images of hair styles that all looked perfect for this. Since I keep all my emails so I can trace back developments like these, I found the image Kristen had sent for inspiration.
Ta-ta!
So I bought a couple of platinum blonde wigs and cut a shape into them:
I also still had to sell this idea to the record label and Daft Punk PR & Management so Seth Pratt kindly drew a sketch that I was able to show them for approval.
And I'd be lying if I said that it was easy to convince them, but it was worth going through the extra trouble.
Birth Day!
On the day of the shoot, Yuji from The Rex Agency did makeup and turned the wigs into fembot perfection.
And last but not least, Kristen Lotto @ Gloss Studios did the retouching.
Now go and make your own! ; )
Therefore I wanted to elaborate on the creative process that preceded this shoot and is a good example of a successful collaborative effort which I am quite fond of in this case.
The Task At Hand:
The assignment was to shoot Daft Punk for the cover of Bigshot Magazine.
If you are familiar with Daft Punk, you'll know that their appearance is always the same: custom made leather suits by Hedi Slimane & LED helmets.
It is also the only thing they'll ever shoot and perform in.
But how could I make this shoot special ?
The Competition:
After some investigation I learned that at the time of my shoot, these 2 Covers were out.
How could my cover hold up against Spin and Paper? It better!
The Birth Of The Fembots
The first thought that popped into my head was having Daft Punk pose with "Girl Robots".
Since they did not exist, the closest relative of the yet to be born 'Fembots' would probably be Barbarella, but I feared that a too literal translation of the original inspiration would look like a robotic Halloween Parade.
This and This hopefully demonstrates how easily these things can be misunderstood.
Making The Fembots From Scratch
The first step: getting my fictional Babe Robots an interesting costume that had a retro-futuristic feel (which did not exist , either.)
yet!
I was very excited that Brian Lichtenberg had agreed to design a custom outfit - a fusion of his newest bathing suit design and his Hologram Leggings.
Giving Head.
I wanted to make sure that my Fembots looked more like robots than models in skin tight outfits.
Some kind of helmets sounded good, however I had to toss that idea. I was hoping for a smarter solution that would make this creation perfect!
I was curious what my lovely friend and retoucher genius Kristen @ Gloss thought about it.
She always has amazing ideas and I love that she's involved in both ends of many of my shoots : from bouncing thoughts around to post production.
In this case she sent a handful of images of hair styles that all looked perfect for this. Since I keep all my emails so I can trace back developments like these, I found the image Kristen had sent for inspiration.
Ta-ta!
So I bought a couple of platinum blonde wigs and cut a shape into them:
I also still had to sell this idea to the record label and Daft Punk PR & Management so Seth Pratt kindly drew a sketch that I was able to show them for approval.
And I'd be lying if I said that it was easy to convince them, but it was worth going through the extra trouble.
Birth Day!
On the day of the shoot, Yuji from The Rex Agency did makeup and turned the wigs into fembot perfection.
And last but not least, Kristen Lotto @ Gloss Studios did the retouching.
Now go and make your own! ; )
posted by Beatrice Neumann at 12:47 AM
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