Every film production company is stronger in certain genres, than in others, and so is our company as well. This is the case partially because in a certain genre references gained by hard work, bring more work in the same area. Considering Progressive Productions, undoubtedly the so-called celebrity shoot is one of these genres. In the last few years we could have collaborated in such countless productions, that were build around such world famous celebrities as Ryan Gosling, Adrien Brody and Julie Andrews. This is how we know the characteristics of such productions; we are aware of what kind of production is necessary for the shoots to go smoothly and according to the requirements of a celebrity. Here is a collection of these projects of ours.
Lady Gaga - European Music Award
This project happened in 2010 when our company was very young, since Progressive Productions was founded in 2009. Back then Lady Gaga was a huge celebrity; every third song on the radio was one of hers. It was a complete craze. MTV’s European Music Awards was the most important European music event known world wide. It was broadcasted live on its channel. This project’s challenge was that the awards ceremony was in Spain, but Lady Gaga was giving a concert in Budapest’s Sport Arena on that day. They found us to help to connect Lady Gaga with the award ceremony in Madrid for her to be able to accept her awards. A producer from the UK was the coordinator.
Three awards had to be give to her, which had to be recorded and broadcasted. For completely live broadcasting, a broadcasting van was needed on location. The MTV did not want to mess up her show so they wanted to do a few recordings before the concert, but Lady Gaga decided differently: to do it in a more complicated way, to interrupt the concert and accept the awards in the arena in front of thousands of people.
These concerts function with a huge technical crew, not unlike a large film production, with lighting, sound systems, dancers, sets, working like clockwork, making connecting a live set to live broadcasting an very complicated thing. The sound and lighting had to be adjusted and connected to the broadcasting frequency, which happened successfully. It all had to be perfectly timed and everyone had to act according to plan. Lady Gaga knew precisely when to stop singing, as we had discussed and start the broadcast. So this is how she could accept three awards the moment they said her name and the crowd gave a huge applause, which all happened live on television.
When you get close to a such a famous person you realise that they did not get so successful by chance. For example before the concert she warmed up her voice, and it is an amazing experience to hear such a professional singer sing only a meter away. Also we realized that it is not true that they are completely catered on. They do need to keep the show together, since she is completely aware that a hundred people were working on stage with her. She was very concentrated and directed what was happening around her.
During such a project, the celebrity is the number one priority and the whole huge system is organized around them, and even though typically they do adapt to this, still everyone needs to be prepared to change according to the celebrity’s wishes. You need to be very well prepared, even with the smallest details. Stars have large staffs, with personal assistants, security guards and often have family with them too. Transport and back entrances need to be secured. We are experienced in how to organize their transport in the city, which exclusive places can they go to, where they can’t go. Local knowledge is vital for all to go soundly.
This was Progressive’s first project with such a world famous star. When working with celebrities, the fact that so many know of them globally, means that the products of these shoots will reach and be viewed by a huge amount of people around the world. This live Lady Gaga broadcast was viewed by 350 million people. The fact that it depends on you what these millions of people see maked it a truly exceptional and special feeling to work on such a production. It was very exciting and we were left with lots of positive experiences.
Adrien Brody - Houdini
This project was a tv promo shoot for a miniseries, that was shot in Budapest for the History channel about Houdini’s life, starring Adrien Brody. Since it was filmed here, they decided to make the promo here as well, in order to save the celebrity’s time. It was advertising agency, who created the concept of the promo, that thankfully chose us for the job.
The challenge of this type of promos is that since it is promoting a series, its atmosphere has to be similar to the film’s, but at the same time it needs to differ because it is an independent promo, which ideally has its own feel. It consisted of a photoshoot and filming. The photo shoot is usually called a key art shoot, a relatively set genre with the film’s most typical props, for example, the water tank that he had to escape from, or chains that he took of himself. The product is a photo for the posters to be put out around the world featuring the main character.
For the film shoot the creators worked hard on how they could give it an extra, special feel. We sent them a wide range of locations, which is one of our strengths. After browsing through hundreds of locations, a power plant caught their eyes and everybody fell in love with it. This was the Kelenföldi Power Plant’s its abandoned control room, which might not be connected to the series, but is a very cool location. This location meant a real challenge because it was a control room on the top floor of an abandoned power plant, that now is pretty much a ruin, with some parts that are life dangerous. It was in December and the temperature was minus, under zero degrees, even during the day. So we had to create a livable studio environment for Adrien Brody and the crew in rather bleak conditions. Yet, we can say that it was a successful project.
Perfect conditions are needed for a celebrity; they are not like stuntmen or any other members of the crew. They will not wake up earlier because that is more suitable for anyone else, they will not stay on the set longer than planned because the shot can only be done by overtime. Other solutions have to be found for these issues. These projects, that are only a few days long, are a lot more challenging than the large film productions where the celebrity has an ideal trailer only a meter away from the set. It is a lot harder to create ideal conditions like this for a celebrity. This is mainly because, for example they can’t, like others, just take a stroll on the streets. You can not put them in such a dangerous situation as an average person, because, say if an average person sprains their ankle, they go to the doctor and rest. But if such a celebrity has to rest for a week during a large scale shoot, that means a loss of many millions of dollars for the studio and the producers. This is why they need optimal conditions.
For example there are many little details that are worthy of keeping an eye on, like their trailer, where they wait and dress, to have their favourite fruits and snacks prepared for them. It also needs to be the nearest possible to the set. So it is an important task to organize the vehicles in a good order and that the celebrity’s should be the nearest to the location.
For the Andrien Brody shoot, we actually brought his special trailer from his film shoot to our promo shoot. Especially in such a bleak location it is important to make him feel the most comfortable, with his favourite music and smells, etc. He is so important because since he is a main actor of a TV series, its success depends of his condition, so the studio does all they can to insure his comfort, since it will simply not work out if he does not have enough energy or concentration.
Interestingly, Houdini was Hungarian and Adrien Brody’s mother was Hungarian too. It seems that Hollywood likes these kinds of connections between actors and their role. It is quite typical that Brody plays Central European roles in many films.
He behaved politely, he greeted everyone and introduced himself. Next to this, you could feel that he expected the crew to work professionally. This is why the atmosphere can be often more tense when working with celebrities, since they are not open to doing as many takes due to faults as with a beginner actor would. They expect everything to be ready and awaiting their performance in front of the cameras.
Julie Andrews - Sound of Music
There is a very famous musical called The Sound of Music; generations of children have grown up on it. It is a typical Hollywood musical with a charming story. The project that we worked on, called The Sound of the City was made 50 years after the musical. In this documentary Julie Andrews goes back after 50 years to the iconic locations in Salzburg, reminisces, meets various people and tells us about the shooting of the legendary film. Made for the Jubilee DVD set, it was a very interesting and exciting project.
One of the special requirements that occurred, was that since this musical was made 50 years ago, Julie Andrews was not as mobile as she used to be and could not be so tired with too much each day. So one of our main criteria had to be able to work very quickly, with fast company moves, since we shot on multiple locations, and shot had to have perfectly professional lighting and camera technology. We had to concentrate on being able to offer optimal quality and to ensure that each day does not stretch too long for her and for her to feel comfortable.
This is the film in which she became truly world famous and successful and yet in the last 50 years, since the shoot of the musical, she had only been to Salzburg briefly once, and had not revisited these locations. It was a huge experience for us that she saw these locations for the first time since making the film with us.
She was very friendly and open to having conversations with us. After we finished shooting, she ordered two bottles of champagne to celebrate with the crew and invited them to have a chat and take photos with her. She thanked our work, so all in all she was very kind.
It was amazing to see how such a high quality, classical style, Golden Globe and Oscar winning actress, even at the age of eighty, performed so perfectly. This, yet again shows that for someone to reach such a level of fame, they have to be able to perform charismatically and flawlessly.
Ryan Gosling - GQ Magazin
This project was a photoshoot for the American magazine GQ, a cover and editorial photoshoot with Ryan Gosling. Then he was staying in Budapest anyway, which was why GQ thought that they would do the shoot in Hungary. They aimed for the project to have a Budapest and Ryan Gosling atmosphere. It was an important project because cover photoshoots are serious things and Ryan Gosling is probably one of the top 5 male stars in the world, so I guess we can say that during this project we worked with the most famous celebrity we have done with so far.
What made this shoot special was that GQ wanted to show Budapest as Budapest; it was not only about what Ryan Gosling was wearing. They wanted locations that were typically Budapest and the article itself was about him in Budapest, not just about him shooting here, but showing the quintessence of Budapest. This is where we had an important role, to find this key spots, that were also compatible with working with a celebrity.
For example the bath generally said that it is open for shoots between 7 and 8 am, but if Ryan Gosling only starts working from 9 o’clock everyday, then this needs to be settled with the bath. Thankfully, we managed to organize to empty the bath by 9 o’clock. But since this is a celebrity shoot, if the location is not willing to adapt to the celebrity’s needs, then another location has to be found. This is one of the reasons why it is important for a production company to have experience in celebrity shoots, since they need to make sure that the location can fit to the celebrity’s criteria, with the flexibility and intimacy they need, when offering the clients location options, therefore ensuring that problems do not become clear in the last moment. If production companies have worked on projects like this in the past, then others will prefer to choose them in the future because they have already proved that they are able to execute such a project successfully.
Of course, with celebrities fans are always an issue. With projects like this, strictly only the people who need to know about it should be given the information, otherwise the news will spread about the celebrity being in a certain location, at a certain time. Unfortunately, one can never be sure, that say an employee of the location does not tell their relatives, but a small group of people can be managed.
We also took some photos on the street for one image of Ryan walking outside. He went outside and literally after about 30 seconds people noticed and started taking photos of him. Straight away a small crowd formed and it was obvious that this could grow considerably if we had stayed there for a long time. Of course this can be overwhelming and naturally he had a personal security guard who only concentrated on him and we also had a security guard on location. Of course, such an experienced photographer knows that this is what will happen when a celebrity goes onto the streets and are also aware that it actually attracts a lot less people, than if a photoset is set up, with lighting, guards and barriers which raises much more attention. Without all this, there is only about one to two minutes when we can work relatively calmly, which is still a very small amount of time, but it is enough for a good photographer.
This street photo did eventually get selected into the editorial. So in conclusion, problems occur if the news gets around the public and many gather around. This highly depends on the company and how secretive it can be, which we manage to do well. Discretion and keeping information secret is key and of course this is expected of us by our clients. We never tell anyone outside of our company if there is a celebrity here who we are working with, since otherwise the public and the press flocks in.
Although we personally do not get in much contact with the celebrity. If we do our work well, then there are no concerns and everything simply goes according to plan. Via our clients’ reactions we can get a picture of how they felt about our service. We got very positive feedback from this project; they were satisfied with our work. I noticed that Ryan Gosling seemed to enjoy himself.
We are proud to have been able to take part as a photography and film company in such productions, that have enjoyed special attention from the public and the press, thanks to the celebrities. At the same time, keeping the secret of the shoot is one of the most important elements of these shoots, which we consider as one of our most important duties. These shoots are not about being able to meet stars, but executing a project where accuracy, flexibility, precision and was as professional preparedness is key, that is all that are the most important foundations of a project.
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Companies
Progressive Productions - Austria
- Film