Producing a 'Life-Changing' Conference Promo Film

Robin and Roman were also happy to be able to run their ideas by Ashen to "to yea or nay based on what he thought would fly with the WPPI folks," says Roman. Also importantly, Ashen could advise them on what photographers would like to see in a promo film. "We know what video people would love to see," Roman says. "But we had to cater to what was going to be more interesting to the photography world." One result of that inquiry was the inclusion of highly regarded photographers and expo attendees in the film, as opposed to hired actors.

Change Your Life collaborator Roy Ashen of Triple Scoop Music

The filmmakers also felt blessed to be able to get help from companies who sponsor their own studios, such as Kessler Crane, which is one of Roman's sponsors. "I was able to reach out to them and let them know we needed a jib camera crane. They shipped one out to us." Without it, they wouldn't have been able to shoot critical scenes like the awards show.

Developing the Concept

The concept they settled on was "Change Your Life." The story would involve a small-town photographer's first awe-filled exposure to Las Vegas. The plot called for a mugger to steal her purse and a hero to save her and then proceed to introduce her to the WPPI experience. Over the course of their touring WPPI, she would experience a transformation. With the concept nailed down, Robin brought in a professional scriptwriter to develop it further, and Roman, a storyboard artist.

To tell the story, the film combines time lapse, conceptual segments, interviews, footage of the conference, and footage of the parties and other off-show-floor elements of the conference. "We literally planned the entire thing in just two weeks. It was a herculean feat, believe me," says Robin. "No idea how we pulled it off, other than having a great team and a great producer in Roy [Ashen]," who along with WPPI was instrumental in setting up interviews with sponsors and their sponsored photographers. Thankfully, Ashen also had a pretty detailed schedule for what was happening each day and what would be important to capture, since it was their first time at WPPI and they weren't sure where to get what kind of footage and when.

Capturing the conference in fast-paced clips that support the concept

Roman was pleased with how certain scenes turned out, such as the main party scene, even though it was scripted to be a bit more detailed. This part of the film was intended to show the main character making her transformation, rubbing elbows with industry heavyweights. The scene ended up fast-paced, so you can't really see everyone who was there, but it was the key players, including Dawn Shields herself (the main character), Jerry Ghionis, Kevin Kubota, Tamara Lackey, Bob Davis, Jennifer Hudson, Doug Gordon, Blair Phillips, Kirk Voclain and many more. "It was so cool that we could bring them together and that they had a camaraderie. You couldn't fit any more at the table, it was so jam-packed," says Roman.