In this post, I will present what me and the band have come up with for the photoshoot, as well as how the location visit went.

Here we are, filling up the large sheet of paper with various ideas for the shoot.

The photography team testing out various lighting and camera settings

The main room we will be shooting in, notably contains a large pool table, a TV and a globe that holds drinks.

The back of the room, complete with darts, chess and a football game table.

The room also has a balcony, and unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the poker table in the other room, which has one big issue and that is the white walls which are not visually pleasing.

Here is approximately what the poker table looks like, represented with a google image.

The brainstorming sheet, at the start

The brainstorming sheet at the end.

After about two hours at the location, we moved to a pizza place to further continue the discussion. In the end we came up with quite a few sketches and ideas for the shoot, as well as for the major task music video (discussed in the major task posts) and a prop list (discussed in the digipak schedule and props post)

Brainstorming Sheet and Sketches

These are the concrete ideas we had:

Idea 1 : portrait of a person standing in front of the darts board, with darts making a halo around their head. Post-production all the different band member’s facial features will be collaged together to form the franken-person.

Idea 2 : long shot of the pool table used as an autopsy table. One band member is a “corpse” and the others stand around the table posing as morticians

Idea 3 : long shot of the band members playing pool with “eyes” (billiard balls painted as eyes). Perhaps the overhead light of the table is the only source of light in the room. Perhaps there is something displayed on the TV such as the album title.

Idea 4 : close-up of the title of the album on a pool ball, with the band in the blurry background trying to hit it with the stick thing.

Idea 5 : the band playing poker at the poker table with “death” tarot cards.

Idea 6 : the band standing around the globe, opened to reveal a skull inside, holding various props.

We are also planning on taking individual photos that show more about each band member’s character. Since the album’s concept relates to the existence of a “city of the dead”, or rather, that after death we simply all go to one big city, and our characters being residents of the city, we will take pictures relating to the characters “lives” in the city, their origins, and their personalities.

Concept

From digipak introduction post

The upcoming album will be titled “Death is a City”, with the concept of “What if after death, we all just went to one city?” This explores death as the great equaliser, and also the intersection of countless people who lived in different eras coming together, in this specific case the different characters in the band coming together to make music in this city.

From digipak aesthetics post

Contextually, I would like to place this photoshoot as happening somewhere in the city of death, however I’m not entirely sure where or with what exact purpose yet.

Since I now have a vague storyline for the major task music video, which will be partially shot in the same location (see major task research posts), I have decided that the location will officially be placed somewhere at the entrance to the city of death, serving as a sort of waiting room.

The band will essentially be acting as psychopomps (From Wikipedia: Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός, psychopompós, literally meaning the ‘guide of souls’)^[1] are creatures, spirits, angels, demons, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife.) that guide the recently deceased protagonist of the major task music video into the city through songs and games.

This works great as the setting for the album cover picture, essentially as a gateway into the city, the world the songs of album are set in.