Actor Janne Raudaskoski as Ebenezer Scrooge in SAITURIN JOULU, the Oulu Theatre production of A Christmas Carol.
Ahh, ‘tis the season for a cranky old geezer to be annoyed by everything, especially Christmas! Oulu Theatre made a production of Charles Dickens’ classic tale, A Christmas Carol (dir. Heta Haanperä), and actor Janne Raudaskoski took to the part of Ebenezer Scrooge with a certain glee.
It fell on me to create the poster image for Saiturin joulu (Finnish title) and the idea was to show Scrooge as the cold-hearted miser he is when we first meet him. Scrooge would peer at the world from behind a sheet of ice, being lit with a candle and a little frosty himself.
The brief was pretty straightforward, and I set about solving the technical issues involved in the execution. Without even thinking about a sheet of ice at this point, I knew that I needed to balance one light source (candle) with another (flash or flashes). There would be questions of shutter speed and color temperature. Let’s get to it!
The first thing was to expose for the candle. This was ISO 1600, f/5.6 and 1/100 sec. Not too bad! There’s a little ambient light coming from camera right that we were working with just to see where we were walking.
So, once you have the exposure dictated by the candle (not too dark, not too bright, but just right), we can start bringing in the flash and balancing it. Janne could bring the candle closer to his face to light himself more with the candle and I could put in a flash to light the rest of the image, which I did next.
Ungelled, gridded flash camera right. I dropped the color temperature to around 3200K which kept the flame warm but made the rest of the image cold. Going for the icy feeling, see? His face is lit quite a surprising amount with just the candle.
So what’s with the plank, you say? Well, I wanted to get a plexiglass in place because we wanted to sell the idea of the sheet of ice. If Scrooge is pressing up against it with his hand, his fingers are going to be flat where he touches the ice. The theater had some plexiglass around, which was quickly rigged up to sit in for an ice sheet. I got rid of the piece of wood and other distractions in post.
The next thing was to go and find an image of some ice and then composite it in Photoshop. It’s nothing fancy, but it is surprising how long it will take to find just the right ice. You think ice is ice until you need it for a photograph and then you get real picky. At least I do, apparently!
The end result after some layer work in Photoshop.
This shoot was more Photoshop-heavy than my usual process. Still, it involved careful planning for the actual shoot, getting things right in camera, and then some careful post-processing.
Here is the trailer for Saiturin joulu, courtesy of Oulu Theatre:
I also made another image where Scrooge is really not into Christmas decorations:
“Bah, humbug!”
They ran the this picture as a variation on the poster for horizontal ads and stuff.
And there we have it! The thing that is always a little weird is that because of the planning of the season and scheduling and marketing reasons, selling tickets and so on, the poster needs to be ready quite early in the process. I shot the poster in February this year and the show premiered in late November, so a good 10 months before the premiere. So, as a photographer you complete the job and then kind of forget about it until you see the pictures on the side of a bus or in newspaper ad. But what’s even more fun is if you get to make the performance photography as well: you remember the concept and the brief from almost a year ago, when there was no other visuals outside of maybe some props and costumes. And then you get to see the detailed stage production and the whole cast and it all comes together. The circle is now complete!
Below are a few pictures from the performance that I shot for the program. The visuals on stage were pretty exciting. Classic tale for this time of year!
Janne Raudaskoski as Ebenezer Scrooge. Ice theme continued on stage.
Scrooge Headquarters seems like a fun work environment.
Janne Raudaskoski, Mirjami Kukkola, Annina Rokka, Elviira Kujala and Pentti Korhonen performing.
Aki Pelkonen, Annina Rokka, Aslak Kipinä and Mirjami Kukkola performing. Scrooge is lurking up top, watch out!
Janne Raudaskoski with Inari Heikkilä and Henri Tuominen. Scrooge has a heart of gold after all!
Performers: Janne Raudaskoski, Pentti Korhonen, Elviira Kujala, Mirjami Kukkola, Aki Pelkonen, Annina Rokka, Henri Tuominen, Elina Ylisuvanto, Valtteri Aaltonen, Titta Toivanen, Aslak Kipinä, Elmo Kylmälä, Ilona Heikkilä, Inari Heikkilä, Onerva Heikkilä, Rasmus Kaukola, Otso Klemetti. Light design by Mika Ryynänen, sound design by Antti Lindholm, hair&makeup design by Eija Juutistenaho, set design by Jonna Kuittinen and costume design by Riitta Raunio. Directed by Heta Haanperä.