Creating Immersive Portraits for Jurassic Quest
On stage, this cast is a phenomenal and educational bunch. Behind the camera, the actors of Jurassic Quest are just as exciting. When the traveling dinosaur show Jurrasic Quest came to Cincinnati’s Coney Island on their 2020 tour, the performers were ready to do something different with their marketing materials.
Due to COVID-19, the cast of Jurassic Quest went from being the on-stage performers of the immersive indoor show to the voice actors of the drive-thru tour. It was time for better images to use for press releases and interviews with local news stations as they traveled. Their team dreamed of being photographed with baby dinos and placed into a Jurassic-themed setting. Thankfully, the stop in Cincinnati included an opening for some downtime in their travels. They hoped it would be the best place to find a photographer to create something unique. The cast called on OMS Photo after a referral in town because OMS is known for its unique capabilities with an internal retouching team.
Photographers and Retouchers working together
Aiming to be placed into a Jurassic-style environment required taking full advantage of our photo compositing specialists and having the best photographer lead the way. We knew Monty Milburn was going to be a perfect fit. His years of experience with portraits, models, and photo compositing were the ideal combination for the task. For the retouching, we knew our retoucher Charles Cronley would be happy to work on this, as he has a knack for composites and the quirky.
During the initial talks with Jurassic Quest, the cast had a few different ideas on stock photo backgrounds. However, it all came together on set with Monty guiding the way on what would be the most dramatic backgrounds and composition.
The biggest challenge was making everything feel natural but maintaining a whimsical vibe. In addition to working with the right lights, angles, and lenses, Monty did an excellent job pulling up green backdrops to create a wonderful jungle-like color-spill on the cast members. Monty’s production set the tone as he gathered all the elements to deliver to Charlie for retouching and compositing. The most meaningful moment of the shoot was at the end when Monty and the cast sat down to make selects. After a full day of wearing masks and photography, they were still ready to keep the entertaining day going.
From there, it was off to retouching land where Monty and Charlie collaborated on design direction with input from the Jurassic Quest crew. Charlie came up with some creative methods to create something immersive, such as intentionally using stock foliage to bring the composition together. He then added atmospheric effects like sun rays, mist, and more, to create something akin to a Hollywood poster.
The cast of Jurassic Quest and the crew of OMS was thrilled with the results. We hope we can work on more creative projects like this in the years to come.