The next step I took on this project was to pull together some reference photos that I could use to accompany the illustration when showing to the Set Stylist, Wardrobe Stylist, and Hair & Make-up Stylist. Especially because this was a period piece, I wanted to make sure I could convey the flavor and era that I was going for. The Set Stylist pulled a lot of reference from books. Much of my reference I simply got by browsing photo archives online. (I really can’t share the reference photos I used here, because of copyright issues. It probably would not be a problem, but I need to respect others copyrights as I would hope they would respect mine, and in this instance if I were to put them here, that would be “publishing” without their consent)

These reference photos were also helpful for casting the talent.

On this particular project we started to work with a casting company and they got us a few submissions, and ultimately one of our models. But we ended up doing casting for the other talent in-house. For the casting we put out calls through two sources we have discussed in prior posts, 1.) LA Casting Network, 2.) Breakdown Services.

We got over 1300 submission and we looked at every one. From those 1300 we narrowed it down to the top 60. From there we cut to our top 12, and finally our 4 picks. The only hitch is the our very first choice for the first role was not able to do the shoot as he was out of state and could not get in on the date of our shoot. But the position was quickly filled by our second choice who worked out just fine. Once we had our four models picked we put them on hold for the shoot date. Then we got their contact info and relayed that to the wardrobe stylist so that she could gather their sizes for all of the wardrobe.