Whistlepig product launch campaign imagery

THE CHALLENGE

Ei Digital contacted me about putting together a team to shoot stills and video around WhistlePig’s launch of Crème Brûlée Single Barrel Rye and The Boss Hog XIII: The Golden Pharaoh — a limited-edition, single-barrel straight rye whiskey, plus holiday images of their regular lineup of whiskies. In addition to these lifestyle images and video, the client needed pack shots on white and black for their product listing pages.

THE PLAN

Working from the art direction provided by Ei Digital, I assembled a small-but-mighty team of videographer, digitech, photo assistant and prop stylist and jumped right in. To keep to our rental studio schedule, I photographed the pack shots ahead of time in my home studio and brought the bottles with me to the lifestyle shoot. The biggest challenge initially was determining the shooting schedule. We decided on two separate sets — one for video and one for stills. While I photographed the holiday images (which didn’t have video deliverables), our videographer worked on The Boss Hog videos. As he completed each scene, the digitech and I came over to the set and photographed the stills needed with the video lighting in place. To get the finicky molasses pours just right for The Boss Hog set of images, I built in dedicated time for those shots while our videographer tackled clips that didn't need photo duplication. We couldn’t have done it without such a large studio; having distance between the sets was key to keeping my strobes from contaminating the video set.

In the weeks leading up to the shoot, I worked closely with our prop stylist to bring the sets to life (though she did every bit of the heavy lifting, literally and figuratively), seeking out the best materials for the dark, minimalist set and the set resembling the Egyptian tomb, which turned out to be my favorite. The teak slat wall for the in situ bottles really set the scene and delivered on the warm, inviting feeling WhistlePig is known for.

We had to keep a few things in mind as we were shooting: WhistlePig likes a straight-on view of the bottle, pours feature two glasses because we never drink alone, and the WP embossing on the back of the bottle had to be crystal clear. Along with precision on set, I was able to enhance the embossing in post.

Because time was of the essence, we built in a full day for load-in and pre-light, which ensured our two-day photoshoot ran smoothly. On Day 1, we were able to get approval on our first shot of the day within half an hour, and the rest of the shoot felt like it flew by. We finished ahead of schedule, the entire shoot smooth sailing.

Retouching followed, with time built in for revisions. WhistlePig favors a warm, realistic look that keeps the bottle and liquid clear and true to life, so I focused on cleanup and subtle color grading, keeping branding elements visible without letting them overpower the shot.

THE RESULTS

The client was thrilled with the results, as were we. Holiday images won’t drop for a little while, but I’ll be sure to update here when they do.