Before we begin
Look at this SICK video of the trip shot/edited by Mikey “Spielberg” Rosenfeldt!
It’s no secret that I have itchy feet. I need to keep moving, keep busy and connect with people or I start to get really unhappy, real fast.
I recently got hired to assist and shoot some BTS in Menorca for legendary Christoffer Rosenfeldt on a Fairfax & Favor shoot. 6 days out in the sun, long hours and a 15 man crew!
Mikey “Speilberg” Rosenfeldt setting up for the day ahead.
There’s no other way to describe the Fairfax & Favor experience other than a wonderful mess of immense professionalism and ridiculous partying. They truly embody the work hard/play hard scenario to a T.
A standard day for us was up at 6/7am ready to leave at 8/9 and work through until near midnight.
I remember sitting up by the fire for around 20 minutes after everyone else had gone to bed, Carime walked past like a ghost and said in her hilariously cute Brazilian accent: “chello”, as she glided into the kitchen.
For whatever reason, we ended sitting up until 4:30 in the morning and sharing our lives/music with each other. It was a great moment. One I truly cherish.
I showed her a few tracks that she passed onto her husband and he loved them too! It appears I know where the good shit is 😀
*Quick side gate (skip these or check out in your own time / background for atmosphere)*
Albums/Artists to check out (Acoustic, Atmospheric, Jazz and Metal included):
Devin Townsend: Ki
Cory Henry bonus (Keyboardist in Snarky Puppy)
Marc Cohn: Self Titled, Rainy Season & Burning The Daze
Snarky Puppy: We Like It Here
Meshuggah: Destroy Erase Improve
*End of sidegate*
Day one was a Beach/Rocky Water setup where we were shooting the new range of F&F in the morning and hired a black stallion for the models to ride in the afternoon!
Carime “Creamy” Bitar riding the Stallion.
The girls (Lucy and Verity) at F&F aren’t shy, and particularly talented riders, so it wasn’t uncommon to see one of them beasting the stallion up and down the beach during the breaks hahaha!
After waking up for Day 1 of work, model Theodor and I were sitting on the pier of the villa we were staying at, which is possibly one of the most accidentally pretentious sentences I’ve ever written.
He bellowed out about how much he loved coffee, threw his arms back and yelled into the air with an immense burst of laughter. I think it was time for breakfast haha!
I don’t think anyone was ready for the level of energy Theo brought to the team that week, he literally never ran out of steam, ever hahaha! He was always funny and positive, a wonderful asset to the crew!
Shortly after heading inside, Chris (Christ), Mikey (Spielberg) and I drove the hire car through the island to meet up with the local guide/family friend of F&F Carlos.
He guides us down a mountain/hill pass, and we arrive on this gorgeous beach that instantly made us all shout “FUUUUUUCKKKK” because it looked so cinematic.
It felt insane to be there, sun out, distant vistas and waves crashing upon the rocks. We began setup and waited for the models!
Upon setting up the Scrim the wind blew it up against Speilberg and made for the most ridiculous silhouette.. you can only imagine how long it took for a group of guys to turn that into a cock and ball figurine…
Massive thanks to Chris for capturing that moment hahaha 😀
I managed to grab a few shots during setup that were noteworthy enough to share.
Chris entered full “holy fuck” mode.
Tethering setup into Capture One!
Upon the arrival of the models, Lilia was up first and Chris set her to work on a beached tree.
Expertly styled by the wonderful intellect that is Holly Macnaghten, we had zero concerns as to the quality of the styling. Honestly, you can’t explain Holly in a blog post, unless you wanted to dedicate the entire fucking thing to it.
She has this incredible energy around her, expertly crafted in knowledge and a heavy dose of sass. If you want a shoot to have the bar raised tenfold, hire Holly. I lost count of the number of late-night conversations that ended in “Listen to Holly”.
Her expertise, taste and work ethic is undoubtedly the reason she is where she is right now (Fashion Editor for Gentlemen’s Journal ffs!).
She’s the type of intellect you know puts a lot of humour in front of the depth behind, as we all do. I’d genuinely love a few more drinks and chats to get to know her better, a wonderful mind.
The always pleasant, always humorously witty Caroline Sims rocked it on the hair and makeup front as always. You can’t go wrong with Caroline, she’s a serious workhorse in the best way possible!
There’s just no way to argue with the results she gets, clean, expertly applied and never a burden to retouch.
When I’ve heard Caroline has been on set, I relax as a retoucher knowing it’s gonna be such a great job at the source.
After smashing out the first set on the beach with Lilia, Jake stepped up his game and Chris nailed the shot in record time!
Holly adjusting ya boy Jake Brewer!
The team here really were just insanely good, Jake even jumped in to grab a light so I could shoot some more BTS! Model and Lighting Assistant all in one, what a legend!
After the tree and rock shots (which I absolutely had to grab a pull out from, seen below) we moved across to the villa for a cheeky sandwich and water top-up, by this point I was definitely feeling the sun, no doubt we all were!
Between me and Mike I’m amazed there wasn’t a “Room” quote about being torn apart….
You’re tearing me apart Lisa!
We were all a little bummed at how little we needed to shoot Jake actually. And that’s a huge part of the unfortunate fact when you’re limited on time, there’s less time for fun/playing around.
Jake just absolutely nailed his shots, so quickly I think his total modelling time was like a few hours across 3 days, he’d walk into the scene and it just worked.. Chris would have been shooting shots to waste time if he’d have done any more, but thank God Jake did nail it so fast you know?
If he hadn’t we could have been bitten in the ass later on. There are certain things (such as working with a horse) that just ultimately take way more time than you think they will. The fact we managed to shoot what we needed so quickly with Jake made him somewhat of an unsung hero.
After Lilia and Jake, it was time for the gorgeous Carime “Creamy” Bitar. Man, this girl rocks it, her skin is the literal definition of creamy.
Styled to shit, makeup’d minimally and expertly, she sat on the rocks and nailed it, me and Speilberg took shifts on the Scrim to allow the other one to shoot / video etc. Mikey, you are a legend man!
She was like a goddess on set, silky skin that the light loved to wrap around, effortlessly posing and one of the most kind, hilarious personalities going! At one point, at the end of a 16 hour day, she forced herself upon the pack-up crew of Mikey and I and helped us pack down. Was absolutely ridiculous. Truly a special girl!
After smashing out a few more with Creamy it was time for the abomination that was Theodor, HAHAHAHA I’m joking man! I have no idea how the hell he drank and danced so much, until stupid o’clock in the morning and still woke up and performed like a boss. Absolute legend.
Theodor bringing the fucking thunder!
I even remember seeing Theo holding an octa while Chris grabbed a lens and I popped off a shot because the lighting was delicious as chocolate cake!
After smashing through Day 1 with 4 models and 3 locations (2 on the beach and one at a canyon) we called it day to the tune of “Stay in your lane” and everyone went home tired and ready for a drink!
50% of my existence on set (Octa in one hand, Sony in the other).
Day 2! The Hotel :O
Cray to the cray of DIY setups here, we shot on a balcony in the rain where I stood for about 2 hours with an umbrella protecting lighting gear and adjusting the octa while peaking BTS shots.
After the breakfast of Champions with the full crew (photo by Jenny Edwards), we smashed on with the working day!
We shot Lilia first on a set of chairs showing off the latest shoes/bags in the collection, Mikey and Chris did a sick job of lighting setup for the room (they are a great team, and family too!).
During the setup for the next shot Marcus (Co-Owner of Fairfax & Favor) and Verity (Marcus’s partner) asked for a shot of them for the Fairfax blog and Lucy (Felix’s partner) then jumped in for another! Was a good laugh hahaha!
Verity (left) and Lucy (right) being as mischievous on set as always!
I managed to grab a shot of Lilia while Chris was downstairs shooting up at her, you can see the scrim I was behind on the right-hand side.
I have to say, man, having a Sony A7RII with eye focus is just absurd. I can literally hold the camera in one hand, get perfect eye focus and a scrim/octa in the other.
The 50mm f/1.8 is so light that combined with the camera, it totals around 800g. That’s less than a bag of sugar!
Compare that to doing the same thing with a Nikon D810 (988g) and a Sigma 50mm (800g again!) you’re looking at one handing 800g with the Sony vs nearly 2kg with the Nikon setup.
The Sony is literally under half the weight!
After this, we shot a scene with Creamy and Theo. The idea was to capture this couple having a coffee in the morning. It was an interesting one as the rain made it so grey and soft-lit, the total opposite of warm sunrise.
Chris left the octa where it was for the last shot with Lilia and flipped it 180 degrees to fire across the room (20m away) to make a harsh light (like the sunrise). You won’t see that in my photo below as it was natural light, but the flash made an awesome difference!
Mikey was also filming every chance he got! We ended up setting up a scrim for him over the balcony and shooting a bare LED through it for a light solution that the flash couldn’t provide for video.
Roll on a few more hours and setups and you’re left with Theo and me, sat down having a cigarette break and a coffee (him not me) and I say to him “Theo, look at me like you’re in GQ”, and we got a ridiculous shot.
After smashing out the top level (balcony) shots, we moved the crew downstairs for the final two shots. One of Lilia and Jake separately as well as one final group shot.
The notable setup for Lilia/Jake was a skrim duct taped to a drainage pipe on one corner and a bare bulb fully extended over the top wedged between two blocks of wood and also taped to the frame. This gave us our “overhead” sunlight.
Had I of manned it myself, there would have been no BTS shots. Not on my watch!
Mikey “Speilberg” talking with Jenny.
We used an octa on the ground as the main light (camera right).
Chris chatting through ideas with Felix while we waited for the next model.
While Chris was shooting Jake I managed to grab a few cheeky shots, or as Jake would say… “Diiiirty”.
One was to demonstrate the lighting setup Chris had and the other was ambient light with some colour grading.
After Day 2 we headed back for what can only be described as the mother of all fuckery. We learned to dance with Jake, we laughed, ate, drank and danced some more.
A table broke in half and 2 glasses were smashed (accidentally of course!), shit was insane. It was hands down one hell of a funny night. Theodor must have danced with a bottle of wine for 20 minutes hahahaha!
Theo, what a legend.
I remember us having a game of “Psych!” a mobile game designed for friends to play together in the same room.
The basic premise is to finish a sentence or create a fake description for a word displayed etc and you all vote for the one you think is correct. The more people who pick your answer, the more points you get.
Holly was legit, a million miles ahead of us on the brain front, winning basically every round. My only call to fame was when I tied with her once and came second place to her twice.
Intelligent women… get em drunk first! It makes board games easier because hopefully they go to bed sooner and removes the competition completely hahahaha!
I remember sleeping like absolute shit this night. One of the categories for Psych was “The truth comes out”, where you’re supposed to be as brutal as possible to people.
The question was “What would make *person* cry” I remember writing “criticism” and the reaction was pretty upset in response. Which on one hand is kinda funny due to the irony, but on the other, something I’d done had hurt someone’s feelings.
I’m ridiculously empathetic, so I remember going to bed almost immediately after that, I felt really low and like I should just stop talking to people altogether for a while. I’m not ashamed to admit I was pretty teary eyed.
Heads hurting, we woke up for day 3 of the shoot, Carlos’s villa.
I can’t remember much about this day as from an assisting / BTS point of view it was a combination of lots of waiting around and lots of insane workload in drips and drabs. Not really a problem, just a very different flow from the other days.
It rained ALL DAY!
We wanted to use Jake way more, just tie was short and he nailed his shots. Sorry you’re awesome bro!
Here’s a picture (below) of Caroline NAILING that hair on Creamy! You’ll never be able to get a shot of Caroline, she’s like a ghost. The speed at which she fixes issues is ridiculous. I remember counting 9 seconds from her walking up to a model, fixing hair and leaving again.
When you’re double duty as assistant and BTS shooter that’s just not enough time to get the camera out and shoot sometimes hahaha, damn it Caroline!
The lighting setup for these shots was simple enough, a single octa inside feathered (camera left) and an orange barebulb outside.
After Lilia left, we finished up filming/shooting and packed down to head home to the other villa. I think we were all pretty much dead. Ready to sleep.
Buuuuuut… yeah, drinks and dancing, food and laughter. I mean after all it’s hard not to work hard and party hard when you wake up to this every day:
The last day was basically a wash, we slowly walked down to the pier and half drunkenly nailed the product shots, and we did fucking nail them too hahaha!
I was hanging off the pier with a reflector, Chris was probably still feeling it from the night before while clutching a handbag and shouting “Masculine”. Mikey was definitely saying “Action” a lot more than “Go” when he started filming.
Which I fully take credit for, Mikey is nicknamed Spielberg for fuck’s sake. “ACTION!”.
Thanks for the shot Mikey!
Mikey “Speilberg” Rosenfeldt and I wrapping up videos.
Christoffer “Christ” Rosenfeldt
And that was that! 7 days of ridiculous, epic, high quality, unadulterated badassery in Menorca! And I can’t fucking wait to do it all over again!
Nobody hosts like the Fairfax boys, and nobody has work as badass and high quality. I absolutely LOVED working with them.
And I think everyone on the team absolutely loves Lucy and Verity for the incredible food they dished out every single night. Girls… We love you and thank you!
Chris, my brother. We knew it was love when we heard the words “Alex Rudinger”. Keep doing what you’re doing and please keep fucking hiring me, because this shit is ridiculous, I love it!
Until next time.
*Solemn*
-JP
Team
Photographer: Christoffer Rosenfeldt,
DP/Video: Michael Rosenfeldt,
BTS/Assist: Joseph Parry,
Creative Director: Adrian Borra,
Fairfax and Favor: Jenny Edwards, Lucy Robinson, Verity Snell, Marcus Favor, Felix Fairfax Parker,
Stylist: Holly Mcnaghten,
Hair & Makeup: Caroline Sims,
Models: Lilia Weddel, Carime Bitar, Jake Brewer, Theodor Temertzidis,