http://www.chopshopltd.com/shlog/

just a few things i've worked on in the past couple months. a bit of thanks to bryanarchy.

i've always wondered... where do you get the pics for the cover? because alot of times it looks nothing like what is in the movie. not that i have ever watched any before... just word of mouth.

Isn't it all airbrushed photos?

BTW, nice work...

Huh, I bet I'm familiar with some of your work. When I worked at a record store we carried porno DVD's and I was in charge of stock.

all porn questions aside, the work is very good.
here comes another AVN award.

hope this answers some questions (and i can only speak for wicked stuff):

99.9% of the movies are shot and we are given a very brief synopsis of what it is about. we never get to see anything (wardrobe, props, locations etc) until after we do the box cover shoot. generally i come up with some sort of concept or pull together some scrap, go out and buy wardrobe and then art direct a photo shoot. most of the time i am given maybe a week to do all of this. generally we shoot two boxes at a time so 4 or 5 days to come up with this stuff for two movies is insane.

i think everything i posted was shot in a studio up against a white wall. the photographer is hardly that. he's a super nice guy but he lacks any kind of training or skill. the lighting is generally crappy. he uses one spotlight and sometimes a strobe. he doesnt use any sort of bounce cards or fill lights and i am always retouching gnarly nose shadows and stuff. everything he gives me are crappy jpeg files because he has a small memory card in his camera and the one time i asked him if he could shoot tiffs so i could get better quality images his response was "why would you want that? the jpegs are plenty big enough for a box cover". that would be true if everything was lit properly but he doesnt grasp that concept.

as far as the girls being 'airbrushed'... it's true. some way more than others. a lot of the times it depends on the makeup. a really good make up artist can cut down on that stuff. stormy for instance, after her make up is done she looks like a million dollars.

alex, no avn awards yet. just 6 nominations in 2 years. the award is given out to 'best packaging' which unfortunately goes to whoever spends the money. a lot of ideas i have had have been shot down because they would be too expensive or even worse the printer wicked uses is such a hack place that they can't print some of the stuff they say they can do and then we have to fall back on some standard shit.

this year though i am hoping for the award... september is when all the big movies come out because deadlines to be considered for the award show are at the end of the month. and this year wicked has 4 'tentpole' releases coming out in august and september and hopefully all my ideas will see the light of day. i have big things planned for the titles especially Operation: Desert Stormy. I even have a small cameo in that one.

you have an awesome job!!!

That's interesting stuff. Wicked won't do foil lettering or digi-pack style dvd cases for best packaging at the AVN? WTF!

Very nice work Scott, I had to apply the latex and do a shoot like that Lady of the Evening cover, I think it took 2 hours for one shot

Foiling something for the sake of using foil sucks. so many porn companies do this and it just looks cheap. i think i have only used foil twice in two years. once on The Visitors, the whole thing was printed on holographic foil stock. building the art it self was a I FART A LOT and then setting it up for printing was the worst. opaque white ink and then another spot black foil on top of the whole thing was a treat.

generally wicked will go for digipak boxes but when they are putting out 4 big movies at once and other companies are doing one they try to cut corners where they can. so diecutting, tricky folds, inserts and other cool ideas get left behind. and a lot of there 'standard practices' get in the way of doing cool things as well.

Damn impressive. Can't believe the time constraints you're under for cranking out the design from concept to completion. Good luck getting an AVN award. You were robbed last year; the winning box sucked!!

Yeah, I noticed the damn foil on porno boxes, especially red! I think the one that seemed most useless of all was a title called (sorry if I offend) "Cum Dumpster" in which it was a dripping font of those words made of foil and a neon green backround with no pic on the fronT (I think) yet the title said it all.

kontact...
the lady of the evening shoot was awesome. i had never met the girl before, she isn't a contract girl for wicked so i was a bit nervous going there. i had no time to come up with concepts for that movie. the jist of plot goes something like this, this dudes wife goes away for the weekend. he eats some chocolate. turns out he is allergic to chocolate and starts hallucinating and then haves an affair. wife forgives him. i havent seen it but apparently there is just weird shit going on. the director is really cool but his ideas are always way out there. anyhow the morning of the shoot i had the idea to just cover this girl in chocolate syrup. so i went and bought 12 jugs of hershey's family size syrup and walked in while jenna was in make up and showed her the chocolate told her she was getting a bath. she was siked. i stood behind her with a white sheet draped over me and i just poured chocolate over her. the retouching was a I FART A LOT though. and then i had a day off after the art was done and wicked called and said they wanted a new shot of her because the original shot i had she was looking up and away basking in the chocolate glory and they wanted her looking at camera so my boss hacked up a shot and threw it on there for them. if you look at her legs he just took one and flopped it. i think it looks awful. i ended up using my shot on the back cover.

I'll say it again, you have an AWESOME job!!!

pete.. 50 titles a year (plus all of my other work) doesn't leave a lot of time. mainstream movies it is a completely different ballgame. the ringer poster i did over 100 comps for almost two years before they finally printed one.

i enjoy doing what i do. but too be honest my boss can be a douche and the rest of the people here dont do too much at all. it makes it diffucult to enjoy things.

and most of the time the girls are ok to deal with. sometimes they can be monsters. recently one of them went and complained to the owner of wicked and said that i dont know what i am doing and when i am at photoshoots she doesnt have any fun. im sorry i thought we were there to do a job. and 6 noms out of 15 in two years i dont think is that bad. i just dont think she likes me because stormy adores me and her and stormy hate each other. plus she looks like a drag queen.

LOL, awesome!!! Sounds like a clip for that "Family Business" reality show, I only saw a few episodes. it was funny, i miss cable tv