Every commissioned project we take on is super unique — but this one be one of our most fun yet.
We were hired to design and build a forced perspective stage set, drive it up to Washington D.C., and do live photo shoots at the Maurice party during World Pride - and we only had 1 week to make it all happen.
The client had loved a forced perspective stage we built for a previous shoot and wanted something similar. Whenever we do a set build, the client always serves as the inspiration. We wanted this one to feel totally unique and different from the last forced perspective stage we built. One of the things the Maurice party is known for is their killer laser light displays, so we used that as the main inspiration for the set design.
David created a raised stage with a forced perspective striping pattern that mimicked the shape of the laser beams shooting across the venue. Forced perspective sets require a ton of math and extremely precise cuts. To make the illusion work, the front of the stage has to be wider and then narrow toward the back, which means every piece of wood needs to be cut at very specific angles.
On top of that, we had to build it to travel, so David engineered the entire stage in two pieces that could fit in our van and roll through doorways. But we also needed to hide all the seams because the client wanted the final photos delivered within 72 hours. That meant we had to avoid as much Photoshop work as possible and get the shots right in camera.
David crushed the build. We painted the stage in a two-toned electric blue palette and used spray paint for the stripes to give it a surreal, high-energy pop.
Once it was finished, we packed up and headed to D.C. for World Pride. We assembled the stage on-site, lit it, and got ready for a marathon of live photo shoots. Over the course of 3 hours, we photographed more than 50 shoots.
We photographed SYMONE right after her performance. If you don’t know her, Symone is the Season 13 winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, a member of the House of Avalon, and one of the stars of the sketch series AvalonTV. She’s been in Bros, the first gay rom-com by a major studio, and featured in Apple TV+’s Gutsy. She’s been on the covers of Interview, Billboard, Paper, and OUT — blending high fashion with fearless social commentary on Blackness, queerness, and self-love. She totally rocked her shoot and was an absolute blast to photograph.
We also got to shoot LELAND — Golden Globe-nominated songwriter, DJ, and TV producer. He’s best known as Troye Sivan’s main collaborator and co-writer of Grammy-nominated tracks like “Rush” and “Got Me Started.” He’s also written for Ariana Grande, Cher, Charli XCX, and Sabrina Carpenter, and serves as a consulting producer and mentor on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
And there were so many other amazing guests. Everyone brought their own energy to the set some even busted out full-on acrobatic poses.
It was a wild, fun, whirlwind of an event.
We wrapped around 2am, crashed at the hotel, and then hunkered down for the next 48 hours to power through the full edit and get the final photos to the client on time.
Check out the YouTube video for the full set build and behind-the-scenes from the party shoots — it’s a good one.
