Skip to content

What’s Your Damage, Heather? Photography for a Musical

Creating photography for a musical production relies on good clean photography, good costuming, and the actors bringing their characters to life!
Creating photography for a musical production relies on good clean photography, good costuming, and the actors bringing their characters to life!

Dear Diary, My Teen-Angst BullSh*t now has a body count.

Heathers The Musical Key Art Photo Illustration
Key Art creation for Heathers The Musical at Footlight.org

I still remember watching bits and pieces of the original Heathers on vhs. Now, its back as a musical. And, our job was to create photography for the musical promotions!

My friends at The Footlight Club tapped me to put together the poster art and character portraits for this iconic throw back to the 80’s.

Creating Photography for The Icons

The Heathers Hand

Creating cast portraits for a show like this took a little thinking and a lot of collaboration with Eleza Kort, the director, Amanda Bedford and Olivia Sederlund, the producers, and Michael Colford, the Club’s publicity director.

In order to highlight the color schemes of each character, we decided to go minimalist and bright.

The studio shoot took place over two different sessions to accommodate scheduling challenges.

Character Portraits for Social Media

Heathers Lighting Test

The lighting was fairly simple. It varied between using a large octabank for the poster cover to using a beauty dish for the individuals. The beauty dish is great for creating a hard, fashion-esque light. But, it doesn’t really provide good coverage for groups.

We had each actor stand on a 2 foot tall platform to get a RollingStone feel.

Costumes, Wigs and Characters

Working the Wig for Heathers

With a minimalist set, and only a couple of mallets for props, costume becomes very important for images like this.

Lead costume designer, Sara Tess Neumann, was on hand to tweak her creations and give the actors even more life.

Character Portraits

Related Stories from the Studio . . .

Photo composite layering with Leina Okamura's illustrations meshed with digital photography.

Hunter and Shay Christmas 2003

The boys snuggle up for a good Christmas story.

Limited edition poster featuring over 110 cast members, spanning 2003 to the present. This is a great gift for anyone who has treaded the boards at The Footlight Club!

Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged!

Behind the scenes during the creating of a theatrical poster for marketing The Complete Works of Shakespear - Abridged!