Promotional Photography - Kevin Patrick Robbins by Kevin Robbins

KEVIN PATRICK ROBBINS Promotional Photography for Media and Stage film | television | web series | theatre | comedy

Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

I am Kevin Patrick Robbins I am a Toronto-area photographer with a love for shooting people. I have been making photographs for as long as I can remember. I recall taking a photo of the front of mother’s video store, Movie Madness, and developing the print in my Grade 7 photography club. On set, I am highly focused, but also know when to let loose. My many, many years of experience as an improv performer and teacher help me communicate effectively with everyone on set to get the shots we want (and more), how to get the most out of a model, and how to rise to the top of my game un-

der pressure. I love it. It’s as exciting as being on stage, and I love creating and building on the ideas of everyone around me. Professionally, I seek to establish a set of standards on every project and have a clear, focused direction of the work and quality we need to achieve.

In my personal work, I strive to capture personality, an instance of clarity, a glimmer of truth; what guides my eye is the authenticity of the moment. Being a comedian for more than 14 years now, I also look for moments to inject a sense of humour into my images. I am an advocate for men’s health. I founded and am the champion for Mo Bro Photo, an international collective of professional photographers who donate a small amount of time each Movember to support their local Mo Bros and raise funds for prostate cancer research. I live in Hamilton, Ontario with a three-year-old Welsh Corgi / Jack Russell dog named Winston who really is my best friend. I look forward to working with you on your next project. Most folks call me KPR. You can call me Kevin.

Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

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Cassandra Warner as Carmen Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

TESTIMONIAL

Primary cast shot for La Tragédie de Carmen.

In a recent campaign for Loose TEA Music Theatre company, I was brought in to shoot promo for its premiere production, a scaleddown, burlesque version of Bizet’s classic opera LA TRAGÉDIE DE CARMEN Post-war New York City. Set in a burlesque club in a hardscrabble neighbourhood. Our heroine Carmen is the star dancer at the club and catches the eye of all men who watch her perform. Director Alaina Viau takes us to a time and place where men were men and women were their’s for the taking, or so they thought. Surrounded by men who lust after her, Carmen is desired by Don Jose, a veteran suffering from PTSD; Escamillio, the local mob boss; and Zuniga, a leiutenant and Don Jose’s commanding officer. Another women, Michaela, has been sent by Don José’s mother as a gift, a bride, for the shell-shocked soldier. As the story unfolds, we’re left with the aftermath of lust, lies and death lingering in the air. Each character plays a pivotal role

in the development of the plot, and we wanted to reflect each character’s personality through the use of coloured gels on the backlight. Carmen is backlit with red light to allude to the lust, anger and blood she brings about. Don José is backlit green, a soldier who believes he can buy Carmen’s love and later becomes jealous of the men she willingly gives her love to. Escamillio is given a blue backlight, to reflect the corrupt underworld he lords over. Zuniga’s cold and commanding personality is highlighted by a harsh white backlight, while the village girl Michaela’s innocence and sweet country manners are captured in the soft yellow glare of what appears to be a setting sun. This is the kind of planning that goes into each one of my shoots. You can see the results on the following pages.

Kevin Patrick Robbins is a dream to work with. I engaged him for a 1920s burlesque promo shoot for my opera company. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted but he was able to guide me through the process. Kevin far exceeded my expectations; his professionalism and vision are impeccable. By the end of a long day I was baffled at how incredible the work was. He also made my cast feel comfortable immediately so we could get down to work and give him everything they had. On the photos themselves: Wow! Just wow! The photos created a huge buzz! I can not imagine what it would have been like without Kevin’s photos leading the way in my marketing campaign. I’m certain it would have been much harder to sell out on opening night without his photos.

Alaina Viau, Director La Tragédie de Carmen

Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

Ryan Harper as Don JosĂŠ

Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

Gregory Finney as Escamillo

Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

Keenan Viau as Zuniga

Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

Lisa Faieta as MichaĂŤla

Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

We trekked the cast, a heavy-duty battery pack, and our studio strobes down into the ravines near Castle Frank to shoot the character gallery, occasionally balancing on logs and long-dead trees to capture just the right image. In this shot, one of the cast members hoisted a studio softbox up to aim the light and get some kick-ass promo. Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

WHEELHOUSE is a six-part improvised web series shot on location at a cabin on a lake north of Kingston. We began discussion of the character gallery shoot prior to filming and decided that shooting promo on location during filming would not be feasible. Here’s what we did instead... When I found out director Julian Frid was shooting a six-part web series set at a remote, lakeside cabin in the future, I new exactly how we should shoot the promo: at that cabin, by the lake, in the woods. However, budget and time restrictions being small, we did what we have to do on almost every shoot: improvise! Good thing I’ve been improvising professionally for more than 14 years. We planned our shoot for a month after the web series had wrapped, in a local Toronto ravine near the Donlands. On the shoot day, we had cloudy skies, providing a nice soft light on the landscape backdrop. I humped a three-light kit into the woods and brought along a battery pack with enough juice to quickly power my three strobes (you can see a glimpse of the setup on the opposite page). It took about half a day to shoot the cast hero shot and the character gallery. The images looked great in camera — we couldn’t really shoot tethered on location — and we knew the finished images would be even better. The resulting character gallery (which can be see on the following pages) turned out great and the images needed very little post-processing and retouching to produce the desired result. For promotional purposes, they

TESTIMONIAL

Kevin’s choice for lighting and positioning of my actors was detailed and purposeful. His improv background allows him to both direct and get feeling from performers effortlessly and charmingly. I’m not sure how many photographers can honestly claim to have that skill. KPR’s photography exhibits the same kind of drive and zeal that he is famous for and the result is eye-catching, dramatic and crisp photographs that any person would love to have. His work made me realize unconsidered potential in my project. It’s inspiring stuff.

Director Julian Frid

will be used for baseball-like collectable cards featuring stats of each character. Having brought the three-light kit onto location, we were able to get a few variations on the full-cast hero shot. The final shot is a classic ensemble blocking with the lead up front and the supporting cast members balanced nicely behind him (previous spread).

Julian Frid, Director Wheelhouse

Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

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Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

Jocelyn LeBlanc and Emily Stang of WOA Pro Studios brought me in to shoot promo for two projects they already had in the can and were working on in post. DIY DWAYNE and ROOM 402 are two very different projects with very different needs. DIY DWAYNE is a webseries featuring Dwayne ‘Sicko’ Wilson — who I had worked with when shooting promo on Wheelhouse — teaching the viewer how to perform common household tasks while looking sexy in nothing but a pair of boxers. Hello! We knew we would be looking for one overall hero image to promote the series as a whole and a number of supporting images to promote each episode. For the supporting imagery, we needed to get all the elements of each individual episode into the images: tying a tie, ironing a shirt, making an omelet, baking a cake, and undoing a bra with one hand. Shooting in sequence, we kept adding elements as the shoot progressed. Also, we wanted the option of being able to provide a single composite image featuring Dwayne doing different tasks, so we locked down the camera and shot the entire promo from a single perspective. The half-day shoot took place in the small condo kitchen of one of the producers. It was a “comfortable” set with all the lights, two producers, photographer and makeup artist in the space, but the photos turned out great and we had an absolute blast on set. ROOM 402 is a 45-minute short film. The film takes place in the same hotel room; each vingette has its own story, cast and tone. Unable to secure the location for the promo shoot, we opted to shoot a plain-

Jocelyn LeBlanc

Emily Stang

white backdrop so the designer can create a composite poster, which works for the tone of the series, as the hotel room is a common, neutral canvas in which the stories of the series take place. Since this was primarily a character gallery shoot, capturing the personality of the individual characters, we shot against a white seamless and worked to light everyone evenly, to account for the variations in skin tones. This setup placed the focus squarely on the people without any distractions. Since the characters and their relationships are the crux and meat of the web series, we elected to capture exactly that, in the combinations they appear in the series. The character gallery appears on following pages. Working with WOA Pro Studios was a fantastic experience that we will likely repeat on future projects. We are all more than happy with the results, including Dwayne who said “I want to look like that guy” when he saw the final hero shot for DIY Dwayne.

TESTIMONIAL

Kevin is easy to work with, extremely accommodating, and made the shoot very enjoyable. He is gifted at bringing out individual personalities and capturing them on film. He’s got a great eye and sense of humor. His calm and supportive nature ensured that everyone felt at ease throughout the day. Kevin was skilled at working with us to achieve our creative vision, checking in to ensure we got exactly what we wanted. It was an absolute pleasure to work with him.

Jocelyn LeBlanc & Emily Stang WOA Pro Studios www.woaprostudios.com

Kevin Patrick Robbins Photography, Toronto, Canada | kevinpatrickrobbins.com | +1 647-238-7957

Planning the mood for shoots I USE MOOD BOARDS on almost all of my projects to assist in the collaboration process involved in planning upcoming shoots. Mood boards are collections of images that serve to provide an aesthetic and direction for the shoot. The are the still shoot equivalent to a storyboard. For the Carmen shoot, we wanted to capture the spectacle of the burlesque stage, the venue of this interpretation of Carmen. Two images on the mood board that highlight this intention: one in which you can see the light in the shot and the flare it casts into the lens, and another in which you can only see the light streaming down behind the subject. Since we planned for this, I rented a haze machine for the shoot to: 1) capture the light I placed behind the cast; and, 2) to open up the details in the shadows. The mood board allows us to stretch ourselves in a few different directions while maintaining a clear, concise and consistent feel across all the imagery. It is important, however, that once we’ve gotten the shot we want to keep shooting and push ourselves beyond our expectations. I shoot with an approach of not only getting the image, but being able to say, “We got it, but I think we can go even further, do even better.” A great shoot will have its own finished style and aesthetic that doesn’t reflect any one image on the mood board in particular, but has elements of each, whether that be sex appeal, costuming, lighting, posing, props, or anything else that you think can help you to achieve your desired result.

PROJECT: D I Y DWANE Client: WOA Pro Studios

HERO SHOT: How can one man do it all? This everyday hero, multitasking and managing his bidniz while an everyday world of chaos erupts around him. DIY Dwayne is the ultimate domestic warrior. No matter how ordinary and every day the task seems, DIY Dwayne can make it seem like a sexy adventure. THE LOOK: Exagerrated. Comedic. Action.

KEVIN PATRICK ROBBINS | kevinpatrickrobbins.com

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