Client: HBO ‘Hacks – The Final Season’
I was lucky enough to be asked to shoot the Key Art for all 5 seasons of Hacks.
The brief for the main poster for the final season was to have Deborah and Ava, look like they were, walking in the fountain in front of the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
When shooting with either water, fire or fog, I always want to shoot it for real, especially when the actors are actually interacting with those elements.
Water is both reflective and transparent, so creating splashes that look real in post is tricky.
For this poster we built a 40ft x 10ft pool that was only 2 inches deep. We lined it with black liner, not only to contain the water, but because it makes the water surface more reflective.
The actors were able to walk naturally for 20ft of the 40ft length, which meant we got plenty of great shots.
I also wanted to give the post people something to work with for the fountains and so we hung PVC tubes wrapped in tinsel across an arm in the very background of the set.
In contrast, we had a much simpler solution for the beaming halos that needed to come from behind Deborah and Ava for another poster design.
Again, I wanted it to be practical and optical, rather than created entirely in post. Hence some card, orange gel and a little smoke to pick up the beams of light did the trick!
