We have an excellent treat today- a behind-the-scenes look at a fantastic creative soccer extravaganza. What the hell am I talking about? The AdiCup, of course! The AdiCup is a soccer tourney with teams made up of New York creatives/football enthusiasts who square off for the chance to compete with teams from Tokyo, Berlin and London at the finals in South Africa, which coincides with the World Cup.

Last year, photographer Chad Tenorio was tasked with shooting portraits of all 28 teams, the players, officials, and fans. He did so well that he repeated himself this year, but with a new setup. How does one accomplish such a feat in just a few hours?
TELL US, CHAD!!!

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For this year’s event I had Sam, my set builder, put together a three panel wall set to form a sort of wedge. I wanted to almost cram the players into an uncomfortable space. As Sam and I were discussing the paint and materials, he told me he always associated urban sports with a fence. Every playground in the city is completely fenced in. Sometimes the playgrounds are even padlocked so as kids my friends and I had to climb the fence just to play basketball. So, as an homage to city playgrounds Sam had the idea to clad the three walls with chain link fencing.

I loved that idea but knew I’d have a tough time selling it to the client. The client wanted a really clean and minimal set because they weren’t sure what was being done with the pictures afterwards. Last year, they had me shoot all the teams against white because they had a graphic designer create “environments” in post. That turned out to work really well.

This year, no post-production. So I really didn’t want to shoot against white. I did sell the idea of a grey background. And, eventually sold them on the three walls set like a wedge. But they did not love the chain link cladding.

I didn’t give up on the cladding idea and told Sam to go ahead and find the materials. The client and I agreed that they would have a look at the chain link wall the morning of the event provided the fencing could be taken down if they didn’t like it. I agreed on that. But, I knew deep down the wall would look great. Working with the same budget as last year, I spent more than double on production this time around. I wasn’t going to let them dismiss my set so easily.

THE TEAM:

Set was built by the great Sam Murray.
Assist and Digital Tech –Brian Ferraro
Asst and Player Wrangler –Jeff Vallee
On set Assts –Grace Villamil, Jake Jones.

Chad's team testing out the team/being generally awesome. Chad's there too, in yellow.

Thankfully, they loved it as soon as they saw test pictures with my team standing in. Even with the chain link, the set still looked clean and minimal as well as very modern. We previously toyed with the idea of putting down astroturf painted grey, but after re-visiting the site a week before, I decided I liked the green turf already there, so we went with that.

For the the past three weeks I was going back and forth with myself on how to light this set. I had to have different options because if the client didn’t like the fencing, I’d have to light everything differently. Most of what I was coming up with was going with a hard light from way up and hard fill lights from the front. I did something similar last year and it looked great against the white. The results were very contrasty with some great catch lights in the eyes or in the sunglasses the players wore. Very much like 90s hip hop videos.

A FEW OF LAST YEAR’S SHOTS (Graphic design by Gabe Kuo).

The night before the event I still wasn’t sure how to light the thing even though a few hundred dollars of gear was already rented and set to be delivered. Sometime in the middle of the night I decided to light the set from above with a very soft light. I reset my alarm clock a little earlier so I could call the studio and add a couple of things that I needed to achieve this.

I went with two Profoto Acute heads with Photek umbrellas and a diffusion sock attached to each. The heads were hoisted up high, slightly in front and on either side of the set. Not too much overhead, because I wanted the light to be somewhat forgiving. I diffused the light further by putting 1-stop silk flags on c-stands in front of each umbrella. The flags softened the light while making the source slightly larger. Despite the soft lights, the position from high up still gave a lot of shape to the faces.

Finally, I wanted some highlight from behind the players, so we put a Broncolor Satellite behind the set and hoisted it up with a highboy rolling stand and pointed the Satellite straight down. I told my assistants to be careful to not let the highlights go more than a third of a stop over the umbrellas. I didn’t want the jerseys blowing out and I wanted the players to stand wherever without having to worry about some of them going too hot.

SOME FINAL SHOTS (TEAMS AND FANS):

There were twenty eight teams competing this year with eight players each. From my experience with some of them last year, I knew they all had strong personalities and each team customized the jerseys Adidas gave them to show this. I really wanted the players to shine and their jerseys to stand out. With the teams, the set, and the soft top light in place, I quickly and carefully composed the shots so graphic elements would stand out while making sure the players didn’t have to hang out on my set too long.

Shooting with a Canon 5D Mark II and 50mm lens, I waited til the games got rolling before I shot a single frame of the teams. Last year I learned that the better team pictures were the ones who were bloody, dirty, and sweaty right after a game.
What you also get are very tired players whose last thought is to have their portrait taken. The on set dynamic changes further when a team steps up right after losing, sometimes badly. At that point, it’s all about disarming them. But, did I mention the strong personalities?

Because the games didn’t start until after 1pm this year, I didn’t get my first shots done til about 2pm. I had between 2pm and 7pm when we had to break my set down to shoot all twenty eight teams, a bunch of the fans, the referees, and whoever else. Even though it wasn’t my first time shooting so many subjects in a short period of time, it’s still hard not to feel a bit anxious. Thankfully with three great assistants, and one great intern, we were smooth and focused. Jeff, the assistant in charge of wrangling all the players had the toughest job but I never once had to look over his shoulder.

In the end, I got what I wanted and the client was very happy. My team and I had a lot of fun as well. Hope we can do it again next year.

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Thanks Chad, Thanks creative bruisers!