Gem Fletcher

0:09Hello thanks for coming out Mic Check so I'm Jim Fletcher I'm a freelance photographic art director and that means I collaborate with photographers on personal commercial and editorial work.

0:25This is some of my works I've been making in the last couple of years.

0:28And in addition to that I also write about photography through a variety of magazines and as Owen said I recently joined the team at lacrosse as photography director so tonight I want to talk to you a little bit about creative relationship commissioning and the process of making our latest issue so a lot of people think this is what art directors do hovering art directors standing around contemplating being really annoying but for me I've always found it a lot more like this it's about multitasking to another level it's about generating loads of ideas all the time it's about thinking about innovative solutions to tight budgets and tight timeframes it's about problem-solving because on set you're the first person everybody comes to and the something goes wrong it's about keeping projects moving forward and one of the most important elements is building teams so bringing the right mix of people together to make great work so just to give you a little bit of background I moved to London seven years ago. And I only had one mate and she was a stylist so that was quite convenient at the time.

1:39But I had to work really really hard to build a new network of creative collaborators so I spent a lot of time meeting people face to face coming to amazing events like this and supporting the industry and I found London to be a really collaborative and really diverse creative community which was amazing and over time I've really realized that the relationships that you build are absolutely crucial to your work your development and most importantly the joy you get out of working in this industry these are some behind the scenes from different sheets I've worked on in the last years so as I said building teams is a really important part of my job nobody wants to spend hours on set with an annoying whinging assistant or really moody makeup artist so over the years I've built up a massive network of photographers and stylist set designers makeup and hair artists and I can draw upon them to a different project. And I've really got to know them in quite a personal way and know the type of works and types of projects that really excite them.

2:40And so as I said it's like about finding that right blend of personalities to bring together to work on a particular project. And I found that everybody works in very different ways so with each job I need to kind of work out what the nuances and then bring the right group of people together I personally believe that on set everybody's role is equally as important and everybody coming together is what's going to make really great images it's never about any one person it's always about all the expertise coming together. And that's quite similar to commissioning as well so back in January I was having one of those proper miserable work week this was basically my life the weather was Christmas is over everyone's broke I was having a really bad week at work.

3:27And then out of the blue I just got one of those magic emails and it was from Danielle Pender who some of you might know is the founder of reports magazine and she wanted to have a chat about the possibility of us working together. And I've been a huge fan of her past since the first issue came out for a super excited so overnight my life went from there to this and there's quite a lot of resemblance I do realize but basically in life was pretty great overnight so that was super exciting for those of you who don't know that much about reports it was founded in 2013 by editors Danielle Pender and creative director Shelton and Arne and they wanted to make a smart magazine for women and in 2013 the women's media landscape was pretty bleak things have changed for a lot of since then which is great but at the time there's pretty much only the gentlewoman a couple of interesting scenes and then a lot of this so report is all about creating something broader in scope than just fashion beauty and well-known faces our goal is to do something fold something smart. And something really focused on incredible women ideally something you've heard of and some that are new to you. And we really aim to make our interviews honest we're not interested in sort of perpetuating media trained responses we invite the women we interviewed to be really candid and really discuss their successes and their failures and share with us their passions and their perspective so we commissioned all the content in reports every single image and illustration for each issue working really closely with our creative partners and I joined the team to help up the ante on the visual commissioning and the first thing that came up was the cover so riposte is really well known for its text covers it was a really brilliant idea that the device came up with to really focus on who women are and what they have to say rather than what they look like and I remember first seeing it and being blown away when the first issue came out it totally stood out on the newsstands and it really spoke to the desperate need to sort of represent women in a modern and exciting way but as the magazine's evolved Danielle and shares have introduced an image cover to help the magazine reach a wider audience and so for issue 8 we went back to the drawing board we really thought about who we are as a magazine what we're about and what we're really trying to say with our covers and what messages we really want to put out into the world. And it just kept coming back to these four things it was about being bold challenging expectations profiling women who don't always see in the mainstream and inspiring our readers and that led us to the amazing Erika Hart so Erika Hart is an activist a sexuality educator performer and cancer warrior and she is an incredible woman using her mind and body to raise awareness and provoke conversation so back in January danielle watched the speech by erica at the Women's March in Philadelphia and Erica basically called on the whole thing she questioned who the women's March with four she questioned why all the hats were pink and she made the point that you don't have to have a perceived to be a woman she raised loads of points that we've never thought about and she made us all think really differently she also did it topless in Philadelphia in January which is hardcore but the reason that she does that is because part of her work is about raising awareness for about breast cancer and younger audiences and she does this in a way that breast cancer awareness or adverts could never ever achieve so for us Erica really embodies everything we think is important she really challenges what you think about a number of issues and she does it in a way that you can't help but sit up and listen so for the visual Commission we discussed lots of different options we initially really liked the idea of doing something quite bold and colorful and graphic and these are some of the references that we pulled together we spoke to a lot of different photographers which is quite unusual but we just really wanted to try and find the perfect match for this story.

7:44And in the end we decided that we felt it needed to be a black woman we really wanted it to be someone who could relate to Erica and had someone who would really click with her and get what she was about so she Nico Jarvis has shot for the magazine a few times we really liked her she's brilliant work with she totally gets what she gets and we knew she'd get Erica so we sent her the brief when we chatted about a lot of different approaches and how we could do it but after a lot of chat we decided that. Actually let's do something really pared back something really powerful and something that really speaks to Erica's personality and these are the images that she came back with and we totally fell in love with them we feel that they're tender but confrontational they're fun but powerful and they were exactly kind of what we were hoping for when we started talking - Shaniqua she feel like she really captured Erica's personality and energy and she actually shot the whole project on film which created a really nice space for them to have a lot conversation throughout the shoe and they ended up spending all day together getting to know each other and they've actually now become really close friends which I think is really nice so as a commissioner as I said it's sometimes crucial to actually understand when a shoot demands no crew and you need to strip everything back and create a more intimate environment for the photographer and to the subject and this is our final image cover or issue 8 so as you might imagine thinking about running this cover made us really really nervous we had a lot of discussion about it. And it was really important to us that we weren't seen as being controversial for the sake of it but at the end of the day we decided the one person we really cared about was Erica so Danielle sent her the mock-up. And we were all sort on tenterhooks waiting for her to get back to us and she just replied and said yeah that's wild so we were like okay great let's run with it. And I think really.

9:41This is the success of this commission was down to the honest and genuine connection between the structure and the subject we didn't style Erica we didn't manipulate her she wore all her own clothes and that's that honesty is why I think it makes this image so successful and powerful so we also realized there could be a risk of sounding a bit worthy in terms of where we were aiming this we know we're only a women's magazine we're know we're not going to change the world.

10:10But we felt that if there's a chance to even change a few people's minds or inspire our readers to make bold choices then it was worth the risk and we've had some amazing emails and messages and comments since its launch and it's been really really incredible so commissioning I found out is both a brilliant and super stressful process finding that sweet spot and maps by matching the right person to the right project can be really challenging but I found that investing in relationships and building that strong foundation has been really really helpful so I meet with photographers every week and I find out about what they're up to what they're excited about what they want to work on next and that really allows me to think about how I can sort of collaborate with going forward and it also allows me to work out how they make their best work because some people really enjoy creative freedom you can give them just a little seed of an idea and they'll go away and make something amazing whereas other people prefer bit more collaboration. So it's more about passing references back and forward and chatting about the idea. And sort of coming up with an approach together so understanding these nuances is really really important to what I do and a lot of the time things that work out as they are in your head and the best reef in the world can sometimes be misinterpreted so for this issued we've just done we found that. Actually the best work came from the people who genuinely were really excited about the magazine and who really wanted to be involved rather than having to persuade people or negotiate on budgets or having any of that sword armor so a really brilliant example of this was the project we did with Campbell addy I interviewed Campbell earlier this year.

11:56And I got to know his process and how he works his Drive and his absolute motivation to increase diversity in the creative industries he's fiercely against fighting stereotypes and avoiding any perpetuating any cliches so I thought he could be a really interesting Commission for a feature we were doing about Islam and feminism and he came to us we gave him the brief and he came back to us with these amazing old Janet Jackson references and he just totally got the fact that we wanted to show Muslim women in a really interesting way. And in a way that you don't normally see them but without it being super styled or sensationalized in any way and he really brought out the sisterly and supportive tone of the feature and he just captured some really beautiful images also in this issue we worked with Christina ban-ban who has the coolest name on the planet she's another example of how working with somebody who really is into what you do can result in something amazing because she wasn't just turning it in and she was super passionate about it and Christina painted two paintings for us for a feature on motherhood and she didn't just paint on small canvas or a piece of paper she painted a whole bloody painter and she sent us this when she sent us the pictures and we were all just super bubbling it was one of those amazing Commission's where the artists style and approach just worked in perfect harmony with the story. And in my short time at the post it's really taught me that. Actually making an indie magazine as a true labor of love there's a lot of lot of work that goes into the production of the magazine and so when you get to commissioned somebody like this and they really reflect back your passion it just makes the whole experience that much more rewarding so overall summarized issue eight we've really tried to up our game visually and editorially when the magazine first started it was very much about cool and interesting women doing cool and interesting things we originally set out to let the achievements of these women speak for themselves but we found in the making of issue 8 that in this weirdest of weird times that we're living in that doesn't quite feel like enough anymore those huge things going on at the world in the world at the moment and a big shift in collective consciousness and we've decided that we really want riposte to represent that more going forward and Erica is kind of just the beginning so shameless plug just to finish if you want to buy issue eight you can buy it on our website riposte magazine calm and thanks Avonlea you