Responses by David Register, executive creative director, MMB.

Background: The purpose of the project was to take an e-commerce business in an enthusiast industry built by a self-taught founder and give the brand purpose and direction while executing a more modern, professional outcome.

Design thinking: This industry is littered with models posing for photos that don’t look real to people on the inside, so we wanted to create assets that used authentic talent in a location where real pool sharks live.

Challenges: Wrangling real people in a location being used by real players was tricky, to say the least. But oddly, once we showed them the images we were capturing, people were more than willing to be in our ads.

Favorite details: I’m most proud of the client’s visceral reaction to the work. I think we truly exceeded what they were expecting as far as production value.

New lessons: If you use only natural light, you can actually do more with less crew.

Visual influences: For a while there, we were considering going black and white, but then I rewatched the film The Color of Money for inspiration before shooting this and fell in love with the idea of shooting in color. Those lovely green tables have to be in color.

Time constraints: Shooting two videos and a library of photographs in one day was a constraint, but we had a very small, nimble crew. In fact, it was just me shooting stills and a cameraman shooting video. It also helped that the client was very hands-on in a productive way so that we could move fast from one setup to the next.

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