Behind The Bars Of "Fortress"

Some projects just hit different, and “Fortress” was absolutely one of them. A very good photographer friend of mine tossed Jade’s name my way when he recommended a unique talent who fit my vibe, and his recommendation was spot the fuck on. I threw out a few of the concepts I had brewing, and she damn near signed up for all of them as if she had lived the characters before. We settled on this one as our debut project (with many more to come). The vision I originally had for this was a Harley Quinn-type character that had built a fortress around her, not to protect her from the world, but to protect the world from her. We found a location that was perfect, a warehouse-type location right outside of Austin that had MANY different room set-ups, but we only needed one… The jail cell.

Now I’m no makeup artist, but adding that fake blood on myself really made the entire process feel more real. With the help of Shane Production and his Sony FX30 for behind-the-scenes footage, the cameras started rolling, and so did we. We knocked out the photoshoot portion, which turned out to be a lesson in lighting for me. In such a small space, that light bounces off damn near everything, so positioning was key (along with some post-production fanessing). Jade killed it, man, every single shot, every single change. She was fucking built for this role, and the way she embodied it was amazing to watch. We then moved into the video portion of the project, which allowed me to field-test my new DJI RS5 Pro for the first time. It was painful to have to retire my Moza, but I do not regret my decision here. We ended the project with the interviews and still had time to bullshit for a minute afterward. A huge shoutout to everyone involved. It was such an amazing project, such an amazing team. I fucking love where all of this is going.