For anybody looking to channel their inner Katy Perry, John Legend, Taylor Swift, Chrissy Teigen or Drew Barrymore, the one-of-kind Scenario Studio Pop-Up will be setting up shop in the secret underground space at
Grand Central Market from September 7 through November 4.
Photographer and set designer?John Ganun? has reimagined the photo booth by producing elaborate photo-amusement sets of high concept magazine quality to celebrity parties ?and will bring ??a variety of ?seven immersive and mind-blowing professional photography sets to the public with their first pop-up installation in Los Angeles.
The meticulous sets are the caliber you'd see in an
Entertainment Weekly layout, using cutting-edge lighting equipment and techniques perfected by The Scenario Studio team to allow guests to use their own smart phone cameras to take pictures that look as good ?as those taken with ?professional cameras, ?strobe lighting and that wonderful fan machine.
It's a pretty old space, but has decent power, ?Ganun tells
L.A. Weekly in his Silver Lake studio while putting the final touches on his yellow upside-down daisy set which took a month to build. We just paid extra to have six more circuits put in for the seven sets. It's not strobe photography anymore, we use LED lights. I have a great team that helps, build and paint, but it's all my vision and I scout around for all of the furniture, fabric and props. It's a composed set, not anything like you'll see in any of the selfie museums.
For $29 per person, guests can pop in from one set to another and take as many smart phone pictures as they like. A plasma screen is placed next to each set with photography tips and the original celebrity photographs for inspiration.
Of the seven sets to choose from, there will be replicas of the ?Monte Carlo roulette table called the James Bond scenario, ?based on John Legend's James Bond-themed party that Chrissy Teigen threw for him on his 40th birthday, with props including chips and money.
There's also the Katy Perry schoolroom detention set used for her 30th birthday sock hop-themed party as well as black-and-white scenario based on Fred Astaire's iconic ?
Royal Wedding dance scene. Just in time for Halloween, there will be a haunted house as well. The others will be surprises unveiled at the opening.
I'm creating sets with ?my guests in mind and as a photographer I'm always trying to make people look good, says Ganun, who also counts Facebook, Netflix, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Target and SpaceX as clients. It's great for date night or taking a friend out for their birthday and people who like to go to parties. You can get a drink upstairs and then come down to get magazine quality photographs.
For optimum results, Ganun urges guests to read the suggested dress code when they buy a ticket, just to get the most out of the photo. He says ?wear muted, boring clothes. Nothing flashy, nothing colorful and you can't go wrong with nice clean blacks and grays. The idea is for the clothes to disappear a little with a focus on the subject.
None of these are the same flavor, they are all different, he says. It's perfect for a two-month run and a great place for the installation. ?With any luck we'll be able to take it on the road from there ? maybe even Vegas! Wherever we land after that, we're going to move into Christmas sets, like a DIY Santa, with a chair and rack of Santa Suits so parent and partners can dress up as Santa. That way anyone can be Santa.
I'm trying to create magazine ads, so I look at it from that point of view ? you're not just in a haunted house, you're selling it.
For tickets:
https://www.thescenariostudio.com
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