Lost Beauty in Derelict Spaces

As summer is in full bloom, The Lost Team is restocking, rethinking, and getting our camera gear prepped to shoot specifically for ourselves over the next two weeks. Our goal will be to create content for the various existing lost sites and the upcoming photography site, showcasing Lost Beauty in Derelict Spaces.

With an aesthetic goal in mind that will fit with future TV project plans, we are looking at simple clean beauty for our Lost Girls and Lost Boys. Thankfully we have the Sons of Adonis brush (and soon concealer) to help with this and with our pro accounts all up to date, we can create something fresh and test run products before we go for the really big projects that will focus on darker elements and more chills than beauty.

Our plan is to bring some new talent into the mix and open the door to creative opportunities as we progress lead by our creative director JamesC, we are going to be announcing further collaborations and partnerships officially as we finetune the scripts and ideas fully.

Stay tuned for more news and updates.

Updates From The Creative Sphere

Over at the Lost Creatives home office, we have been plugging away at our work and will have some project announcements and cast/crew requirements going live very soon. While this is being worked out, we have some announcements that as a team we are really excited about and wanted to share.

As creative director and head of makeup, JamesC, has been instrumental in the development of his new site and working on a consultation basis, for Sons of Adonis makeup (it will be added to his working kit), as part o this a limited edition brush was created featuring his logo and the brand: available from the Sons of Adonis site.

In terms of production and editorial, we have decided to add to our site holdings and will be launching a separate photography site that will feature the work of JamesC both his commercial work and the behind-the-scenes stills on film and TV shoots. The reasoning for this is to allow an expanded sense of his creative work and offer a different perspective on the work of a makeup artist.

Lost Agency is being formed and set around the needs of the main business and will handle the overall marketing, banking, and other elements of our work as an umbrella creating an in-house and full-spectrum setup that is own, controlled, and managed for the needs of the Lost team.

Over the next few weeks, we will be releasing additional details on what is happening and casting/crew opportunities for smaller festival entry projects.

Festive Thoughts From The Lost Creatives

Featured brand Lord and Berry (UK)

A slight departure from our normal scheduling but we wanted to get this post out before Christmas day and say a big thank you to all our supporters, the brands, and of course our readers as we share our final thoughts for 2020. From here we will be focusing heavily on the future and what will be happening for the team in the new year. We have been busy over the last few weeks setting in motion concepts, finalizing and in some cases reediting images for the various websites we run, there will also be a run of work that is designed specifically for editorial (we have some really fantastic magazines we have shot work for). We do want to look at the festival circuit, there will be an announcement of a new film festival media partnership in the new year, the goal of this will be to boost our video content and bring a little attention to talent. Naturally, these projects will be small crews/cast to keep the costs down and very much in the kitchen sink drama territory which will develop into other areas and our ultimate goal of tackling the horror/thriller market for TV, scripts are already earmarked for this.

One of our biggest supporters and our favorite writer, has offered us a development contract that will expand our portfolio to include video games for a variety of platforms which is an exciting prospect.

Our creative Director; JamesC, is working around different ideas and is editing, shooting, and managing our background work such as the brand placement and of course stock levels.

We will of course keep you all in the loop of changes and updates through the website and till then we want to, again, thank you for the support and wish you a Merry Christmas.

Advertising Plans

In the last few weeks, we have been quiet in terms of our advertising thanks in part to the ongoing work with PR agencies we do through The Lost Project. What this has meant is we do have a backlog of images to edit and products to test, some of this will be used as part of bigger ad campaigns for 2021.

While it might seem we are slow in updating our galleries, there is a reason for this and a strategic goal that will become clear in the next few weeks.

Our editorial shoots (ongoing) are being supported by a new men’s cosmetic line (to be revealed soon) and the fantastic team at Lord and Berry, we do have some new shoots planned and will be doing some macro work with glitter and possibly even a cover shoot.

We have specific magazines and styles we are working on and that takes time to complete more so with the restrictions in place in Scotland, it can be difficult to find the right models and locations without traveling too far from our base. Our head of makeup and creative director JamesC, is working on new projects and wants to do some flat lay images to bolster the galleries which we are hoping to have done before Christmas and our main push through FB started in the new year.

Our remote team members are all working hard with our favorite indie Bollywood actor developing his own projects for the future which we are in full support of and have started working on a website for him.

Something we are really excited about is that one of the magazines we are keen to be published with has taken away deadlines which will, in turn, allow us to do more work with male models and really experiment with concepts at a low cost and showcase the work in the best possible light.

We will be adding more stock soon from Lord and Berry, Mykitco, and our favorite Brushwork cosmetics with a view to creating a brand new cover image for the JamesC website, this will combine our beauty and TV work with some other elements cut in to bring a new depth to not only JamesC’s work but also to the Lost Creative portfolio.

With a series of creative plans to deliver on for the new year, we are putting a whole host of work being finished off The Lost Creative journey is gearing up for bigger things.

The collective Push of The Lost Team

In the last few months, we have been able to build some interesting relationships with brands and companies, taking steps toward our ultimate goals and aspirations slowly in light of the market changes that are underway to the film and TV market in particular which have opened our eyes to other potential avenues that The Lost can explore and has given us a collective push to work around boundaries. There are some interesting updates that even we are waiting for updates on as contracts (with non-disclosures) are being drawn up to affirm a new and exciting partnership.

Over time we intend to build a host of new creative images incorporating some of our favorite makeup and brushes that will be used on our creative director JamesC’s website as well as our own, with our magazine work coming to a close on the written side to focus on the massive backlog of shoots to be edited and curated across our multiple sites and blogs. Editing processes have been slowed down but are still happening and by mid-December, we will have new additions to the galleries and a new fashion/editorial specific gallery for the JamesC Website.

Nepal as many will be aware plays a large part in our work and we are very proud of that with the NCIFF (Nepal Culture and Film Festival) alongside our partners Nepal Film Production, it is interesting to see the work coming together so cleanly.

The Lost Creatives shoots are going well and while not yet public (magazine deadlines and release scheduling outwith our control) we will be working on the much more comprehensive Lost Boys/Girls concept which we are going to shoot exclusively in North Ayrshire and have already picked out some significant spots that fit our brief. As much an intellectual exercise as it is a photo project it will be the focus of our energies and a chance to clear some cobwebs.

Creative The Narrative

We are working in the background and will be showcasing new work soon through all 3 of our sites and talking about the creative process in more detail along with the logic behind what we did and how we did it. At the moment we are working on some site updates which will come into play across our sites. At this time we have some editorials in the edit suite with others in motion for publication alongside text articles that will be available through World Fashion Media News upcoming print magazine (which we are truly grateful to be a part of).

Our creative director JamesC, is working with a few brands on product testing (subject to non-disclosure agreements) which is an exciting prospect for our work collectively and announcements on longterm partnerships will be made as and when they are completed.

Understand that while we are quiet we do have a lot happening and cannot wait to showcase the new work and our refreshed sites and we are working to create new partnerships for future projects.

Editorial content will be playing a big part of our upcoming work with JamesC leading the charge on this and plans to completely change the layout and look of his site including an opening video for the site which we are designing the overall look for at the moment.

Focus is on publication and as previously mentioned, World Fashion Media News having a new print version coming soon, we will be working on editorials exclusive to them with an emphasis on clean beauty and male grooming.

Our list of magazines is growing and thankfully the terms are clearly laid out which means we can focus on the artistic over the corporate first with marketing taking a very close second.

Motivated and pushing forward The Lost Creative team is working hard and dreaming big.

Project Planning With Nepal Productions

We really do owe a debt of gratitude to our team in Nepal especially Digbijaya Bharati from the Nepal Film Production team, who has been patient during the lockdown and happy to continue working via Whatsapp so we can as a team which gets our work moving forward, not just with media but other elements and promotional avenues we are exploring. As our regular readers will be aware our plans are geared toward Intenet TV, in particular, the horror and Thriller genres with a sideline in the editorial market to boost marketing via social accounts and strategic placement of ads.

For us, it has become planning and strategy that allows us to focus our energies in new areas of business and develop further as a business although at heart we still love makeup work and our creative director JamesC is part and parcel of the ongoing plans, we are all on board with changes being made to the business and have some smaller elements such as the facecharts being brought back in (the JamesC facechart will be available again via his site soon).

We already have several scripts in play for development in the realm of TV and will be working on a range of new images and behind the scenes work while the weather is good and allows us flexibility, the new guidelines for production work will be a big part of how we move forward ensuring everyone involved is safe and the work is handled carefully.

As our previous blog has stated we are going to also look at skills development for our in-house team to allow us to multitask and keep the crew requirements to a minimum and safe.

*Change in how the media and fashion industry will be massive and we are doing all we can to ensure that our staff is safe, the team (both the UK and South Asian) are up to date on the latest changes.

Creating Something Fresh: A Portfolio Journey

In the last ten years, the media industry has changed and we focus our energy on creating curated websites and social media accounts that (especially in the UK) are designed to be our portfolio and showcase our work. However, we at The Lost Creatives can see that changing and the physical portfolio book will make a comeback for those in makeup and photography in particular. There will always be a three-tier system in place when it comes to business and we have our goals and understand that we will need to go back to an earlier incarnation of how we worked.

We have been quietly discussing this in the background in our WhatsApp calls and Facebook messages as something we need to really push forward with hence our editorial plans. *Because we work primarily in-house (with thanks to creative director JamesC for his support) we can keep the team small and with the options available in the digital market it is possible for us to completely change our outlook to fit a new audience which is a major plus. We will maintain the websites as part of a larger marketing campaign but for meetings, we want to be able to show our potential clients or collaborators a book of work that will allow them to look at images which admittedly we have not done in many years and it is an exciting challenge to be in a position to create something fresh.

For this we do have a plan of action in place and have started working out exactly what we want and which magazines we will shoot for, there will be two portfolios of work focusing on key areas of the work we do and keeping them distinct and separate.

As our primary focus with any shoots will be marketing we will be starting with our fashion and beauty folio which will be geared toward tear sheets and covers (we have done some digging and can make this happen fairly easily), with a film/TV book being secondary and scripts being chosen to shoot for festivals to start and of course an array of Commercial projects that will include a showreel of the work done.

Something to consider as we move into a whole new arena of work in the coming months will be how to stand out in the market as an artist.

Choosing our Editorial Path

Editorial is often used as a means to test new styles, try new techniques and work with new people but if you are smart it can also be a way to create new business and a smart proactive tool that will draw attention to your business and bring new clients to the table. Which for us is the primary reason we are being selective about the magazines we are choosing and calculating our approach carefully and strategically to ensure we get the maximum from the work. When we look at a magazine we have certain criteria that we are looking for and markers that will put them higher on our list:

• Branded tears.

• Covers.

• Minimal costume requirements.

• Minimal image requirements.

• Cost of submission.

Starting with these factors we then spend time pouring over their content and style as part of phase two, of our plans, we prefer simplistic and clean looks with priority going to men’s magazines at a ratio of two shoots for our male models to one for our females. *The reasoning for this is simple, we have core team members who are actors and models and they are our priority in marketing as this will have a knock-on effect in the spread of our work over time with social media advertising. Our preference is for digital magazine first but we will (for certain clients) be working toward print at a later stage. The reason we prefer online is fairly straightforward: reach. A print magazine can have an overall reach of 20,000 in terms of people buying the magazine whereas digital can move into the millions of views between social feeds and website stats, which for us makes it a more profitable and farreaching prospect.

At this point we have it broken down to a total of 2 magazines that are being marked as priority for us and will be used to promote the business overall building to what will be a series of shoots with our remote team headed up by creative director JamesC.

Choosing our editorial path is in truth is 1 part art and 2 parts commercial with our team plotting out how we can maximize the potential of the work undertaken.

Using Editorials and Tears To Market The Lost Concept

Creative frustration is starting to kick in for many of us in the arts and while we are all on hold it is a good time to plan for the future and marketing your business once the restrictions are lifted and we can submit fresh work to the various online and print publications out there. For us, we do have several concepts that are part of a larger-scale and ultimately long-term project around The Lost concept.

Our goals are split into two areas:

1. Photo Stories and editorials.

2. Single image and portrait.

There are magazines that we are looking at with very specific designs and concepts, thankfully we have talked to a few of them and they have opened up the single image option (tears and covers) that will be integral to our marketing over the coming months along with our partners.

For us its the single image option that is the biggest challenge as we want that image as a standalone to tell a story or at least inspire the imagination which is the intellectual challenge part that we are eager to get into, none more so that our creative director JamesC who has been instrumental in much of the marketing planning underway and has offered insight based on his experience of the industry both good and bad.

Our style of work is going to change dramatically and we will have a more refined and focused look that is a different creative stream than what we would do for our private sector and commercial clients. Conceptually The Lost Concept is a mixture of styles and will strangely, benefit from the current lockdown as it has forced us to reassess how we look at images, models and who we will book for shoots especially for our in house projects.

We fully intend to keep the team small on shoots and make the maximum use of the locations around our current base with an emphasis on simplicity of look touching on the more creative with darker touches brought into play.

From a marketing stance, we are enjoying the plans being put into place and our budget is going to reflect this across our 3 main sites of JameC mua, Lost Project, and of course Lost Creatives.