Tracey Ullman is BACK in “State of The Union”

Art Streiber Enlists DigitalFusion to Craft Showtime’s Provocative Advertising Campaign

Tracey Ullman is back!  The six-time Emmy winner and ten-time American Comedy Award winner is returning to television this spring with a new Showtime series entitled “State of The Union.”

For Ullman and Showtime, the advertising print campaign for the new show had to be as unique and provocative in it’s political satire as the series is going to be.  

Showtime’s advertising department hired photographer Art Streiber to bring their concepts to life and entrusted DigitalFusion with the entire production process; image capture, file processing, on-line archiving and editing, retouching and custom printing.

Streiber’s photo session with Ullman took place at the Hollywood Sound Stage where Ullman was taping the show.  

“We worked through four to six concepts with Tracey, including the flag-painted tongue,” says Streiber.  “Tracey did stick her tongue out at the camera, but it wasn’t painted red, white and blue.  All of that was done in post.”

Streiber hired Set Designer Nick Tortorici, who came up with the rubbery, prosthetic version of old glory and Streiber’s team photographed it seventy-five different ways under the supervision of Showtime Creative Director Michael Hathaway.

After the shoot, Showtime chose a file of Ullman and a version of the tongue to be comped together to produce the final image.  But there was a catch; the image of Ullman was a full length shot that had to be tightly cropped into her head and shoulders, while the tongue was photographed close-up.

This meant that DigitalFusion’s DF Post would have to combine two images at very different resolutions to produce the final image.

Notes Hugh Milstein who oversaw the entire project, “We knew going into the post production process that compositing these two frames into a seamless image at billboard size would require careful image manipulation and pixel blending. Because the shoot was done with our camera systems, we also knew that the file size and image quality could handle the post production work. We are constantly pushing all of the medium format digital backs that we support to the outer limits of their capacity."

Milstein, Streiber and Showtime’s Print Production Director, Peter Oppenheim, went through six rounds of comps before approving at the final file.  “Showtime was very concerned, as was I, that the files matched up seamlessly,” says Streiber.  “Under Art Director Peter Gatto’s supervision we paid very close attention to how the light traveled across the tongue, how the tongue cast a shadow onto Tracey’s chin and how the flag’s colors reproduced.  Saturation, sharpness and shadow detail were key.”

“Being able to work side-by-side with Hugh was an incredible opportunity to perfect my work,” says Streiber.  “For the most part, commercial clients handle the retouching and custom printing in-house with little or no input from the photographer.  Showtime’s allowing me and Hugh to do the post production work was a privilege and I love seeing the results of our work as I drive around the city.”

Tracey Ullman’s “State of the Union” debuts on Showtime on Sunday, March 30th at 10pm.

For more of Art Streiber's work, visit: artstreiber.com