It was May 2018, I got an email from someone I’ve worked with in the past at adidas for gifting products to me to try out, test, and provide feedback for. The email read, "Hi Jo,I finally have more details to share with you! We’d love to feature you in our SS19 Xpressive campaign for our Core line to launch in March 2019. Below is an overview of the campaign creative and product to be featured.” You can probably imagine my excitement and the emotions that I felt reading that email. I remember my hands shaking, my body trembling, and I was in shock with a bit of confusion trying to understand what that all meant. Was I going to be an adidas ambassador? What did they mean by featuring me in a campaign? Where is this all going to live? What does this mean? Why me? Why not me? All of these questions ran through my mind and immediately I forwarded that email to my manager Lindsay at Parker Talent Management to work through the details and contracts.

June 2018 and the entire family came along. Jonathan didn’t photograph behind the scenes photos during that shoot because to be honest, as a family, we were all a little shocked and nervous being on set together. This wasn’t the first time we were on set as a family, the first time was for Muscle Milk Everyday Athlete where they featured my fitness journey. That production was done here in SF and at my house. adidas XPRESSIVE 2019 was the first time we were flown together as a family to be on set!

A few months after the June 2018 shoot, I received another email from adidias requesting to extend my partnership with them for the FW19 XPRESSIVE Campaign which would also include the girls. I said HELL YES of course and shortly after production planning we were off to Atlanta last November to shoot content for this campaign. The content for FW2019 just started to roll out over the past few weeks which meant that I can finally share the incredible behind the scenes photos Jonathan captured for us during the two days of production. So much has happened over the last year and I am so grateful that Jon has these photos for us to look back on. What an incredible experience for our girls to be able to see these photos and say ‘Wow, I was on set with adidas!”

DAY 1

I remember those two days so well. How could I forget? I was miserably sick, the sickest I’ve been in years. Just before we left for Atlanta I caught a cold which was probably caused by all the travel I had put my body through earlier that month. Not to mention it was the start of holiday season and just after Thanksgiving. I arrived the day before the production days for wardrobe fitting. We got fitted in our wardrobe for the the day shoot and then were sent off to dinner and then to bed. Call time was scheduled for 11AM the next day which was great because that gave me some time to rest before heading on to set. I was on set before the girls arrived with Jonathan later on that day.

When you’re on set as talent there’s a lot of sitting around while the production team changes scenes and works on lighting. Production assistants help with keeping snacks fully stocked and talent pretty comfortable.

Depending on the size of the production you’ll have anywhere between 10-30 people on set just as the production crew itself. This includes Director of Photography, second or third camera men, assistants to the photographer, lighting crew, grip, sound man and that only lists people who are part of the camera crew. You will also have electricians, set designers, set decorator, production assistants, runners, hair/make up, and then finally the client who in this case is adidas. Within the client can be a large number of decision makers from marketing, product, creative, and then the overall VP of the brand or campaign itself. It takes a village to produce some of the most simple content you see in advertising and media. A lot goes into each production. It’s crazy to think that as a content creator or influencer all these roles are rolled up into one person.

And that was a wrap for Day 1. Day 2 to can be found here!