Time For a Change

The last few weeks have been really hard, a combination of ill health and just general contract negotiations have meant that we really haven’t had the time to update the website. However, this has been a positive overall and allowed us to really prioritize the future of the Lost as a concept.

One of the biggest things to come out of this has been our creative director JamesC has made the decision to close his current portfolio website, we have maintained control of the domain name, and will be starting from scratch with a new fresh work in conjunction with a select number of very good photographers hand picked from a list of contacts and sources, the images from which will be submitted to publications.

We are also looking at reshuffling all the domains we own and bringing a more mixed media focus to our work with films of varying lengths and commercial status being worked on to change the very restricted state we are in.

Over the next month there will be more updates and galleries showcasing fresh work and taking the whole Lost concept back to basics and putting the energy where we want it to be as a whole with a focused print/digital fashion portfolio and a slate of smaller video projects that have been carefully researched and plotted around our requirements for festivals.

More updates will be released soon.

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.

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.

Marketing and the Lost Concept

While we have been a little quiet over the last few days it has not stopped the work thanks in part to Facebook and Whatsapp we were able to continue meetings and even showcase some of our past work in line with our creative director and founder JamesC. The crux of much of this has been discussing marketing strategies. Many people are unaware of the pages and sites involved in our marketing just for the Lost Concept and our core team and we are now in a place where we feel that the sites and pages (in most cases) are sufficiently “liked” enough that we are collating all the backlog of work into a folio of work and with certain magazines offering open submissions of single images (we are going for exclusive but this is not a requirement for many digital magazines) and once the lockdowns are sufficiently lifted we do have plans to do a full marketing campaign with more work built around the Lost Boys and Lost Girls concept as outlined in the Lost Project blog.

Marketing is something we are really keen on and we do work with our partners in Nepal (the Nepal Film Production team), on campaigns and this will be revised again at the end of this month in line with changes to the market as it stands.

One of the main reasons we are looking at this now is we have time, the blogs are keeping us busy along with various other elements but like many in the creative fields, we really are keen to get back to our real work. The focus of our upcoming campaigns will start with the two lost sites and then the actual artists who are working on the creative side such as actor Raj Srivastava and of course JamesC.

Digital Versus Print Editorials and Tears

As the economic and social climate changes the digital magazine market is going to be where we find our fix of fashion and beauty news for the ease and convenience of access through our mobiles and other devices which for makeup artists, photographers and creative staff (designers, stylists and so on) will change to some degree how we all work and require multi-tasking. For the lost team, that is not a big hassle as we already work small and aim high with the work we are doing, the goals in place and will be back to work as soon as possible tackling the list of magazines we have decided to shoot for.

Focusing your mind on goals is key to finding a path and putting your business into a new arena. With editorial for the lost team, it is a secondary consideration to our real goals of TV production but we do have a clear sense of the value of a tear sheet or cover with a good magazine that can be promoted which is why we focus on digital over print.

The big advantage of digital is overall social media reach, an image and a link to a website that can be shared and has more value (to us) because it becomes simpler to promote and has exponential reach with either paid postings on Facebook or Instagram or if you have a good audience and SEO through your website (ideally you have all three in place).

We have of course mapped out a plan of action and thankfully there are one-stop-shop sites that offer a creative outlet that is managed: you can find the submission terms, costs, and image requirements in one place with the option to handle multiple submissions. A major plus and reduces the amount of time you have to spend on research.

*See our previous blog on Luminar Photo Editing for a good option for editing images on a budget.

Our creative director JamesC makeup is itching to get started again and has a book full of concepts and ideas ready to roll and we are happy to see he is keeping busy not just with the blogs but also with his creative work.

A more focused plan and set of goals are being worked with our overseas contacts (primarily South Asia) for casting and of course production which we will talk about in another blog very soon.

Luminar Photo Editing Software

Something that we have talked about frequently and have in hand at the moment is our editorial work since much of this is done in house, we wanted a simple, easy to use photo editing software that would make the flow of work easier for the team and we found Luminar. Designed to work independently or as a plugin with other photo editing software, the Luminar Photo Editing Software is a dream for someone like our creative director JamesC, who likes the control aspect of being able to work with a small team which in the long term may be a good thing.

Naturally, at the moment we are holding back on further work (we do have some work in the can for publication later), the time we have has been set into doing other elements of business and the process of editing images, in some cases reedits has allowed us a little flexibility and changed the dynamic of what we offer. Which is positive all around for the creative process. Based on artificial intelligence the Luminar Software is designed to smooth the flow of work and reduce time spent on editing and will change the game for many people not just for the ease of use but the cost factor. With a series of deals available at this time and the added bonus of a donation from each sale going to Corona Virus research, the Luminar packages are excellent value and have the bonus of lifetime ownership.

To learn more or to purchase the software see:

Luminar Website.

*Affiliate Link Included in this article/blog.