The Sign of Christmas, styling a whimsical video shoot

Sitting on my office couch a little over a month ago, I was racking my brain to come up with a cool element for our Christmas Eve services at Irving Bible Church.  Christmas is such a magical time of year with one of the most beautiful stories ever told, so let's just say theres some pressure when trying to create an art element that captures it perfectly!  I began thinking through potentially having the children reinact the Natvity Story live in service, but in a 'hipster-ish' and unique way.  This small idea gave birth to some fantastic collaboration sessions with a quite talented cast of artist and morphed into a powerful video idea.  Gathering around my kitchen table, eating pita & hummus, and storyboarding our ideas, this whimsical tale began to take life.

Style was a HUGE element to this shoot, and I knew going into it the need for executing it perfectly was high! The budget for this project was small, which called for a ton of innovation. All of the Children's outfits were made out of Thrift store finds, vintage bedsheets, and a hodgepodge collection of fabrics.  The style of the childrens clothing, mixed with the impeccable style of photography and videography blended perfectly to create a mystical world in which we created in.  I couldn't be happier with the beautiful tale that we captured on film, the styling and look of each shot, as well as the beautiful music that sets the entire tone!

Our Adorable Cast of Characters:

Joseph and Mary:

Our handsome Joseph was styled completely in thrift store finds.  His look contained  a ladies blouse that we convinced him was a ''renaissance man's shirt", the blue $4 vest, boys baseball pants, and my sisters fedora hat!  Our sweet Mary was styled in blankets, several layers of white nightgowns, and my own personal fur vest.  We wrapped her hair in an extra white clothe.  I couldn't have been more pleased with this couple!

The Shepards:

Our Shepards were styled with several layers of Thrift store clothes, basically anything fun I could find.  The fun clothing kept the kids in high spirits as they felt they were living in dress up world all day.  Little Ensely's yellow bird cage was a $0.99 find!  The cage is actually two wire baskets strung together to create a cage.  

That was a perfect find!

The Wisemen:

My favorite look of them all!  Our courageous 3 wisemen!  All styled in boys baseball pants of different colors, vintage blazers that I luckily already had in my collection, and plaid button ups from the thrift store.  Their sweet little bow ties were made with a simple safety pin and fabric.

The Angel of The Lord:

Sweet little Bonke was the perfect angel of the Lord.  I styled her in a cut up vintage wedding dress, homemade wings made of coat hangers and stripped fabric, and a sparkly belt strap made into a headband!

A few more pics of the day:

Check out the end result; a whimsical video that still takes my breath away!

Find it here on Youtube: 

The Sign of Christmas

Credits include:

Direction, motion photography and editing by Rob Morris. vimeo.com/robertmorris7
Direction and motion photography by Joshua Read www.YouTube.com/JoshReadVideo  

Producer, Production design and creative direction by Rachael Currie www.rachaelcurrie.com
Music by Jeff Taylor, Doug Hale, Jason Elwell, and The IBC Band
Still Photography by Amanda Guevara www.amandakatephotography.com
Additional Styling by Richard Muske
Concept and writing by Rob Morris, Joshua Read, Rachael Currie, Amanda Guevara, David Farris & Michael Witt