Director: Jordan Scott
Production Company: RSA Films
Client: Agent Provocateur
Locations: London

Scouting for Agent Provocateur

Scouting Agent Provocateur locations is always going to involve something a little unusual. For The Muse, directed by Jordan Scott for RSA Films, the brief was an orangery with faded grandeur — somewhere beautiful, atmospheric and slightly lost in time.

Working with director Jordan Scott and RSA Films, I scouted Agent Provocateur The Muse filming locations in London for the second in a series of films for the brand’s Spring Summer 2012 collection.

The brief was wonderfully specific: a characterful orangery and a manor house with faded grandeur.

Not pristine. Not freshly restored. We were looking for locations with age, character and a slightly worn elegance that would suit the soft-focus, 1970s-inspired look of the campaign.

Finding Faded Grandeur

For a location scout, “faded grandeur” is a great brief.

You start looking at peeling walls, old plasterwork, faded wallpaper and slightly neglected rooms in a completely different way. The imperfections are often exactly what make a location interesting.

The manor house we found had that quality throughout — beautiful rooms and period detail, but with enough age and texture to give the film its character.

The Muse

Directed by Jordan Scott, The Muse continued the visual style established in Agent Provocateur’s earlier campaign film, The Initiate.

The locations became an important part of that world, providing a naturally faded and atmospheric backdrop for both the film and the stills campaign.

The finished campaign shows just how dramatically the right Agent Provocateur locations can be transformed through direction, styling and cinematography.

Here are some of my original location scout photographs alongside images from the finished Agent Provocateur campaign:

From Agent Provocateur Locations to Finished Campaign