John Lennon said "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". Setting up for our Monday morning shoot on Sunday night, the phone rang at the start of the 23rd hour, "Life" started to happen. Another client was asking if I was available for a Monday morning location shoot, and wanted to make some history. Being very proud of my adaptability and resourcefulness, the test was on. Simply meeting the eventual 1986 Superbowl XX Chicago Bears, and shoot them dancing (Superbowl Shuffle). Made perfect sense to me. Once our original morning client was good with a p.m. shoot time, we confirmed the Bears. My crew and I then did our own shuffle. We traveled to Halas Hall, the Bears office and training facility in Lake Forest, Illinois. Our shooting area was the loudest racquetball court in the entire universe. Getting a chance to talk and joke with the Bears while hair/make- up was being applied, helped our communication through the loudest shoot I've ever had. It was like playing with kids on the playground. I let the fun and games (and dancing) play out, and got some great shots. We spent all of less than 18 exposures on the cover photo. The flip side of the jacket was individual photos of each Bear. We did exactly one shot each...no blinks or looking away, just shuffling and great smiles from a great group of guys. Total shoot time was an unbelieveably condensed 25 minutes. "Sweetness", "The Punk QB", "The Fridge", and all of the historic shufflin' crew, what a day and a once in a life time season. Oh, the afternoon shoot went great back in the studio, and we even won some fantastic awards for the quieter shoot of the day.
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