Our first phase is over and was very successful. We have exceeded our goal and we are so thankful to everyone who has helped us to build the foundation of this project.

Now that we can show clearly what our vision for this project is, we enter the 2nd phase.


We also want to know who you want to see in this book. Actors, singers, politicians, .. name it. If you have an amazing story and you think you can inspire other people, contact us to be in the book.

Entering the second phase

After a busy week with some creative projects (such as the one in the picture below, a stop motion shoot for a client) that really did not relate to the 360 degrees book project, as well as a schedule full of planning and paperwork for the book, we are now happy to announce that we are back on track. And as always, we are fully committed to what we do.

Also, we do have some big news! We will be coming to Toronto, Ontario this coming Sunday (the day after Halloween). Our trip to the most populated city in Canada (and the fifth most populous in whole North America) will take place from November 1st to November 6th. Besides meeting one person that already confirmed their interest for the book, we will also have plenty of meetings with people around Toronto to introduce the project to them. However, if you are from Toronto, or you know someone that might be interested to be a part of this incredible book, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us via email or phone.

Toronto here we come

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Montreal State of Mind

OK, it is done. As we received quite a few comments from people who do not fully understand the concept, we felt like we should make a short video to explain the project in English. Yanick did his best to make this concept as simple as possible, but to make it even more convenient for you to understand it, we felt the need to do a short English video to make it even easier.

You may have some questions after the video, do not hesitate to contact us. We are happy to help out the best we can. Please leave a comment to this post, or don't hesitate to contact us at this email address: 360@yanickdery.com

Project explanation: English version

And another page is ready to be printed! We shot Xiao today in the Museum Château Dufresne. You might remember the previous blog entry about this shoot where I told you about the location. If not, go ahead and check it out, it is an amazing building.

So just before 1pm we met in front of the Château and started unpacking the equipment. While we did that, our model arrived with Fang Fang, as they had done the makeup during the morning. Soon, everyone arrived on set, and while Yanick and I were still setting up the lighting for the shoot, Xiao felt a little bit like a girl on Christmas-day, as she loved the dresses that our stylist Sarah brought and of course, the jewellery. Sarah brought in couture and jewellery worth over 120000$. At this point, we would like to thank MICALLA for so willingly sponsoring the jewellery for todays shoot and of course Holt Renfrew for the stunning dress. Thank you so much, you really made our model feel like a star today!

Soon thereafter, Fang Fang touched up the makeup and we were ready to go. One must know that Xiao is an aspiring actress and a model. So she had no problems posing in front of Yanicks camera. She did a great job, so as soon as the lighting was perfect in Yanicks mind, it did not take many shots to get what we wanted. The outcome is gorgeous and we all agree that we have produced a great image!

Xiao will be seen on page 267 (1400€ / 2090US$ / 2162CN$) when the book will be published in four years. She chose to donate to the Farha Foundation here in Montreal, fighting against HIV and Aids.

Page 267: Xiao - shoot

Despite the fact that this project is still in its first steps, I have to say that we are doing pretty well. We have always something to do, whether it may be a shoot, post or pre-production. Today was another day of good work for the project. During the morning, we worked on some behind the scenes stuff for yesterdays shoot with Simon and Yves. Then after lunch, we had a walk to the Musée du Château Dufresne (engl. Museum Château Dufresne) to scout it as a possible location for page number 267, which went to Xiau for the donation of 1400 Euros (2088 US$ / 2162 CN$). The Château itself was built between 1915 and 1918, as a mansion beaux-arts style owned by the Dufresne brothers, important members of Montreal’s french bourgeoisie. Today, the Château Dufresne hosts a museum dedicated to Montreal’s East side history. There is lots of beautiful old furinture in there and it looks quite astounding.

The shoot with her is scheduled for next Monday. The idea is to make her look like a superstar. And we can make her look like one. Hence, a very classy location was necessary to achieve this. The Château is really classy and it definitely gives you a feel of the highest standart of living.

Page 267: Xiao - Preproduction

When I arrived at the studio today at 7:45am, Yanick was in a cheerful mood. He told me that the only bad news for this week were that one of his towels got so dirty that he could not get it clean. Frankly, I can live with that.

We had scheduled a shoot for today last week already, namely a shoot for Simon Tooley and his husband Yves for page 271. All seemed to go well, since preproduction really ran smooth this time, no problems at all. We had the location down, the limousine we needed was reserved, and everyone arrived on time. We started shooting some personal portraits for them in the studio (as you know, people that choose to be in the book also get free personal images if they like). So at about 9am, I called the limoservice to double.. triplecheck - we had already confirmed with them on the phone the day before - and basically help them out, in case they had problems finding their way to the studio. It turns out, they completely messed everything up and the guy tells us that he has neither a limo, nor a driver now. Great. But there is always things you have to adjust to, and things like those happen, so we ended up organizing another car from another service on short notice, which - thank God - worked out fine. The car arrived at around ten which was perfect, since we were just done shooting the personal portraits and started setting up outside for the book shoot.

When everything was set, Fang Fang touched up the make-up once more and we were able to get going. Yanick shot them for about an hour and although Montreal is a little bit on the cold side these days, both of them were holding up great. It was obvious that they enjoyed their experience today and we can do nothing but share that feeling.

So the actual shot for the book did not take us too long to get. Both looked fabulous in the picture and the lighting was working out very well, so Yanick only shot for about an hour total. The whole thing was over at 11am and we started our daily routine again; lots of work here at the studio, and lots of great pictures to choose from. Most importantly though, another page to be checked off on the way to achieve our ultimate goal of raising 41 million Euros: Page 271 ( 1000€ / 1490US$ / 1530CN$ ), in favor of the Farha Foundation, fighting HIV&Aids.

Page 271: Simon and Yves

Yesterday was a big day. It was the day that we were planning for quite a while now – the day that we would shoot Bernard Lachance on a raft out on the sea. So Yanick and all the assistants met at the studio at 7:45am to pack the equipment and leave for the location that Yanick and I had scouted a week earlier. We arrived on location at about 9:30 and started to build the raft right away. It was harder than we thought, because the rivers current was much stronger than we expected. So the first attempt failed to build the raft on the ground and then tow it into the water. I mean, technically it did not fail, but we felt it was too unsafe for Bernard to be on. After all, he was the star of the day and we always strive to make everything as perfect as possible for our models. So we decided to disassemble the raft and do it again. This time, Yanick and I build it directly in the water, fixing it to a prebuild structure that held it down. That worked out pretty well and it was safe to stand and act on.

Our stylist Sarah – who brought the shirt for the flag and styled Bernard – and Fang Fang, responsible for hair and makeup, arrived on set just after 1pm. Bernard arrived at around 2pm and was perfectly taken care of by both Sarah and Fang Fang. They set up inside Manoir D`Youville, where we were greeted with warm coffee and perfect service. At this point, we would like to give a special thanks to Domenic, who even stayed longer than his work hours at the restaurant to supply us with everything we needed. Thank you, it was well appreciated!

Schedule-wise, we were right on time. Although building the raft twice threw us back considerably, time was on our side, as we arrived on set literally 8 hours before the shoot. When all the craftmanship was done and the raft was stable in the water, Bernard just got done in the makeup and it worked out just like we wanted. At that point, all people on set realized that this was going to be a perfect shoot that day. The sky broke open and was just plain beautiful. We shot against a stunning sundown sky, using a Profoto flash for fill light. As you can see in the pictures and the soon-to-come behind the scenes video, Yanick and I both got in the water again to get the perfect shot. It was freezing - but worth it:

After the shooting we cleaned up the spot and got the raft out of the water as well as the structure. We disassemled it and put it back into the trailer we rented. We were done at 7pm and drove home, where we arrived back at the studio at 8:30pm. So far, this was the longest day and yes, it was exhausting, but seeing the picture and knowing that we are able to give 975 Euros ( approx. 1430US$ / 1530CAN$ ) to the Foundation rêve d’enfant (child’s wish), we feel proud that we did this.

Page 268: Bernard Lachance sailing his way to the top

Today, we shot Jacques Nadeau and his wife Nicole in upstate Quebec, in Trois-Rivieres. You probably remember the pictures from the location scout we did last week, when we went up to the Church Notre-Dame-du-Cap. We settled for this location because it is both beautiful and meaningful the people we photographed. Jacques said that he felt „taken back in time“, because Trois-Rivières is where he and Nicole met for the first time in their lives. This being the perfect base for great portraiture, we had an incredible shoot today.

We met at the studio at 10am to do all the fitting and makeup. Our stylist Sarah and her assistant Simon did a great job on the styling; Nicole was going to wear a dark dress, beautiful, classy and long, where as Jacques wore an elegant dress coat. We were all set and after lunch at noon, we took of to our location one hour and a half East of Montréal. We got there around 3pm and started to set up the lights and prepare the location. While Fang Fang touched up the makeup and perfected the hair styling, we got everything ready to shoot. Main assistant Simon and I were done setting up at around 4pm and Yanick started to shoot Jacques and his wife, which took then only took about an hour, because both Jacques and Nicole did a great job.

The outcome was to our total pleasure, we so are happy how everything worked out. We started wrapping everything up after that as we were done 5:30ish. While we descended back to Montreal, we agreed that everyone had a fun time and enjoyed the shoot a lot, although it was a long day for most of us. On days like today, we come to realize how good it feels to do what you love to do and while doing it, we can give back to the community and help others. Thanks to Jacques and Nicole for being such wonderful people and participating in our unique project. Due to their donation page 270, we were able to hand a check worth 825 Euros (appr. 1215 US$ / 1325 CAN$) to their chosen foundation: The CHUM.

Page 270: Jacques Nadeau shoot

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Pratique Professionnelle

After yesterdays daytrip was cut short due to the fact that we got lost somewhere on the way back to Montreal, we did the location scout for page 268 this morning. We found this incredible spot within the Iroquois sarea 45 minutes west from our studio, called Manoir d’Youville. It’s a peaceful peninsula surrounded by the Lake Louis. Back in 1964, the Grey nuns of Montreal founded a resort there as a place to relax and meditate. So we went there and found the perfect location for our shoot with Bernard. We checked out the place and it was just like what we thought about from our inspiration. Which, by the way was this:

Haha. Anyway, everyone at the Manoir d’Youville was very openminded to the idea and straight from the beginning, they were happy to help. I guess normally, one would not be able to get a location like this, but since we were somewhat on a mission for the Fondation rêve d’enfant, everyone tried to help us out. It is really amazing to see how good people are in general, so far we have been greeted with generosity and helpful hands everywhere we went. We appreciate everyones help a lot and hope that it continues throughout this project.

After that we went back to Montreal, had a quick lunch and left to drive up East to Trois-Rivières to scout another location. We went to the village where Jacques Nadeau and his wife – who bought page 270 – grew up together. So it is really meaningful and special to them. During this 90 minute drive, I actually wrote this entry and fell asleep, much to Yanicks disgress, because apparently I snore badly ;)

When we got to Trois-Rivières, we found our way to the Notre-Dame-du-Cap Church. It’s a very nice place and we found some cool location by a small artificial river they have there. It has a beautiful bridge in the background and Yanick has this amazing idea of the couple wearing really high class stuff, like a very nice evening dress. I love the idea. Knowing Yanick though, this might change at any time during the process of production and getting new inspiration. For now, this is what we will do though.

Page 268/270: Bernard Lachance & Jacques Nadeau - Scouts

As soon as Bernard Lachance confirmed buying page 268 last weekend, we started the preproduction for that picture. To understand our reasoning for the pages’ image idea, you have to know a little bit about him first. Bernard is a French-Canadian singer from Montréal. And he is also a genius in self-management and marketing. Last spring, he spent all his life savings on renting the Chicago Theatre and then proceeded to sell tickets in front of the theatre by simply talking to passerbys. The clue: When you bought a ticket, you got to check off your seat from a seating chart of the theatre printed on Bernards shirt! Through modern media, he managed to get great exposure on this and eventually he even went on to have his American premiere on the Oprah show. All of this was truly inspiring to us here at the studio. We love his spirit and wanted to focus on that spirit as the main object in the picture.

What we came up with is the idea of shooting him as a sailor showing him on a old raft out on the sea. Also, we wanted to have that shirt in the picture that made him famous, so we decided that we would make it the flag of his raft.
So I literally spent all morning trying to figure out how in the world I would be able to get hold of a raft. Yanick gave me some number to call and our stylist also tried at some film prop rental places but no one even remotely had an idea. So I ended up calling saw mills around Montréal and eventually found one that was willing to sell raw logs. Which of course that means we only get the material, but still have to build the raft. Anyway, so Yanick and I drove an hour down to St-Ignace-de-Standbridge and bought the logs. Along the way we snapped a few pictures, I hope you enjoy those.

After that was done, we wanted to go to Châteauguay to location scout fort his. However, the car was totally overloaded and then every road we were on seemed to be under construction. So we decided to take the wood back to the studio first and then to come back, but it took us increbibly long to get back to Montréal due to all the detours and road work. So we rescheduled the location scouting for another day. Still, today was a good day in terms of bringing forth the project.

So all in all, we can call this a good day. A very productive day also, I’m proud to say. Now we just have to find someone, who will assemble the raft for us. Or we could have the assistant do it. Oh wait - thats me. Darn.

Page 268: Bernard Lachance - Preproduction