With a bevy of agents, managers and other wranglers on hand, it must have been one heck of a cattle rustle when ABC got the 72 stars of 14 returning series together in one room for a “class photo,” right? Well, when you have good photo software, anything is possible.
What you’re seeing is actually individual group shots that were combined for one big trick shot, according to Alan Cohen, executive vice president for advertising and promotion at ABC.
Cohen says that for three days earlier this summer in Los Angeles, stars of new and returning shows came in for promotional photos and TV spots. Because of the varying availability of the stars, some creativity was needed.
“We actually brought in stand-ins for everybody to figure out the exact position of where everyone would stand and how they would be positioned on the set,” says Mike Benson, ABC’s senior vice president of marketing and advertising promotion.
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In most cases, the stars of each returning show then came in and matched the stand-ins’ positions. After each cast was shot individually, everything was matched together perfectly to finish the illusion.
But when we looked at the ad in Entertainment Weekly, it didn’t look like the class photo was quite perfect. Here’s what we found . . .