Life on the Set - Part II

Images © Copyright 2008 Michael Seto

Top Photo - me with a Jacobson sound blimp.
Bottom - Uh, okay, now where does the still photographer fit in?

Life on a Movie Set, Part II

As a still photographer, one of your key interfaces is the Sound Mixer. Aside from jostling the camera guys and making their lives generally miserable by crowding in with them, the person who's job you can most screw up is the sound guy. They're responsible for getting the dialog and other sound recorded at a high quality level. The usually do this with wireless lavalier mics on the actors, as well as a highly sensitive boom microphone - held by the - you guessed it boom guy.

Make friends with the sound guys. Introduce yourself and tell them you're there to work with them not against them. The sound of your shutter and mirror is like a gunshot in a small room - especially if it's a quiet scene - you need to muffle that. Not only the sound guys; it bothers the actors as well. So...

Jacobson Blimps (see picture above) This is the standard for muffling the mechanical action of your camera and is about 95% effective. www.soundblimp.com It's built for either Canon or Nikon and has a variety of tubes for various lenses that allow you to use your zoom.

The blimps are fairly straightforward. Attach remote cord, squeeze camera into the spongy interior, attach lens, attach lens cover, close and shoot.

Shooting is a bit less intuitive. For the Nikon there are two buttons, the bottom one acts like pressing the shutter on your camera half-way, the AF and metering are activated. The top button focuses and fires the shutter simultaneously. To pre-focus and reframe you need to fully hold down the bottom button and then (while holding the bottom) depress the top button. It takes a bit of getting used to.

Zooming is a bit awkward since turning the exterior tube sometimes causes noise or squeeks. Sometimes you need to wrap a few rubber bands on the zoom ring of the lens to get enough traction for turning the external tube to work.

Sometime I would remove the tube and shoot with just the camera in the blimp, allowing easier access to the zoom/focus ring, but this allows quite a bit more noise to escape.

The biggest problem with the blimps is you don't have access to any controls during a shoot without opening the camera. Therefore I will often shoot in manual mode, with ISO, aperture, and shutter speed all determined beforehand. I use the versatile Sekonic-358 to meter the scene, getting an incident reading often right at the actor's face (I meter the stand-in). Sometimes in a dynamic scene where the lighting changes, I use the Auto ISO feature of the D700, which I found to be astoundingly accurate. I seldom use aperture or shutter priority since I need to positively control both of those to achieve the look I want.

More Lens Flare? Finally, the blimp comes with clear filters on the end of the lens tube - so if you have additional protective filters on your lens you now have two additional pieces of glass - making shots very succeptible to lens flare. I suggest removing as much glass as possible when shooting, since you can't use a hood with the tube.

The Talent Well, they are the key piece in the movie puzzle. As the still guy you have a couple rules: 1) stay out of their sight lines, 2) do whatever they say, and 3) make them look great. They can be touchy and a bit spoiled but as well very nice and generous. They have tough jobs as well - to deliver emotion on cue. Sometimes anything can distract them - like you standing in their sight line (where they are looking). If they ask you to move, move right away.

Each actor differs on when they like still photographers to shoot, some like it on rehearsal, some on actual takes. And if they can hear your camera go off (even with a blimp you can hear it in a quiet small space) it may distract them.

The key here is discretion, stay low key, wear black to fade into the background, try to stay very still during takes (aside from working your zoom), and be mindful. A lot of times it's about gauging the mood on set and acting accordingly.

Also, a lot of actors have 'kill' authority meaning any photo they don't like gets deleted and never to be seen again.

Over time you get to know their work habits and preferences. Often, asking someone, like their publicist, can get you some inside info ahead of time and keep you out of trouble.

Playing Nice With Others You quickly learn who is who and what department does what. God forbid you try and grab a six-step (ladder) and move it yourself! All (big) movie work is union and sometimes they get a bit territorial about their jobs - if you need something moved, consult the right grip guy first. Make sure you stay out of people's way and let them get their work done - life on a movie set is a lot of "hurry up and wait" while sets, lighting, camera, wardrobe is tweaked. You can spend hours setting up a 15-second take. So bring a folding stool and a book (and laptop).

While the still photographer is technically part of the camera department, since we work alone we're sometimes treated like the red-headed stepchild of the crew. One way to make friends is to take a lot of behind the scenes shots of the crew - everyone likes good pictures of themselves to send to family and friends.

The Martini (The martini shot is the last shot of the day on a movie set.) Overall, the still photographer on set can be a long, tiring, tedious, and technically challenging job, wrought with chaos and emotion. As well, it can be fun, rewarding, interesting, and exciting...and you get to hobnob with the stars.

That's a wrap!

Unit Stills Photography - Life on a Movie Set

Top Photo - me with actor Cary Elwes (yes, from Princess Bride) on set. Learning the work habits of the actors in your film and respecting their craft puts you in good stead with them. That means knowing when you're in their sight lines or bothering them generally. And, of course, taking pictures that make them look fabulous helps as well.

Bottom - a movie set is a crowded place with lots of different departments (art, camera, asst director, grip, gaffer, wardrobe, production, etc.) Learning who does what and respecting their contribution enhances the cooperation you'll get as a photographer.

Images © Copyright 2008 Michael Seto

New York City, September 22, 2008.

I just wrapped principal shooting on a film last week where I was the STILLS photographer; sometimes call the unit-, stills-, or production photographer. The unit photog's job is to take high quality still photos that mimic the look of the film for marketing and publicity purposes. The principal filming took place in New York City for 18-days. We worked long 12-hour days on set.

So what does that mean? Often, movies need to be sold to a distributor, and high quality photos that accurately reflect the 'look' of the movie are critical to making the sale. Often the actual film is not ready or available to send around to various movie distributors - so that's where stills come in. Additionally, the stills may be sent to magazines, like Entertainment Weekly, Variety, etc. for publicity.

Why a still photographer? When you're shooting a movie with film (not digital), it's tough to get a high quality image pulled from a (motion) film frame. First of all, film is shot at 24 frames per second so your shutter speed is only 1/48th of a second* - sometimes inadequate to stop motion sufficiently to give you a crisp sharp image. Plus, sometimes it's tough to find the exact frame you want from thousands of feet of film. Even with digital video, it's common to have a unit photog since their camera resolution beats most video - though with hi-def and the RED cameras this is less of an issue.

Also, the still photog can get images from slightly different angles as well as behind the scenes shots of the director with the actors, and portraits of the actors around the set - especially if they're in costume.

Simulating film. So my job is to shoot photos that look like what the director and cinematographer (or director of photography, DP) see in their monitors. To do that, I need to position myself as close to the camera as possible, and use a lens on my camera that mimics the field of view of the motion picture camera.

Getting close to the camera means making friends with the camera operator, his first asst cameraman (1st AC) - who pulls focus and is joined at the hip with the camera operator, and then the 2nd AC - who uses the clapperboard and generally assists. You need to balance the need to get your shot with the needs of the actors and the film cameras...you come in a distant distant second (or tenth).

Nitty-Gritty Equipment Choices: The 70-200 mm f2.8 was the workhorse! I found 80% of my shots required my 70-200 mm VR lens. Mainly because this lens gave me a field of view most similar to that of the video camera. (This may vary if you're doing a David Lean or other movie with lot's of panoramic vistas.) As well, the fast 2.8 aperture allowed shooting in low light - often the case on a movie set. My average camera settings (most of the film was shot indoors) were ISO 1600, f4, at 1/100.

I shot with the Nikon D700 to take advantage of it's full-frame FX sensor and unmatched ability to shoot at high ISO with relatively low noise. I felt comfortable shooting at up to 6400 with some post-production NR. My 50 1.4 and 17-35 2.8 also saw use. The jury is out on a mid-range zoom; I just did not find that much time to use it (when shooting stills). Behind the scenes (BTS) is another area. I think the 24-70 2.8 would work great here, but I did not have one with me on this gig.

Working on Set. Someone said being on a movie set can be like high school, with all the cliques and popularity contests and petty infighting. I didn't find that to be the case, though there were some standoffish individuals. Overall, people are very nice, especially if you take a moment to learn their name, what their job is, and respect their contribution to the effort. You may think that craft services (catering) is not too value added, until they deliver coffee and sandwiches to a crew standing in the freezing rain for three hours.

Everyone and everything must work together to pull off a successful film from art to wardrobe, to lighting (grip) and the acting. Moving lights around might not be as technical as the SFX (special effects) stuff - but you learn that it's just as critical.

*It's not the intuitive 1/24 because the shutter closes as the film mechanism advances the next frame into position and then exposes it. Shutter speed of 1/48th of a second is just an approximation.


End of Part I of "Life on a Movie Set." Stay tuned for Part II.