Shooting Gallery 2010
Somewhere, Out There
When we asked Local 600 photographers to submit work for our Shooting Gallery spread, the only requirement was that the image be shot on location. Anywhere, anytime, anyplace, as long as it told a story about that singular time and place captured through the lens. The results were so astonishing that a winnowing down (to the 22 images contained in these pages) was fiendishly tough. The moment before young lovers kiss transforms an iconic backdrop into something fresh and magical; a stunned glance from a son to his father, as a man, stripped naked of far more than his clothes cowers in “the road” behind them; a century-old Gothic prison echoes the stark melancholy of an inmate, head down, and focused on his task. Images and moments, like all the others in this spread that throb with power, mystery, joy and drama. Somewhere, out there, if you go looking, you’ll find these places. But it took a photographer with a still camera to flesh them out in just a single frame. Read more
The Heart of the Beast
Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC use live-action cinematography techniques to help tame DreamWorks new 3D animated feature How To Train Your Dragon By Debra Kaufman
Got My Back!
Rodrigo Prieto, ASC & Hector Moreno
The critical partnership between the DP and DIT explained… By Pauline Rogers
Shooting Gallery 2009
All photographs, by definition, are “period” images. They capture a time and place that is ephemeral, and, in essence, gone the moment the shutter is snapped. Never again will what that shooter saw through the frame be exactly the way it was when he or she pushed the button on the camera. The same can be said for unit stills captured on period movies; even if the production has the ability to re-create a place, a time, a feeling over and again on a set or location, that moment captured through the lens by a Local 600 photographer – an actress warming herself under a big HMI light, a group of young background actors playing in a Slovakian square, an old Chevy Impala speeding mysteriously off into the night - is fleeting and one-of-a-kind. For our annual Shooting Gallery spread, featuring the very best of our members’ work-for-hire, we turn back the clock (and occasionally push it all the way forward) to highlight imagery captured during the production of features or television with period content. Diane Arbus once noted, “The more specific you are (with an image), the more general it will be,” and what is most surprising about the following photographs is not only their specificity for a lost time and place, but the energy and life contained within. As William Faulkner wrote, “Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”
It’s Not Easy Being Green (or is it?)
From LED to ceramics, there are more environmentally friendly lighting options powering the film and television industry than ever before, as cinematographer Jim Matlosz reports.
Surviving Sundance
FOUR Park City publicity pros offer SEVEN tips to the 10 craziest days in January.
By Margot Carmichael Lester
PARK CITY IN JANUARY … To indie filmmakers and their crews, those four simple words are akin to winning the lottery. To the Local 600 publicists who represent Sundance movies (or those heading up to the mountains to promote the filmmakers), the phrase can send a lightning strike of anxiety and stress searing right through their Blackberries. What began as a “casual” little film festival has become the hot industry ticket, and nothing screams that more loudly than the marketing avalanche cascading down Main Street every winter. Linda Brown-Salomone, owner of Indie PR in Studio City, Calif., has been representing films at Sundance for 15 years. She says the festival has become a media frenzy like none other. Now, “the biggest star names and quirkiest of campaigns [are the ones] most often winning press time and space over a truly magical film that may deserve it more,” the Sundance regular observes. So let’s say you have a film that got in and it’s your first time down the slopes. How can you keep from getting buried alive? Here are seven tips to surviving the Sundance publicity game:
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Operation Imperative – Part I
What in the World are Daniel Marracino & Morgan Spurlock Doing?
DPs are accustomed to a certain amount of preparation for a shoot. Mundane things like lining up special equipment or engaging a second camera. Rarely does pre-production involve instruction in Krav Maga (the official self-defense system of the Israeli Defense Forces) or a crash course in surviving hostile regions. Unless, that is, you’re Daniel Marracino and you’ve agreed to join documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock in his search to find the world’s most infamous terrorist.
Before heading out to the Middle East to shoot Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? Marracino, went into serious training. He learned practical things like how to treat broken bones and burns, and do CPR. He also learned more valuable skills, like avoiding the mistakes others have made. “I literally saw a video of cameramen getting shot from being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” says the DP. “It was hard to digest the gravity of the situation – usually I’m pretty free with jumping police lines and taking liberties.”
And that was just the beginning of a four-and-a-half-month journey around the world with Spurlock, who makes films that explore big issues in minute (and personal) detail. The Oscar nominated Super Size Me, which Spurlock wrote and directed, looked at the medical fallout from the director eating every single meal at McDonald’s for one solid month (it wasn’t pretty). Last year, Spurlock produced the documentary feature What Would Jesus Buy?, targeting the commercialization of Christmas.
“I’ll do research and learn a lot around an issue,” describes Spurlock. “But I really like to learn as we go. That way, it’s a vicarious journey we take together. When I learn, you learn.” When it came time to build Where in the World’s crew, Spurlock wanted a shooter who was a fast study, someone with the ability to get the shot, listen to the story thread and bust the right moves to get the coverage that’s needed for the scene to work. Enter Marracino, who had been second unit on Spurlock’s Jesus/Christmas doc.
The Steadicam – “The biggest thing since Technicolor”
If we could listen in on the thoughts of most every cameraperson, we’d often hear, “There has to be a better way to do this.” Some people stop there. Others make half an attempt to create something and give up when something similar is in the airwaves—or, worse, a ‘trained engineer’ who says, “it can’t be done.” Others slog on to moderate success. Then there are a very few who go all the way. None, however, have had an impact the way Folk-singer/Volkswagen salesman/radio pitchman/award-winning radio commercial creator Garrett Brown, who as The Washington Post once wrote, created “The Biggest Thing Since Technicolor.”
