and now for something completely different
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 01:25PM ;)
;)
Kodak - America's Storyteller • click to embiggenOver the years during which I have been blogging, I haven't posted all that much about my commercial work. I guess that's because I never thought of this blog as a vehicle for self promotion of that work.
However, I have noticed that, in the photo blog-o-spere, there is a certain amount of gravitas which comes from having / having had a successful commercial picturing making career. That is especially so if one has made pictures for many of the biggies - the biggies being companies on the Fortune 500 list and my client list included many Fortune 500 companies such as Kodak, Xerox, Heinz, Corning, Bausch & Lomb / Ray-Ban, Quaker State, McDonalds, Dairy Queen, R.T. French, and the like. So, why not harvest a little gravitas of my own?
One of my areas of expertise in the commercial picturing world was making pictures of people in a Norman Rockwell tableaux kind of way. "Real" people doing "real" things with a dash of gentle/kind humor thrown into the mix. Of course, the "real" people were most often professional models (but not always) and the "real" things were very carefully scripted, staged, lit, and propped productions.
The picture with this entry is from one of several shoots I did for Eastman Kodak's (you remember them, right?) America's Story Teller campaign. This campaign was primarily an in-store (cameras stores) campaign which featured quite a number of "all-American" themes. Each "story" in the campaign required 5-6 pictures which were used for a large counter-card, a life-size stand-up cutout, a window poster, an in-store poster, a counter mat, and a large (6-7ft.) hanging banner.
The story theme from which the attached picture was pulled was based around a cute young girl (there were never any thing but cute children in Kodakland) making a birthday cake for her grandfather's birthday - to include both the making of the cake and the party. The cast included her mom, dad, little brother, grandmother, and a dog. The dog, dad, and brother were all bit players. The "story" was all about the little girl, grampa, and to a lesser extent, mom.
Finding the "perfect" cast usually took about a week. First by sifting through model agency books / head-sheets, then selecting quite a number of possibilities for each character, followed by in-studio Polaroid tests of each potential subject. Those results were then shown to and discussed with the ad agency in order to make the final selections which were then shown to the client for final approval.
While model selection was going on, I was also working with a couple photo stylists who were tasked with prop gathering - in this case, everything from clothes, to baking/cooking paraphernalia, and household stuff. There was also a food stylist who was charged with making the "perfect" birthday cake.
Because the project spanned 4-5 days of shooting, all the pictures were made on studio sets (in my studio) rather than on location. Set construction ran concurrent with all the other pre-shoot preparations.
Since the end use of the pictures were quite large, the project required the use of a large format 4×5 camera - not the ideal choice for shooting people wherein the objective is to capture "perfect" gestures together with "perfect" expressions. Using a view camera to capture that "perfection" is made exponentially even more less than ideal when 2 (or more) actors are acting together.
Example: notice how in the above 2 exposures, in the top exposure (chosen as the final) the girl and grampa are in perfect sync, gesture and expression wise. Whereas in the bottom exposure, the girl is still "on" expression wise (although her hand has dropped to a less than desirable position), but grampa's expression and gesture seem to say,"Ya little bratty smartass, I'm gonna shove this stinkin' frosting right up yer stinkin' nose", which, while it might often be rather true-to-life, it is not exactly the message Kodak was trying to get across.
This type of assignment is best handled by some sort of roll film camera, 35mm, or medium format. Cameras which can make exposures in rapid order, which allows the "actors" to get into character, act out, and get into a flow. That is just not possible when using a view camera - each exposure requires loading a film holder into the camera, pulling out the dark-slide, cocking the shutter and and the flash-sync thingy, tripping the shutter, re-inserting the dark-slide, removing the film holder and then, do it all again for the next exposure. All of which is very far cry from shooting with a motorized roll film camera.
In addition to the slow-going, getting-in-the-groove inhibiting factor associated with shooting with a large format camera, the film is also expensive. Although, in this case, film cost was a non-issue because of course I could just walk into Kodak's film cooler and walk out with as much film as I could carry.
The view camera shooting procedure was sped along by the fact that I had 2 camera assistants - 1 to load and reload the film holders and another to handle the shutter / strobe sync thingy cocking. This allowed me to concentrate solely upon the actors - move this body part / move that body part, chin up / chin down, lips together / lips apart, fix her hair / fix his tie, more of this / less of that, and so on. A 3rd assistant was keep busy in the darkroom, unloading and reloading film in the film holders.
If memory serves correctly, each of the 6 scenes in this campaign required the making of about 80 exposures each in order to insure we got the "perfect" shot - that single sheet of film that got it all right, "perfect" gestures together with the "perfect" expressions ...
... all in the cause of capturing the picture-perfect "perfect" American story.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Sven W (no link provided) asked/wrote: "If you had to do this job today, would you use a top-end FF digital? ... [T]he ability to view the image on the LCD / tethered monitor would be useful not only to you but the actors."
my response: It should be noted that Kodak insisted on the use of the 4×5 view camera for this project. They were rather "old school" / conservative in that respect, especially so considering the fact that, at the time, they made some splendid fine grain + high acutance medium format film. Film that would have been more than up to the end use size requirements of the project.
Based on that experience and considering the fact that Kodak makes very high-end medium format digital sensors - found in some Pentax, Leica, Leaf, Hasselbald, Phase One medium format cameras and backs - I am certain they would be requiring the use of one of those medium format products for the project.
Yes, a tethered monitor would be helpful, especially for the art director and client during the shoot. However, the models / "actors" would only see it after the shoot. Their job is to get into character and stay there as long as possible. Any distraction, such as looking at a monitor, would be simply out of bounds for them. I might check on occasion but only if I were certain that doing so wouldn't break the flow of the shoot.
Reader Comments (3)
That would be a cool exhibit - Vintage advertising photographs.
If you had to do this job today, would you use a top-end FF digital? It would have to make life a lot simpler?
Or as the technology makes the job easier, the complexity of the shoot increases to make up the gain over the older gear?
I guess a lot of "bread and butter" shots (probably not your example above) would be covered by stock.
The ability to view the image on the LCD / tethered monitor would be useful not only to you but the actors. You can see in the second picture the problem is not only Grandpa's facial expression but the orientation of his left hand.
I think I'll stick to working in IT and having photography as a hobby!
Reminds me of the story I've read – British photographer David Bailey's clients were also old school so he took his 35mm negatives and copied them to 4x5 in order to satisfy. The client never suspected.