Motion-picture still photographers artfully document movies and their makers for posterity.
Cinematographers are the Rembrandts of cinema, motion-picture still photographers serve as the Cartier-Bressons. Just as the legendary French photojournalist hunted relentlessly for the "decisive moments" of everyday life, the unit still photographer seeks to capture those fleeting moments on a film set when the cinematographer's light, the actor's performance and the production designer's milieu gel perfectly in front of the director, revealing the dramatic essence of a film. These photographers efforts' often qualify as artistic triumphs in their own right.
Expert still photographers have long labored, both literally and figuratively, in the shadows of the film set. Since the earliest days of moviemaking, when still photographers toiled behind large, cumbersome cameras on mammoth tripods, there has always been a crew member whose job is to record all that transpires in front of and behind the motion picture camera. It is a vital and underappreciated responsibility, since the still photographer often holds in his camera the only tangible evidence besides the movie itself of a project's existence. In 1995, four of Hollywood's most respected unit still photographers Peter Sorel, Tony Friedkin, Melinda Sue Gordon and Merrick Morton formed the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers, in the interest of providing a forum for the craft's most talented practitioners. The quartet took its cues from the venerable American Society of Cinematographers. "Not only did the ASC give me the idea to start the society," explains SMPSP president Peter Sorel, "but I even asked [then ASC president] Victor Kemper if I could borrow from his organization's bylaws. We formed our society for exactly the same reason that the cinematographers initially had to bring together the most excellent photographers in the business, and give them a forum where they could talk to each other. Most motion picture still photographers had never even met each other, but now we regularly have meetings every couple of months at a different member's home. It's a group in which everybody is interested in the same things really fine photography, and trying to help each other in a way that wasn't possible before."
The society now has 18 active members and three honorary members, including actor and Widelux-wielding camera enthusiast Jeff Bridges ("He's pretty good!" Sorel enthuses), and legendary magazine photographers Bob Willoughby and Phil Stern. Since the SMPSP is an open society, any working unit still photographer is welcome to join, provided that a high-quality portfolio is approved by the existing members. "We do not stick to the idea that a member has to be in the [International Photographers Guild] union," says the Hungarian-born Sorel, a 34-year veteran of the industry who was invited to visit his first film production, a low-budget 1963 picture called Time Travelers, by his friend and fellow countryman Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC. "If non-union photographers were to apply and submit portfolios, they would be just as welcome to join, as long as they're good. This is not a political society it exists for nothing but the betterment of photography in this industry."
Paramount to the society's manifesto are the historical implications of the still photographer's work. "For the last 20 years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences library has only received and archived the color slides from the studios' movie press kits, which are printed on plastic and fade out in a few years," Sorel says. "After working on a movie, each member of the society is encouraged to donate two or three of their archival silver prints to the Academy's library. When people see the press kit slides and then look at our work in print form, they say 'Wow!'"
Fellow SMPSP founder Melinda Sue Gordon, whose credits include such films as Field of Dreams, Unstrung Heroes, Liar Liar and director Peter Weir's soon-to-be-released The Truman Show, is hesitant to lay the blame for the photographic void entirely on the studios. "[The studios] are so overwhelmed with the films they've got in production right now that they don't really have the facilities or the people to archive everything," she attests. "I went to the Academy to look at their archives, and until about 1960 they had extensive coverage of films wardrobe tests, set tests, and even special takes of scenes that productions back then would do just for the still photographers. But from the early 1960s on, the Academy has almost no coverage of films except for the stills included in the press kits. There are many films that aren't even around anymore all that's left are the stills! The people behind the lens are also important production designers, grips, electricians, all of the people who use their skills to make these films happen. It's a whole era and a group of people whose efforts should be recorded."
The society's members note that a significant portion of their work artistic, humorous, even surreal images from the set which often aren't included in the generally more straightforward studio press kits often go unseen by the general public.
"I'm interested in the process of filmmaking as an artist, because of the whole issue of illusion and reality," says SMPSP co-founder Tony Friedkin, who has balanced his personal fine-art photography with work on films such as American Me, Stand and Deliver, Murder in the First and The Game. "It's all about an actor getting up after he's been shot 600 times with a fake Uzi and going to the craft services table to get a salami sandwich! Or here's an actor with a knife sticking out of his eye, and he's smiling. As a fine-art photographer, I like to subvert the idea that movies are real life, and I explore [the dichotomy] any time I can while I'm on the set. If I suddenly see an image that's outrageous, ridiculous or moving, but doesn't have anything to do with the needs of the press or publicity department, I'll still shoot it. We've got all of these great moments between actors and directors, wonderful images that reveal the context of the moviemaking process, that don't make the press kit."
"To me, a good shot doesn't always include the actor or director," states Sorel, who documented such classic films as Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. "In the last few years, I've been shooting a lot more for my own satisfaction, and those are the shots that eventually end up in exhibits images like shadows on the wall or objects on the floor of the movie set. You can't get complacent and just say, 'My job is to service the publicity machine.' If you have an artistic eye, you're not going to be happy just doing that you have to give people more. Even on an unimaginative-looking film set, something happens every day that's worth photographing."
[ continued on page 2 ]