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Lawrence Sher, ASC’s ShotDeck Recreations Contest Returns

Creative photo competition deadline is July 31, 2022. Winners will be announced the first week of August.

ASC Staff

Creative photo competition deadline is July 31, 2022. Winners will be announced the first week of August.
At top, Lawrence Sher, ASC stands in for George Clooney while recreating a shot from O Brother Where Art Thou (2000), originally shot by Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC.

Initiated in April of 2020, the Recreations photo series was launched by the Oscar-nominated cinematographer of Joker, Lawrence Sher, ASC and his designer wife, Hema. While in quarantine at home, they reverse engineered and recreated memorable motion picture images using household items as props, family members as actors, and their cell phones for cameras. After Sher posted the results on Instagram with the hashtag #shotsinisolation, their Recreations images went viral. 


You'll find much more info about Sher’s project, including an interview with the cinematographer, here.


Sher and his son reconstructing a memorable shot from ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), starring his daughter and based on the work of Allen Daviau, ASC.

In conjunction with Sher’s filmmaking research website ShotDeck, they initiated their first Recreations contest. Hungry to take part in the fun, creators worldwide joined-in and started recreating their favorite movie frames as meticulously as possible. Now the ShotDeck Recreations contest is back — ready to spread across the globe with more than $30,000 worth of prizes including: cameras, lenses, lights and support from Sony, Zeiss, Blackmagic, Aputure, Rosco, SmallHD, Tiffen, and others.


Reverse-engineering a shot from The Wizard of Oz (1939) with Sher's wife, Hema, originally photographed by Harold Rosson, ASC.

The contest begins on July 1, and runs through 11:59 GMT, July 31, 2022. Winners will be announced the first week of August. There is no charge to enter. To participate, contestants simply set up a free account at shotdeck.com, select a frame from the over 300,000 shots in ShotDeck’s high-definition movie images library, and recreate it DYI-style. Entrants are urged to show their resourcefulness with behind-the-scenes photos. 


Prizes will be awarded for categories including: Most Ambitious, Best Children Participation, Best Lighting and Best Make-Up. 


The panel of judges includes award-winning filmmaker and Sher’s longtime collaborator Todd Phillips, and ASC members Erik Messerschmidt, Greig Fraser, Natasha Braier and surprise celebrity judges.





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