International photographer (Jan-Dec 1939)

Here are some pointed criticisms of present day studio stills. Too MANY stills are spoiled by too much light; too much distracting detail in the background. Simple lighting with one "effect" light on the face or on the background is the greatest help to an effective, natural looking picture. Retouchers shouldn't try to make every portrait look perfect. Players who pose for portraits should treasure their individuality beyond perfection. Stillmen make pictures; retouchers re-make them. Don't make subjects look bloodless and artificial; give them character. Make them relax. Don't make them hold a pose so long they get "hep" to your own uncertainty. Spontaneity is important to good stills. Make more portraits outside even if you have to use a Graphic or a Graflex or a Leica instead of the customary 8x10. Give your subjects something to think about, to respond to in giving portraits feeling and action. Show strength in men subjects and gentility in women. Don't let subjects fall into set poses or over-act in stills any more than a good director will let them over-act in pictures. Don't click your shutter if the subject isn't thinking about his part of the job of making interesting stills. Don't let the subject EVER know you are worried about the mechanics of making pictures. Keep your mechanical problems to yourself; keep the interest and spirit of your subject up. Make more out-of-doors action fashion shots; less pretty posey pictures. Unknown models POSE in clothes; movie people belong, live and move in fashionable things. Forget the old routine gags for off-stage art. You're wasting time. Make off-stage shots attractive through novel composition; novel angles. Make cute kids do cute things (not theatrical poses) and remember that it is NOT the usual things people do that make interesting pictures but the UNusual things actors and actresses do in their work and in their play that makes them different — and interesting. Don't make obvious off-stage pictures. Millions of people see motion pictures and mentally record every performance of stars and players. Their curiosity demands a knowledge of what these actors and actresses are like when they are themselves. This is an age of character and frankness and human understanding (even though paradoxically it is one of rank intolerance) and the stillman's obligation to his principals should be to make his pictures sell the idea that movie folk are intelligent, alert, human, natural people who do UNUSUAL WORK. The still picture that ridicules a news-name or newsface ridicules the business that buys the photographer's bread and butter. motion pictures limited space. Today they shoot their own stills and ignore the studio credits because they often make more interesting pictures outside of the studios than many of the studios do inside with control, player obligations and studio lighting. Syndicates, magazines and newspapers are covering Hollywood today — not just studios. The studio's job is to employ stills to sell motion pictures; the magazine, newspaper and syndicate photographers are charged only with making interesting, natural pictures of people who are news. What is ahead rests with how quickly publicity men and stillmen realize they must think like editors. Editors will give good art the biggest break it ever had but they insist (after a lot of study in many localities) they know what their readers (and movie fans) want. It takes a pretty smart picture to sell theatre tickets today. The editor doesn' care for publicity— as such — but, he will trade a good break for art that helps him sell his paper. Forget yesterday's compliments and yesterday's routine. Tomorrow is the challenge our studio stillman must answer. Directors, faced with their own problems and multiplying picture costs, don't sing out for a stillman any more; it's the stillman's job to anticipate stills and be ready and mentally prepared to get them when a break comes. I have known stillmen who weren't interested enough in their assignments to read a script or want to read a script. This is no business for such men. The stillman is a pictorial reporter. His assignment is to cover ( pictorially) a picture. His coverage must be accomplished while the picture is in work; he can't photograph it when it isn't there. He can't wait for his bosses to come to him. His way to advancement is in going to the bosses to find out. The stillman's tools today are not one camera but several cameras; not only one lighting arrangement but ANY lighting arrangement. Film has been made faster to help him. People generally are more picture conscious than ever before but the secret of better still is in making studio still photography continuously interesting work. When a stillman fails to find a romance and an incentive in making stills, he's passe, washedup, through. This is a fast game and it requires fast thinking and fast action. Movies don't stand still any more; neither does the audience. Still pictures must fit in too; they can't stand still. Amateurs organize clubs, exchange ideas, tinker with dozens of experiments, have exhibitions and strut their stuff. Hollywood stillmen do far too little for their own good. Radio throughout the country has seized on photography for exploitation, as witness our successful Coast camera club program of the Columbia Broadcasting System. Movie lot amateur and professional photographers and the ace men of the syndicates are invited to tell of their experiences. The radio folk have exhibitions in radio studios and make a lot of fuss about ther progress. I haven't seen movie studios doing that. Dozens of magazines have contests, open forums, means for exchanging ideas, formulas, suggestions, but here in Hollywood — the photographic art center of the world — we do little to encourage still art, to train and help stillmen. In this connection let me point out two examples. First, from the amateur end, to my knowl edge, a small group of sincere enthusiasts have been laboring for several years to develop intelligent, practical and profitable intra — and and inter — studio camera club activity. They have made some little progress, but by no means what they should if the idea were supported with the enthusiasm it merits. Secondly, in my contacts with Ed Gibbons, editor of International Photographer, and Herbert Aller, business agent of International Photographers' Local 659, and managing editor of the magazine, I know they have bent earnest effort and even pleaded with stillmen and publicity men to get behind just such a program through the medium of International Photographer. That's logical since every studio stillman is a member of Local 659, which publishes the magazine, and all receive it regularly. Various stunts were tried, from selection of the outstanding "still of the month" to technique symposium discussions. I, myself, let loose a blast about still conditions that certainly was outspoken enough to provoke some interest and discussion. But considerable apathy regarding cooperative steps to improve conditions seems to exist. Gibbons and Aller continue with a small nucleus of able contributors to International Photographer. To my mind they should be swamped with suggestions and ideas each month from stillmen members. Today one good still is a more effective ticket seller than 25,000 words; stills as symbols and sales punch are most important but little is actually done to give this work the impetus it needs. And the blame for this lethargy rests on many other shoulders besides the stillman's. If it is a tough situation today — and it is — what about tomorrow. There will be movies tomorrow, next year and the next and you can bet your bottom dollar they will need different and better stills to help sell them. THAT'S SOMETHING FOR EVERY STILLMAN AND EVERY PERSON IN. THIS INDUSTRY CONNECTED WITH PUBLICITY, SALES AND EXPLOITATION TO THINK ABOUT. Let's hope the time is not far distant when there will be a motion picture still art salon. Let's hope the time will come when the Academy will give an award for "the best still portrait" and "the best action still of the year." Let's hope the Film City will really lead the world in still art as well as in moving picture art and let us all join in a campaign to SELL everybody connected with motion pictures, publicity and exploitation the proper importance — and the need of greater cooperation on the set, and off — in making the stills representative of Hollywood represent the BEST of Hollywood. Let us not think of stills in point of quantity alone but rather in point of importance. It is YOUR business, you professional readers of International Photocrapher. What do YOU say about it? And more important, what are you going to DO about it? I'm not a stillman. I'm just an observer — and a "hoper." Mohr Article Due Hal Mohr, president of Local 659, IATSE, recently returned from photographic assignments in New York. Watch for an early article in International Photographer by this outstanding photographic expert, past winner of the Academy award for cinematography, on production conditions and photographic trends in the eastern motion picture center. 12