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| George diving at Madison Park in just his union suit and yokel hat. |
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| George and Adam wading towards position for the absconsion shot. |
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| Zz sitting in for a lighting test in Virginia City, MT. | . |
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| Waiting for the train (and sunlight to move) at the Issaquah Train Depot. |
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| Shaving off 5 months of mustache...finally. |
Match the film synopses with the correct title of everyone's favorite director's masterpieces! GO!
1) Kevin Laird is a Beverly Hills school teacher by day and a mystery man by night. Using his lambada dance moves to first earn the kid's respect and acceptance, Kevin then teaches them academics. But when a jealous student exposes Kevin's double life, his two worlds collide, threatening his job and reputation.
2) Four American babes on vacation in the Middle East run into trouble when they are imprisoned by corrupt army officials.
3) A struggling young jazz dancer meets up with two break-dancers. Together they become the sensation of the street crowds. (Features Ice-T in his film debut as a club MC).
4) An ex-con and break-dancer helps save a neighborhood from a greedy developer while trying to win a rap contest.
5) Two hotshot LAPD cops get in hot water after breaking up a fight at a local bar. They get suspended from the force and have to find a way to pay the rent. First they try construction work, then stripping, but newspaper reporter Janice Edwards has a really good idea...professional wrestling.
6) A San Francisco narcotics officer goes undercover to South America in an attempt to bust a drug lord and his operation. Of course, the assignment involves her ability to participate in a certain breast-altering operation to smuggle the goods into the States, though her brassiere size may be too large for her to pull off her candidacy.
TITLES
a) Breakin'
b) Bad Guys
c) Catch the Heat
d) Lambada
e) Prison Heat
f) Rappin'
The entire shoot was done in one day, except for having a rough theme in mind the day before. At work earlier in the week, a co-worker pointed out that I looked like an old cobbler while working on my set. He sneaked a photo with his phone and, although I never saw it, I assume I was hunched over the table, tinkering with a troublesome shoe. The cobbler theme itself didn't particular inspire me, but it ended up evolving along the lines of "evil marionette maker". You know, Gepetto gone bad. I wasn't exactly sure how that was going to happen, but I hit a few garage sales and thrift stores anyways on Saturday and picked up five decent dolls to play with (i.e. destroy).
On Sunday, I went over to my friend's house, we scoped out his basement, and sketched out some ideas. The first was having the puppet maker watching his son at the work bench, passing on the creepy craft to the next generation. But that idea was scrapped in fear of it seeming too Pinocchio-ish.
The next few hours were spent traveling to various eccentric hardware stores (most of which are closed on Sundays, we learned), the costume rental shop (we decided to both get costumes for this, although we weren't exactly sure how to fit my character in yet), and more thrift shops. At one thrift shop, we found an incredible cuckoo clock for a mere $275. Soon, the conversation led to the idea of renting the thing for the night, for 1/10th the asking price. My friend further bartered it down to $20 and we had ourselves a deal.
Other than a brief nacho break, the entire afternoon was spent building the set in the basement. We had stained some paint stir sticks before we ran our errands and they were dry by the time we returned. Those, tied together with twine, became our puppet sticks. Twine was thrown everywhere. Rusty tools thrown up on the wall, next to the $275 cuckoo clock.
Lumber, burlap, sawdust, and string enveloped the tiny room. It was impossible to keep dangling string out of one's hair and dust off one's feet while walking through there. For a change, we were genuinely pleased that he kept the basement so dirty.
Once all the tools and puppets were hanging and even more sawdust was sprinkled onto the floor, we changed into our pantaloons, which were surprisingly comfortable. Basically, shorts with elastic to tighten just below the knees. No stranger to poofy shifts myself, it was the tights that were the odd part. Can't say I'll be doing another shoot set in the late 1700s/early 1800s anytime soon.
The final image ended up being a composite of twenty five shots, with the majority of them being small detail shots of the various points of interest around the room. The middle third of the image is the base layer that I worked with, and mostly one solid image, originally.
One thing I later wish I had thought of beforehand was hanging an old wooden sign outside the window, with some sort of "Smitty & Sons - Marionettes" kind of logo painted on it. Still, with just one day to plan, prepare, and shoot, overall I'm happy with it.
EXTRA IMAGES:
In case you haven't heard, the building that my Pioneer Square studio is in has been declared unsafe by the City of Seattle.
Earlier this year, we (the artist-tenants of 619 Western) were told by the Washington State Department of Transportation that we would have to be out of the building by March of 2012 in order for the tunnel (Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement option) to be dug and built right below the 101-year-old building. But two weeks ago, we were given notice to be out by October by the city. Also, "public assemblies" are no longer allowed in the building, either...effectively ending the largest artist concentration in the nation's oldest art walk. That's right - First Thursday Art Walks in Pioneer Square are all but finished - at least for the 100+ artists in the 619 Western Building.
"Born in 1919, Frances McLaughlin-Gill became a fashion photographer and producer of television commercials. She studied at the Pratt Institure during the Depression and she was a staff photographer for Conde Nast publications 1944-1955 and went on to produce television commercials between 1964-1973. Frances built a successful career beginning in the 1940s at Vogue and she was the first woman under contract to Vogue."
I had never heard of her. But this shoot she did for Glamour magazine in 1952 grabbed me on so many levels. The colors, the staging, the set (yes, it's a set)...the fact that it was shot FIFTY-NINE years ago! I was able to find quite a few behind-the-scenes images, too. I always love those.
I try to have a sense of "deliberate intent" when I shoot and seeing this incredibly staged shoot reminds me exactly of what I love doing most with photography. Sure, you can see other shots where the models are in different poses or interacting with each other in various ways (or not at all), but the room for small adjustments like those are part of the deliberate intent when creating these scenes.
And it's a combination of the original vision and intended direction of a conceptualized shoot with the unexpected deviations that naturally occur within the framework that take the photos to the next level. I've never been able to shoot exactly what is in my head. And (regardless of what I say when I'm shooting or how frustrated I may look at the time), that's really my favorite part about staging large scenes...and photography in general. The magic really happens when the path is laid out before you (from hard work and plenty of preparation) and either by choice or by accident, you take a few steps off the path to get to your destination. Sometimes, you leave the path for good once you first step off. And sometimes you return - whether immediately or eventually. As much as I can't stand the Family Circus comic strip, I can't help but think of those stupid round-about dotted-line paths the kids take while going about their business. Sure, Bill Keane has used that exact same tired gag time and time again, but while the quickest way from A to B is the straight line, going in circles and zig-zags always makes for a far more interesting journey.
And, for me, usually a more interesting photo.
The next two hours were well-spent sitting on my friend Adam's couch, looking towards his dining room. This was unusual as congregating in the kitchen is the norm in my circle, but we were still so full of pancakes and french toast and omelettes that walking another 30 feet was far too much of a chore. Thus, from the couch, nursing our bloated bellies, the whole story came about:
And so it built and built and within two hours, most of the details and characters were all scripted out in our heads already. We had debated between going steampunk or not again and again but finally decided to make it more of a period piece and not get too crazy on the metalwork and fantasy-science...for this one. Maybe another time.
Days later, at some modest get-together in the same room, Adam and I were energetically attempting to explain our new idea to some other friends and Adam just stood up and told the story as if it was how he heard it from his grandfather a hundred times, who had heard it from his grandfather a hundred times. It was incredible. Instead of saying "well, these guys are over here, and she's standing over there, and flying checkers are over there" as I would have done, he just let this perfectly eloquent narrative flow. Everything was tied together on why each character was in the room and doing what they were doing. The shady characters involved were all described as "mostly British ruffians" and "ne'er do wells" and they were in Hong Kong as part of some carefully orchestrated plot of treachery.
The British Empire has been chugging steadily into the Industrial Revolution, fueled in part by Chinese tea. In exchange, the British have been importing vast quantities of opium to China, creating a drug-addled dynasty beholden to British political and economic whims. Lin Zexu has tired of seeing his country becoming crippled addicts. He has composed a letter, soon to be delivered to Queen Victoria, informing her that he has confiscated and destroyed the 20,000 chests of British opium due to arrive in Hong Kong any day now.
In a veranda overlooking Kowloon, Hong Kong, Lord F. Alastair Winbigler looks out over the bay, his stoic face belying his racing mind, occupied with calculating the next moves he will make. Intent upon amassing a personal fortune from both tea and opium, he too has his sights on the sizable shipment soon to arrive in Hong Kong. His plan is already in action. Behind the Lord, the hotel's table is a flurry of activity. Armed with sextants and compasses, his shrewdest strategists assess the port and access routes on a variety of well-worn maps. Bottles of rum, broken quills, and other detritus attest to the lengthy debates which have surrounded these maps. Also competing for space on the table is a bombmaking operation. Two lackeys, skilled in the art of conflagration, carefully measure black gunpowder and prepare bundles of explosivese for the coming siege.
Frustrated with the countless hours of seemingly fruitless debate, two of the Lord's thugs have reached their breaking point. After countless games of checkers and bottles of rum, an argument has erupted. The checkerboard is flung into the air, red and black pieces flying helter-skelter. The Lord's plot would not be possible without a turncoat, of course. The beguiling enchantress, Song Xi Xiu fans herself and scarcely hides a smirk as she watches over the scene. Having already been paid handsomely for access to the port commissioner, her profit is guaranteed, regardless of the success of the final siege. The commissioner, Ping Chang, still occasionally struggles against the heavy ropes which bind him to a chair. As if the injuries he's already sustained weren't enough, one of the Lord's lackeys is relishing in the opportunity to deliver another productive blow to the commissioner's already bludgeoned face.
And all the while, the Lord's mistress, the delicately perfumed, flaxen-curled Madame Mountbatten, patiently enjoys yet another cup of prized tea, while she envisions her coming days presiding over their very own Caribbean island, complete with sugar plantation, rum distillery, and most importantly, vast staff of servants to tend to her every whim.
As a test, we did a mock-up shoot and composited 6 Adams and 5 Kevins as all the characters...just to see if we could even FIT eleven people into this room and have it make sense. It's funny looking back at this image now and seeing how very close it is to the final image, T-shirts and clean-shaven mustaches aside. Once we realized that this might actually work, the real process began.
Over the next three months, characters were cast and re-cast, facial hair was grown, more and more props were acquired (more than a few trips to Chinatown) or made (paper mache bombs!) or borrowed (sextants!). Costumes were bought, fitted, rented and even hand-made. Most of the wardrobe would be rented, but for the character Prewitt Prug, a British thug who was purely hired muscle, we figured he should be wearing the most raggedy clothing possible, just barely hanging off his body. In fact, as it was set in July in Southern China, it would have been hot and in all probability, 
Prug would most likely be shirtless, shoeless and have some torn pants hardly clinging to his waist. The original idea was for an unhealthy amount of his ass showing even, but, when I realized that he would be punching the equally near-naked Port Commissioner, Ping Chang, it would have been too much skin showing in one corner of the photo, as Chang would be shirtless as well, having been tied to a chair with large ropes. So a dirty shirt was given to Prug, but his pants were made from nothing more than burlap and twine, sewn together with a pencil for a needle.
At the vintage costume rental shop, the characters truly started to come to life as people began to play around with different combinations of pants, shirts, suspenders, hats, monocles, wirey glasses, pince-nez, who gets a pipe? Who gets a cigarette? It was great watching people get excited over one thing vs another that led to a more defined version of who they were becoming.
To further deepen the story, each person cast was asked to write their own character's bio. Since everyone was given the same back-story on the final image, it was up to them to explain who they were and how they got to that moment, that room. Those who didn't have the time to write something out, was told not to worry, as I would be happy to write as many of them as needed. Tying in made-up characters to actual historical events was too much fun and, in the end, Adam and I wrote more than half of the bios, either by ourselves or together.
The day before the shoot was spent collecting all the costumes and prepping the set. It took all day to get the whole table arranged just right, the lanterns hanging in the right spot, the checkers suspended from wires here and there... In the evening, our Port Commissioner came by for his haircut. 
The "queue" style haircut was imposed by the Qing Chinese and we wanted Ping to look just right. Adam shaved about 3/4 of his head, and left just the back portion. We pinned a nice ponytail to complete it and he was set. While this was going on, I was in the next room, preparing bruise and black eye make-up on myself. Going out that night looking like that was a great success. 
We hit up Lowe's Hardware for some last minute hardware and then went to Capitol Hill for dinner. Although I didn't feel it was a particularly good make-up job, there were more than a few comments from people thinking it was real. I'll have to play around with it in the future and see how more realistic I can get it.
The shoot itself only took a few hours. The main shot was split up into 4 different parts, as I wanted a particular lighting on each area and it made more sense to shoot it separately and composite the quadrants together. The Greek professor schooling the British ruffian at checkers in the lower left of the frame was shot together, then Winbigler himself and the two cartographers were shot together, completing the left side.
Mountbatten was shot by herself up top, then the whole right side was shot together, so the action of the five characters over there blending together better. 
While shooting Mountbatten, the Port Commissioner was being prepped on the other side of the frame - tying someone to a chair and covering them with fake blood is always fun. He was incredibly patient, though, and sat through not only Mountbatten's shoot, but also while I went around and lit everything on the table separately. The fake blood we used was mint flavored and he didn't seem to mind, too much.
