"Professional" Photo Shoot #2: The Headshot
So today I met up with this actor dude for a headshot shoot. He was a nice guy and we got along, the makeup artist he brought along was fantastic, totally willing to help me hold the bounce board and even suggesting positions.
The only hard part was that this guy was a professionally trained actor, and so he expected to be "Directed" in some way that I didn't know how to do. Asking him to smile showing teeth was "action-oriented" Directing, so that was apparently not good. How could I get him to smile then?
Thinking fast, I tried to describe situations that would make him very happy and smile. One I had read in an article on headshot photography. "look to the side, pretend you are waiting for a good friend at a restaurant. Good, now I want you to look around to see if your friend has arrived, now pretend my camera is the friend and smile hello to your friend."
He gave me a VERY STIFF smile, and I joked that his good friend must also be a Tax Collector. Then he told me what I had done wrong this time "You don't tell an actor to PRETEND to do things."
Sigh. Eventually he relaxed more and I HOPE HOPE HOPE we got some usable shots out of the roll.
posted by gg @ 1:18 PM
2 Comments:
Ola! Sounds like the guy was a bit of a jerk. I hope the pics turn out well though. Have a great weekend!
I heard a story once where an actress asked the director what her motivation was for a particular scene. The director supposedly replied, "Your paycheck." The actress delivered.
This is my (literal) unprofessional opinion, based upon amateur theatre, but I would think that any actor worth his salt would be able to concoct his own motivation for any given scene. Any actor that is 100% reliant on a director isn't worth his salt.
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