Last night, I shot the show photos for RCT’s Snow White. Cast and crew have done a great job with the show, and I particularly enjoyed this interpretation of the tale. I don’t know if the look Denise used was written or hinted in the script, but the result was awesome. If you saw my earlier post about the promo shoot, the idea of an old time look (or is it olde tyme?) came up. I thought this show lends itself well to that stylistic representation.
Looking through the set of keepers from last night’s shoot, I sought out a few which might be fun to give an aged appearance. The shot above of Show White on her 16th birthday works, I think. The color version looks pretty good, to my eyes anyway. But this treatment provides some additional character. Here’s a shot in keeping with the promo shot, with young Snow and the dwarves.
I wish I could take credit for the nice triangular composition, but that was really Denise. There’s almost an 1800s feel to the costumes of the seven. The costumes are blacks and browns and oranges on a set that’s not a lot different. So, the color version of this shot doesn’t scream out color.
Here’s one final shot, capturing the wicked step mother/queen and Herself, the queen’s alter ego. Katie and Beth, the performers, did a remarkable job giving each of these characters life. Katie moves from role to role with such ease. We shot an audition tape of Katie for the Glee auditions that MySpace was running. (The monologue was goofed up during upload. A proper version is here.) She’d be wonderful on Glee. Beth recently played the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. I don’t know if I’m sensing a theme. Here, she moved like a gymnist, becoming the unencumbered inner spirit of the queen.
I shot the show in our normal fashion. The director comes to the shoot with a list, and we stage the shots. There are many advantages to doing this rather than trying to shoot during a performance. I have run of the house, so I can move about finding the angles I want. We can boost the lights when needed. Some scenes are notoriously dark, but the human eyes of the audience have no trouble with that. I can shoot on a tripod and ask the actors to hold still. Sometimes, they do!
But we can also recompose a scene for the camera. A stage is a large environment. A good director will use it fully to paint a scene with a broad brush conveying a message to the audience. But a camera is intimate. Like the first photo of Snow White above, it’s just she, up close, filling the image with her emotion. When I shoot the actors as they are blocked, I have to pull back, go wide, capture stage and set and not actors. Instead of feeling the actors’ emotion, the viewer just sees a nice set with some people.
Do we get the same emotion and spontaneity we’d have in a live performance? For most of the actors I’ve worked with, absolutely. They are actors, after all, and have been performing these roles in rehearsals and performances for weeks. Not every shot is going to capture every viewer’s immediate attention, but there usually are several that do. And, that’s the best you can hope for in any photo shoot.
