Edit,edit, editing, edit, edit how to?

Edit,edit, editing, edit, edit how to? It keeps coming up over and over again, funny how when you ‘pick up’ on something you keep noticing it, or you are conscious that people keep mentioning, well recently for me it has been editing. Editing photography for me is all about an educated eye which does take time to acquire and comes only with practice and a healthy interest in looking at images in, books, magazines at exhibitions and so on. Occasionally you pick up on articles and snippets of info on how people edit. If you are lucky you spend time in the company of the masters –  PHOTO EDITORS -, at either agencies or national/ local press.

When I read as I did the other day about a photographer who when he/she revisits old projects re-selects other images from those originally selected in the first edit as they are stronger, this worries me, from experience the strongest images should always elevate themselves and be obvious to the trained eye at the first and every examination of a collection of work. This is confirmed to me with my own work when I see (un-prompted) other ‘Trained Eyes’ picking the exact same image I did. Yes, their should be a symbiosis between us, other wise who in the world can make an opinion about whether an images is good bad or indifferent?

Reccomeded reading on this subject Pictures on a Page by Harold Evans

Movie Photos – Behind the scenes – Take 2

Movie Photos – Behind the scenes continued………………………                                                                                                                                                  I shoot on 3 High end Nikon digital SLR cameras, currently a D3 with the benefit of its full frame chip and excellent low light ability, a D2x and D2xs (previous upgrades – the best at the time), I have plans to upgrade (as ever!!) to a D3s – the latest D series up grade by Nikon with even better low light ability – which is a definite advantage when shooting on a film set due to the limited light available. DOP’s are recognised for their ability to paint with light or use pools of light on the set, they shoot at wide apertures for the benefit of a shallow depth of field also I am considering a D3x, so that when I recognise photo ops that would make potential posters or do editorial style set ups whilst filming I can shoot at a higher res. This may also lead to me shooting on a D3x in the studio opposed to my current scenario of hiring in a hasselblad HD + monitor + dedicated assistant etc etc etc.. The attraction of shooting on SD cards and being more mobile during the shoot is very attractive but…Money doesn’t grow on tress! And these are all serious purchases which require financial consideration, especially as they are destine to be superseded in no time. What to do?? The constant digital dilemma!! I use a range of lenses prime lenses in my blimp a 35mm, 50mm, 85mm + 105mm (all f2) on my other camera’s I use a 70-200 f2.8 (my favourite lens) and a 17-55. Before digital I was more inclined to come on set with varying film formats, A Pentax 6×7 a maimya 7 a fuji 6×9 (all sold now, as not used since digital kicked in) alas now in my industry film  my work is very out of vogue, this is due to the fact that all the end users of what I produce for example designers and marketing and publicity folk are all 100% digital and only want electronic files. No film please! Which means now the only film camera I use on set is a Hasselblad Xpan due to its natural rhythm with the film format. In order to give an insight into producing images for film marketing and publicity I am going to describe a typical days work on a movie  (if there is such a thing!), the film I have chosen is  Atonement and the Day I have Chosen is Shoot day 57  Tuesday 22nd August this day is so well known in the film making world that it has its own ‘T’ Shirt with the scene description on it.                                                       

Scene 115/116:

Exterior Bray Dunes

A 4 minutes 53 seconds

Steadicam shot

Moving through the

Entire set. Starting on mule tracking vehicle parallel with Robbie, Mace, Nettle and Naval Officer, play dialogue. Move through burning vehicles to line of horses being shot. Move round back of boat (for my Mum) and pass bonfire with burning bible pages wiping f/g. Pan up to sails of boat, wind machine inside hull of boat. Cross the beach to gun placement where we find crying soldier. Reveal Bandstand. Move round choir on bandstand in opposite direction to Mace. Steadicam mounts rickshaw. Move back down centre of street with big wheel centre frame and stunt men hanging off it. Circus horses appear from round corner and gallop in opposite direction to camera. Use round-about to bring camera L-R. Pass under barrel of guns past trucks having their radiators shot out. Finally pan Robbie, Nettle and Mace on to pier and follow over shoulder until they enter bar. Then pan round to reveal WS of beach and continue to end of scaffold pier to reveal steel works between boat and bandstand.

BRIGHTON ROCK STARTS SHOOTING

Press release on my new project

BRIGHTON ROCK STARTS SHOOTING October 18 2009: principal photography starts today on Rowan Joffe’s debut feature BRIGHTON ROCK, starring a remarkable cast including Sam Riley (Control) as Pinkie, the fast-rising Andrea Riseborough (Happy Go Lucky and a BAFTA nominee for the eponymous role in Margaret Thatcher: the Long Walk to Finchley) as Rose, Oscar winner Helen Mirren (The Queen, Gosford Park) as Ida and John Hurt (1984, Hellboy II, The Proposition) as Phil Corkery. The eight week shoot will take place in Brighton, Eastbourne and on locations in and around London. Produced by award-winning producer Paul Webster (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice, Eastern Promises) for Kudos Pictures, BRIGHTON ROCK marks the first major production investment by Optimum Releasing, and will be made in association with BBC Films and the UK Film Council’s Premiere Fund. The film has also been supported by the UK Film Council’s Development Fund through Optimum Releasing and StudioCanal. International sales will be handled by StudioCanal, with Optimum set to release the film in the UK, StudioCanal in France and in Germany through Kinowelt. Adapted from Graham Greene’s brilliant 1939 novel, BRIGHTON ROCK charts the headlong fall of Pinkie, a razor-wielding disadvantaged teenager with a religious death wish . At the heart of the story is the anti-hero Pinkie’s relationship with Rose – an apparently innocent young waitress who stumbles on evidence linking Pinkie and his gang to a revenge killing that Pinkie commits. After the murder, Pinkie seduces Rose, first in an effort to find out how much she knows and latterly to ensure she will not talk to the police. A love story between a murderer and a witness, can Pinkie trust Rose or should he kill her before she talks to the police? Can Rose trust Pinkie or is she next in line? Writer/director Rowan Joffe’s credits include the screenplays for Pawel Pawlikowski’s award-winning Last Resort and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later as co-writer, and director of Channel 4’s The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall, for which he won the BAFTA for Best TV director. Joffe has decided to set the film in 1964 with its famous South Coast quasi-riots between emerging teenage Mods and older Rockers, which contextualizes Pinkie’s ‘youth rebellion’ perfectly. 1964 also brings the story as close as possible to our own times without corrupting the innocence upon which some constituents of the plot and characterization depend. 1964 was a year after off-track gambling was legalized, spawning more than a hundred betting shops a week opening up and down the country and engendering, paradoxically, a massive wave in organised crime. The Sixties was the era of the great British gangster, the kind of working class hero that the frightened and ambitious Pinkie longs to be. It was also the last year in which the death penalty was actively carried out, the threat of hanging being a crucial motivation in Pinkie’s desperate attempts to get rid of witnesses to his revenge killing. “We’re making Brighton Rock as contemporary as we possibly can because the story feels ‘modern’. It’s too alive, too vibrant and too relevant to be contained in the late thirties, “says Rowan Joffe. “ Any form of adaptation is corruption. And Greene – who lovingly and pragmatically corrupted much of his own work to fit the big screen – would have been the first to understand that.” Producer Paul Webster said, “Rowan has written a formidable script that has attracted a cast that is a perfect blend of youth and experience. The scene is set to make a truly great British gangster film.”

imdb – internet movie database

A recent comment on my blog asked me about credits on films. I wondered why they were asking and why they had not gone onto the IMDB web site to check out the info. Then I thought perhaps a lot of people are not aware of IMDB the internet movie database. So a bit about it……………… IMDB is basically a whose  who in the film business, very comprehensive covers cast and crew writers etc etc etc. All known film titles (blockbusters and art house) a really brilliant resource used substantially by industry related people and journalists but open to the public as well CHECK IT OUT!!!! IMDB

MOVIE PHOTOS – Behind the Scenes – Take 1

A fascinating and informative insight into producing marketing and publicity photography for movies. Alex takes us ‘on-set’ of the Oscar and BAFTA winning film Atonement to demonstrate the wide range of photography required to for fill the brief. 

I specialize in producing images for Movie marketing and Publicity.

These are the pictures that you see as film posters………….

In newspapers and magazines………

And are used for merchandising.

I am contracted full time for the duration of a movie; this can be anything from 10 weeks to six months.

I am on set five or six days a week for 10-12 hours per day.

This results in me shooting as many as 15 thousand images on an average film.

To be Continued…………………

Stills photographer on set Video – Jasin Boland at work

A contemporary and colleague of mind called Jasin Boland (one of the very best stills photographers around) has done a very informative on set video about being a stills photographer with a section on the BLIMP – so for a great insight into the job of a stills photographer take a look at Jasin’s video on you tube here.

Movie Photos by Alex Bailey on Amazon @ Special Price

We have made my book Movie Photos avaliable on Amazon at a special price of £12.99 + postage for a limited period. Signed copies only are avaliable via the dedicated web site at £19.99 + postage this also ships by airsure if buying from abroad which is a more reliable method of  delivery. 

This is the link to Amazon page.  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0955933706/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1254845803&sr=1-1&condition=new

Alex Bailey

For over twenty five years I have earned a good living from photography.
I have never been put off by the chorus of those questioning my photographic ambitions.  I’ve just got on and done it.  As a photographer I have travelled the world, met hundreds of fascinating people, and been to some extraordinary places.  The satisfaction gained from seeing my work published cannot be equated in financial worth but rather serves to confirm my own self belief and determination to conquer my insecurities.  Never take no for an answer!

A day in the life of……. A Film Set Photographer

Last year, due to the volume of interest I get in the photography I produce for film marketing and publicity, I wrote and produced a book, Movie Photos aimed at students and young photographers who are interested in this very rewarding area of photography. Movie Photos outlines the requirements and working practices of a set photographer using ‘my story’  to illustrate a personal but fairly typical approach to these assignments. It also strips away some of the mystique surrounding working on a film set, which is mainly due to the lack of first hand information coupled with the nature of the business which tends to be very entrenched in the freelance world, therefore making it quite invisible and not easy for those interested to approach any particular company, group, or for that matter individual to obtain info.  Movie Photos, has now led to me doing several lectures on the subject of set photography and producing images for movie marketing and publicity.

In order to get this information out to a wider audience I thought it beneficial to post the lecture to my blog over the coming months. In so doing I can pad out and fill in more info than appears in the lecture which lasts about an hour. The lecture I give is based around a day in the life of Alex Bailey on Set of the film Atonement. The idea being that I can take the audience on a journey through the requirements and considerations that I experience on a daily basis. The particular day I choose to illustrate this is so well known in the film making world that it has its own ‘T’ Shirt with the scene description on it.

Over the coming months I will give an in-sight to being on set as well as describing how as a photographer I approach and tackle a days filming in order to produce the required images that will help to market and publicize a movie.

The following scene description is of course by the brilliant director Joe Wright and the footage is by the very talented Steadicam operator Peter Robertson. Reproduced courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing and copyright Focus Features 2007

Scene 115/116: Exterior Bray Dunes

A 4 minutes 53 seconds Steadicam shot

Moving through theEntire set. Starting on mule tracking vehicle parallel with Robbie, Mace, Nettle and Naval Officer, play dialogue. Move through burning vehicles to line of horses being shot. Move round back of boat (for my Mum) and pass bonfire with burning bible pages wiping f/g. Pan up to sails of boat, wind machine inside hull of boat. Cross the beach to gun placement where we find crying soldier. Reveal Bandstand. Move round choir on bandstand in opposite direction to Mace. Steadicam mounts rickshaw. Move back down centre of street with big wheel centre frame and stunt men hanging off it. Circus horses appear from round corner and gallop in opposite direction to camera. Use round-about to bring camera L-R. Pass under barrel of guns past trucks having their radiators shot out. Finally pan Robbie, Nettle and Mace on to pier and follow over shoulder until they enter bar. Then pan round to reveal WS of beach and continue to end of scaffold pier to reveal steel works between boat and bandstand.

HERE IS THE CLIP:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCJJfOp8_Go

The Business of Business

There is no doubt, an understanding of financial matters is a contributing factor to an individual’s potential success. In other words how to manage your money.  In real terms, this means charging for ones services at a realistic level and maintaining control over your cash flow, not ignoring the issues of bills and tax.
I know this sounds dull, for arguably creative people, but I am afraid it is a fact of life, no matter how creative you are, you will simply not survive if you do not deal competently with the mundane matters relating to money and its management.
The world is full of ‘creative’ people that did not fulfil their potential because they could not manage their finances.

Extract from the book MOVIE PHOTOS by Alex Bailey