modifoo

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Before the days of digital stills, the one option to make instant photographs was using Polaroid. Fellow film-makers used it not only for purely practical reasons, as these two stories will show.

When I was a student I had the opportunity to watch Ivan Strasburg light a shoot with Mike McShane (a very large Canadian comedian). Half way through the afternoon the gaffer brought me a polaroid camera, of the sort that feed the picture out of the front as soon as the picture is taken, and told me that the make up artist had asked him to take a still of Mr McShane, but that he didn’t feel he had the necessary photographic skill to do the job properly, and would I mind? Of course I was only too pleased to help, and so I took the camera and asked Mr McShane to come and stand in the light to get a good likeness. Just before I took the picture the gaffer reminded me that the picture needed to be a biggish close-up, so I leant a little closer and pressed the button. Out of the camera, right in Mr McShane’s face appeared a big close up alright, but of the gaffer’s hairy, and very white, arse. Mr McShane looked closely at it for a couple of seconds before muttering “Damn, these British makeup artists can’t do anything right. The script says I’m supposed to have a tan.”

Chris Merry

I once did a picture with a DP who shot an excessive amount of Polaroids for every scene in the movie. Bored with this practice, I took a white show card and wrote in big bold letters TRY 2.8.
I underexposed it by a stop and left it in the camera so he would double expose it when making his evaluation… He wasn’t amused, but it was rather funny at the time!

Mark Simon