Claire
Folger’s puckish side would like to hand out a
printed card with answers on both sides to the
questions she is most frequently asked: “Why are you
taking pictures on a movie set?” and
“What is that black box you are carrying?”
In truth, Folger’s answer to the first
wouldn’t fit on a three-by-five card, and the second
would take some explaining about the “blimp”
(camera silencing device), which she hauls and
carefully maneuvers around a movie set. But in her own
quiet way, Cambridge-based photographer Claire Folger
would like to heighten awareness about this often
overlooked facet of film production.
Sitting
in her studio proximate to the Mayflower Poultry Co.,
whose motto
“Live Poultry, Fresh Killed” is a signature
landmark to finding her, Folger says, “It doesn’t
occur to people that every picture in the newspaper or
on a billboard advertising a movie comes from a still
photographer. Even crew members on a
set will sometimes ask why am I taking pictures.”
Yet, being low-key, unobtrusive, and shadowy are
assets among the talents an on-set photographer needs
after, of course, obvious talent with a camera.
Ghost-like anonymity will grab the attention of a
producer, too.
Understandably,
directors, who are the kings and the queens of
filmmaking, are mostly self-absorbed in the
production. Says Folger, “Not even a director
necessarily knows what he or she wants a poster to
look like in the end.”
Producers, too, who often roam the sets, are
sometimes puzzled by their needs for marketing and
promotion. It’s just hard to envision the final
outcome when the whole movie isn’t completed. So add
intuition to the qualities list as well as the ability
to “wing it.” Folger says, “I try to get what I
think will be a dramatic shot, one that will capture
the look of the film. A lot of people who make movies
are concerned at the time with all the things it
actually takes to make the movie. Those are the things
that are mandated and need to be addressed.
Oftentimes, they’re not thinking about what will be
needed six months or a year from now.
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| Lyn Vaus and Sandi Carroll on the set of THE DARIEN GAP, a fictional place that will prevent you from getting where you're going without a map according to director Brad Anderson.
Photo by Claire Folger. |
“It’s
not until after the movie gets made that people will
come up to me and ask: ‘Do you have a picture of
this or that? We really need a picture of this.’ I
hope I do most of the time.”
What
makes Folger’s job more difficult is that in the
world of indie filmmaking photographers are on the set
a limited number of days, say 6 out of a 20-day shoot.
Folger adds, “Most filmmakers put money into making
the film. Stills are a second-thought for them.”
Folger
was born in Boston, but raised on the South Shore.
Since childhood, where she had access to a darkroom in
the basement because of her father’s hobbiest
interest, she had a longing to become a photographer.
She graduated from Southeastern Massachusetts
University with a degree in biology, but her muses
surfaced and she began taking photos of bands in
Boston. Her entrée into set photography happened
after Lyn Vaus, then a band member and budding
screenwriter, introduced her to Brad Anderson. She
joined the crew of Anderson’s feature DARIEN GAP
(1996), mainly as set photographer, but she got
corralled into other tasks, “stand there, hold
this,” as she tells it. When Anderson’s NEXT STOP
WONDERLAND (1998) was ready for shooting, he hired
Folger. Later,
she shot the stills for SESSION 9 (2001). All told,
Folger has worked on 16 features, several shorts, and
a few TV shows.
Regarding
Folger’s second most frequently asked question about
the “black box,”
she waxes pride as she demonstrates her self-styled
blimp. Rather than pay the costly price of a
manufactured blimp, she fashioned her own, using a
small equipment case and an extension tube. The inside
is filled with foam packing for sound-proofing and the
tube holds the lens. It appears bulky, perhaps awkward
to haul around for long periods, but it does its job.
FYI: she usually uses manual settings and auto-focus
to make her correct exposures.
Not
only are set photographers anonymous to the public,
they need a certain invisibility behind the action
line amid movie cameras (or video cameras), lights,
reflectors, dolly tracks, wiring, and crew members.
“A lot of being on-set involves working around
people,” Folger says. “I often step back from the
actors and let the crew work around me. You don’t
want to be distracting to the actors. It’s important
not to get in their way or their eye-line. With the
blimp up to my face I’m just standing there looking
at them through my lens. But I do take pictures that
will tell a story of what making this movie is
like.”
Maureen
Foley, a local writer, director, and producer, whose
AMERICAN WAKE has been sold internationally but which
is awaiting an American distributor, employed Folger
as her still photographer. She spoke in a telephone
interview: “With the film camera close to the
actors, the still photographer is trying essentially
to capture what the film camera is capturing at the
same time. Even though ultimately they deliver their
photographs to the producer to market and to promote
the film, their day-to-day experience is on-set with
the director.”
Foley
continued, “It’s a tricky spot to be in because
you’re often crouched right under the camera and
right in the face of the actors. It’s important to
get that coverage and yet you have to be unobtrusive
enough so you don’t interfere with the direction and
the acting that’s going on and the actors’
emotional space. And Claire does a really great job of
that. She’s very sensitive to on-set issues.”
On
set Folger takes about 200 to 400 images a day.
“Usually I shoot the images wider than I normally
would with more of the actor in the frame so later an
editor will have the whole body to work with. But I do
reject images which are not useful in any way, though
I try to be careful not to edit too much.
“Most
actors have written in their contract their right to
approve a still image. They can’t control the moving
image, but they can ‘kill’ a picture that
doesn’t make them look good. I try to respect
actors’ kills.”
Publicity
uses only about a half-dozen of the digital images she
shoots. “Sometimes they’re not used, not because
they’re not good in an artistic way, but because
they don’t really tell the mood of the film or
they’re not that key picture which sums the film up.
But I’ve taken some things which are really great,
and I think it would be nice for people someday to see
some of them.”
Folger
is looking forward to the December release of THE
KIDAND I, one of her ventures beyond the Boston film
scene. Filmed in Los Angeles, the movie was written by
Tom Arnold and stars Linda Hamilton and Henry Winkler.
She shared the shoot with another photographer because
the publicity department wanted more than one style
represented in the photographs. “It was nice working
with another photographer because I usually work
alone,” Folger says.
To
Folger, working in movie photography adds a different
balance to her portrait studio work, mostly with
actors creating their headshots. “I like talking to
them and working with them. It’s not just about
putting them there and shooting them. But it can get
quiet around here sometimes. I like going out on set.
It gives me a more rounded view of them and makes me
feel like I’m a part of them in some way.
“When
I see a photo I took on a cover of a magazine, I feel
like I have something to do with everybody who buys a
ticket for that movie. My part comes when somebody
hands over their money and buys a ticket. They saw
pictures or read an article and saw some pictures, and
came to the movie. That’s an absolutely valid part
of filmmaking.”
Writer-photographer
Robert Pushkar’s features and photos regularly
appear in Imagine and in regional and national
publications. He may be contacted at: rgp@robertpushkar.com
