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| Topic: Rubbish at posing | ||
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| Hi All, A friend took some new photos for me last week and I've posted a couple of them on my profile. They still don't seem to be really what's required for casting purposes though. However, the one thing they really DO achieve is that they actually look like me. Anyone got any advice? When all is said and done, I find it difficult to pose for photos. It's ridiculous, considering that I am happy to act in front of a camera, but I don't really like getting my photo taken and I can't seem to get that "cool, intense" look that CDs appear to want. If I don't smile I look like I'm about to burst into tears, and if I do smile, it always looks like a holiday snap, regardless of being in a studio with a pro photographer. This is partly a grumble because a Casting Director was (quite rightly) brutally honest about the pictures, but I really am getting desperate for ideas of how to change and improve. So, if any one has any advice or suggestions, they would be very gratefully received! | ||
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| Reply #1 | |
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| Posted : 12/02/10 | |
| Hey Karen, I think the problem you might be having is that maybe you feel better when playing characters (your production shot from Streetcar looks brilliant) and having your picture taken is essentially being you behind a camera - which I find is more awkward to do. Have you thought of maybe having slightly more character shots done? Then when you are having your photo taken you can concentrate on doing a 'girl next door' look, 'bitch' or a 'victim' look and not on whether you look ok in them as you. It might make you relax a bit more and let the real you shine through your eyes… and it might make it easier for a CD to visualise the character they are looking for from your shots. Just a thought. Hope that helps. | |
| Reply #2 | |
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| Posted : 12/02/10 | |
| I remember once a photographer asked me to imagine I knew a secret about him, he then asked me to pretend I was the family Doctor and I listening to his problems. It was more like working for a Director at an audition, but it meant that all the shots had something interesting going on behind the eyes. | |
| Reply #3 | |
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| Posted : 12/02/10 | |
| Thank you very much Mike and Amber - both great suggestions. I will have another crack at it in the near future and ask the photographer to give me directions, see if that helps any. Thanks for taking the time to look and comment - very much appreciated. | |
| Reply #4 | |
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| Posted : 12/02/10 | |
| Mike - thats genius! i'll be using that next time :-) | |
| Reply #5 | |
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| Posted : 12/02/10 | |
| Aww Kaz, don't worry you can learn to take a good picture and loads of people have the same issues. I also hate having mine taken but I have learnt a few tips that have helped me. You are 100% correct that it has to look like you but I don't have to meet you to see these probably are not doing you justice. Your in character shots are stunning, not because you look attractive (although you do) and not because they are well composed but because you look real and sincere. The problem with the other shots is they do look a little like something a friend has just taken! I find it a lot easier to have my photo taken by a stranger than I do by a friend or member of my family because they don't have the preconceptions or prejudgements about us. I don't really care what a photographer thinks of me as I probably won't see them again…but often friends/family don't take our acting seriously or we end up just joking around and having fun rather than attaining a professional shot. Secondly, your expression in your photos is exactly the same. It looks a little forced and uncomfortable and you can see in your eyes that the smile isn't genuine. I think the best photos tend to come about when you open yourself up completely and whatever you are thinking or feeling comes across as honest. That is what is great about your stage shots. So, I would say step one would be to practice in front of a mirror. Yes you feel stupid or embarrassed or vain but get over it! Find your best angles, look at what works and doesn't work for you. I would say that at the moment you are holding a lot of tension in your mouth and lips (which tends to be where most people do) so maybe try a few shots with your lips slightly parted as few people really smile with their mouth clamped shut! I think it also helps to learn the art of 'smiling with your eyes' (or smising as Tyra Banks calls it). When someone is smiling genuinely their eyes kind of "pop" but you can 'fake' this with practice and it tends to be what turns an okay photo into something more special. You can even do it for those moody, sultry shots where your expression may look sad but the eyes still have that intensity you want in a headshot. Whatever the emotion you want to portray in the photo, keep that intensity in the eyes (and I don't mean deer in headlights or serial killer kind of intensity, it is more subtle than that). Lastly, even the best photographer cannot control what is happening in your head when you are posing. I have seen so many headshots where the person looks nice or handsome or beautiful but the eyes look DEAD. This is because the actor does not have a thought in their head. Well perhaps they do but it is probably on the lines of do I look okay?, bugger I think I blinked that time, my face aches, these better be worth the money... if you are nervous or self conscious the camera sees it. If you can't come up with a thought in your head when being photographed then don't be an actor because you probably lack the imagination and creativity. Come into a photo session prepared! I think of a few characters I like, favourite scenes from films, powerful memories, things that make me happy, sad, angry etc. and I call upon these where necessary. When you do this you cannot also be thinking about how nervous you are and your face kind of just does what is natural. It also means you get a nice variety of expressions that still look like you but show you can do more than the "look at me, I am an intense actor darling" poses. So my tips: 1)Know your face but also its relationship to the camera and how some angles and expressions will work better than others. Practice creating subtle intensity in the eyes. 2)Make sure there is a genuine thought in your head. To some extent if you get this right number 1 tends to happen by itself but it helps to remember chin down, relax the mouth and keep the intensity in your eyes. 3)Don't be self conscious. If you are, just act. Be someone else or think something else. You will still look like you and CDs don't want to see a model they want someone real who can act and show emotion rather than sit there and look pretty. 4)Try getting someone you don't know personally to photograph you. A good photographer should be able to find the best lighting/angles, make you feel relaxed and help you if necessary with some direction or prompts. The rest is up to you. | |
| Reply #6 | |
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| Posted : 12/02/10 | |
| What serendipity for someone to bring up this subject when I'm about to get my new headshots done! I'm nicking all these ideas! Is the age old debate about headshots, though isn't it? Do you do 'neutral' or 'smiling'? I'm not a natural smiler in real life, so 'cheesecake' photos tend to make me look a little... special needs. Toothy smiling photos do not look like me! It does help if you have an idea of your niche, and as was said, what you are taking the photos for, and what characters you are likely to play... That's why I'm going for 'evil' in mine! | |
| Reply #7 | |
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| Posted : 12/02/10 | |
| To elaborate on what has generally been said: I think the problem is essentially that you feel you need to 'pose' for a headshot - that is why everything is going wrong, because a 'pose' always looks staged. Even the most fantastic models in the world look stagey when they pose for the camera because that sense of artifice is integral to the image they are trying to project. A headshot wants to tell a story about you as a real, breathing human being and so the last thing you want to be doing is posing for the camera when you have shots taken. Naturally, different photographers have different styles, and some suit certain types of actors better than others - it can be a bit of a minefield finding the right photographer for your type and it may take years before you are really and truly happy with the headshots you are getting.I have had three separate headshot sessions in as many years, and I still haven't ever been 100% happy with the results - but the good news is that each shoot was progressively better than the one before. And part of that process was getting to know what makes for a good headshot, regardless of who is taking the photos. What helps most to get 'thought' behind the eyes is to have a thought there, and, to put it simply, as you're an actor, there is no reason why you shouldn't be acting when you have the shots taken. By that, I mean, simply calling up emotions as if you were in a rehearsal or developing a part that called for certain emotions to be conveyed. It can be useful to know which emotions suit your face (you may often be cast as characters with this type of disposition) - some actors look at their best when they are appearing surly, or happy go lucky, or quizzical, or amused. It is certain that if you call up random emotions, you may ruin some shots, because the reaction will not work to sell you. But you shouldn't worry because you have a lot of shots available, you only need one or two genuinely representative ones, you can intersperse more 'neutral' expressions with more heightened emotionality as you go (and this will tend to relax you more naturally for the 'neutral' shots as well) etc. I am not suggesting that these emotions are projected massively - you should work as if you were appearing on screen, with an inner subtlety, but you may be surprised by the range of results you get if you take, say, shot 1 thinking seductively about someone, shot 2 thinking despairingly of someone else, shot 3 taking a haughty attitude etc. You may be surprised at which emotions suit your face or seem to express something about you when the contact sheet is developed, and you may find that certain emotions, after a while, dominate your natural reaction to the camera lens - these are likely to be the ones that you tend to play on most strongly in performance anyway. There is a lot of industry talk about having a good 'neutral' shot, but the plain truth is, no-one in the industry is really interested in anyone who looks 'neutral', so this is just so much misguided advice. You don't want to necessarily come across as someone who has a very limited casting bracket, but a headshot that tells a story is actually more likely to get you good work providing it is a decent reflection of the sort of personality you tend to portray on stage/screen because casting directors will be able to see why you suitable for certain types of role from the picture alone. It *has* to look like you (i.e. you can be immediately recognised from it), but it can also tell a story emotionally, so never worry about that! Sometimes, when you are determined to 'be yourself' and 'stay neutral', nothing actually registers on your face at all, and this may be why, in the course of a large photo session, virtually all the shots come out the same way! The same problem can emerge in screen acting, when inexperienced performers tend to 'do nothing' because they think this makes for 'subtle/real' acting, and, in fact, it looks like they are doing nothing! The experienced screen actor learns how to project the thoughts they are thinking as they go, and the camera reads this as interesting performance. Coming up with emotional responses as your photos are taken will do the same for your headshots, as it will make them interesting, first and foremost, and that is, naturally, one of the things you want from them! | |
| Reply #8 | |
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| Posted : 12/02/10 | |
| Create a strong presence so that you own the photo rather than it just being a photo of you. | |
| Reply #9 | |
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| Posted : 12/02/10 | |
| Many many thanks for taking the time to respond to this thread. I'm really grateful for all your suggestions. | |
| Reply #10 | |
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| Posted : 12/02/10 | |
| I was about to add my twopenn'orth but find that wiser heads have beaten me to most of it, but I really sympathise with you, the whole process can be agony, so I'll gas on a bit anyway I can't really opine about what the CD sais, because -well- I don't know what s/he said, and s/he could well have talkinhg horse feathers (they do, sometimes, heaven knows) but as to the photos you've got: 1. a friend is a false economy. I'm a recent convert to this. 2. you and I have the same problem, so a photographer that directs the shoot like a film director is much better than a technician who tells you which way to point your head. Ask them how they work when you ring to sound them out. 3.You may, like me, have a slightly world-weary 'type' which means that the eyes are a little withdrawn, in which case no amount of psycho-bollocks will get a credible sunny smile or smouldering soul out of either of us. have you ever done a type-casting exercise on video? Dopne properly, it's a wonderful, and eye-opening thing and helps you know much more clearly how OTHERS see you, which is much more important than one's self image. I did one before I shot my first showreel, and it changed my thinking completely. If you haven't done one let me know, and I'll explain what I mean. 4. Who says that CD's want cool and moody?. I know one at least who's pig sick of it. 5. The 5th photo, the glum one, does look a bit 'gissajob - pleeeease' and its badly cropped. I'd lose it for the time being. 5. almost everyone dislikes half length shots, and thinks that they are unrpofessional for an actor. There's a cue for dozens of people to jump on me, butwhat I've heard is; if you're going for modelling work, fine, but otherwise they give the impression that you're a model wannabe, regardless of what's on your (very respectable in your case )CV 6) Jenna's suggestion as to how to prepare for a shoot is intriguing, but I know it wouldn't work for me. Jenna's a very experienced and talented woman, but I could stare at myself in the mirror all day without coming to a single productive or useful conclusion (often do, in fact;-)). I'm not a photographer and have a very poor eye, so I wouldn't know a good angle from hippopotamus dung. Preparing by imagining characters etc. as Jenna does actually just cluttered my mind when I tried it, and made the end results more forced, rather than less. Do your type-casting,pick your photographer cautiously to suit your particular form of posing nerves, discuss strategy in advance (Ididn't last time, and I think it showed)and then just surrender yourself to the photographer. Oh, and fix the appointment for a time when you won't be tired or stressed. I'm useless at mornings and hyper at nights, so it has to be an afternoon, that sort of thing, and rest well and eat lightly, and try de-caff beforehand. OOh and a little tip from the agent: The sure sign of an effective photo is that there are highlights in both eyes. discount any that don't from the contact sheet automatically. reelly 'ope this 'elps | |
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