Movie Stills in Memphis – Fandango Cast

A few months ago, I was privileged to shoot stills on a movie which was being shot in Memphis. A big thanks to Oliver Macready for putting me in for this job! The movie’s working title is Fandango and it stars Luke Perry, Leonor Varela, Armand Assante, Cameron Daddo, Justin Baldoni, Amy LaVere, Oliver Macready, Anna Claire Sneed, and others. Just a wonderful cast. The gallery below shows a few shots of the cast from the shoot. I was on set for 4 days total. While I have worked on music video sets in the past, I had never shot stills on a movie production. I was upfront and honest with the production team about that before thankfully they booked me but they liked my work and were willing to give me a shot.

For those who follow this blog who have been students of mine, this is a good example of being bold and taking risks that I always talk about! Anyway, I did my homework and showed up as mentally prepared as I could. Still there was bit of trepidation as one might expect. Challenges included the technical aspects of the shooting, understanding who is who and building rapport with everyone, understanding the whole production process and when and where it’s safe to shoot, etc.

Move productions run like a well oiled machine. Everyone has specific role and there is a well defined hierarchy and the clock is always ticking. So, the biggest challenge was to show up and fall into the mix without disturbing the process. And, of course produce compelling imagery along the way!

So how did it go? Fortunately, it was an incredible experience. I was warmly welcomed by the production team, crew, and cast. Everyone was great to work with and they really reached out and helped me learn the ropes and stay out of trouble. The Producers were forthcoming with what they wanted as were the DPs. The B Crew DP, Kieran Murphy, in particular took me under is wing and gave me the lay of the land on the production side. The director, producers and several of the actors also took the time to look at my work along the way and were very encouraging and motivating with their creative feedback as well.

If you are a photographer and interested in this sort of thing, I encourage you to sign up film commissions in you local city and surrounding metros. I would strongly encourage any of the photographers who follow this blog to do this kind of work if you get the chance. It’s incredibly fun, challenging, and inspirational to see professional actors and the supporting machine in action. This work is definitely not for the shy, unassuming type though. You have to quickly build relationships and establish credibility and trust with an incredible number of people and you have to constantly balance getting your shot with the risk of getting in the way. Swing to far one way and your shots will be boring . . . swing to far the other way and you’ll be run out of the place!

I could go on for hours about this experience. It was truly amazing! Let me not bore you to tears but instead just say Thank You to everyone I came in contact with on the set and production team. I hope to see many of you again on future projects!