On Wednesday my friend Tristan Versluis was shooting some pick-ups for a promo he’s directed for Linda Harrison. The video was pretty much complete but they needed a few extra shots and I went along just to tag along and take some photographs for myself and anyone who wanted any; keeps me off the streets, or more accurately off the XBOX.
The shoot was in the upstairs room at The Old Queen’s Head, near Angel tube, which has these fantastic ceiling light fixtures made from what looks like old gramophone horns. There’s an old, lived-in atmosphere to the place, leather covered booths, golden-framed mirrors, peeling paint and a wooden floor, although very little of that was going to be seen as it happens.
Tristan just needed a few shots of a man approaching a woman in a dark, crowded bar while a band plays on the stage (which, obviously, was Linda herself – I don’t think I can tell you the name of the track yet though). It only took a couple of hours and didn’t give away any of the story but I’ve seen shots from the rest of the shoot and it’s a typical Versluis production; strikingly lit and shot by Stuart White and a deliciously twisted story focussed on a seductive woman (played by Annette Kellow) and how she selects partners to take home, set to a terrific track by Linda Harrison that I still can’t tell you about, sorry. It’s going to be great.
So, here’s my pick of the hundred-odd shots I kept from the afternoon, with captions here and there so you know what’s going on. Enjoy, and thanks for visiting.
Make-up, actors, Tristan chatting, Stuart setting up lights...Tristan shows actor Peter Caxado frames from the rest of the promoThis makes me laugh every time. Timing is everything 😉Justyna Dobrowolska doing Annette Kellow's makeup as Tristan talks through the shots he needsThe daylight on Annette's face was so strong the rest of the room is plunged into darkness I really love this shot of Annette in makeup - that's the D700's own B&W; it's pretty good, and I'm lazy.Last minute hair touch-ups. One of the cameras in the background there.There were lots of moments like this, Tristan and Stuart deep in discussion of lighting and framing.I liked making silhouette shots of these two working, as you can see.Annette looked simply stunning; reminded me of Mad Men a lot in these shots.While the camera's weren't rolling.The boys at work again. You can see the framing on Stuart's LCD.Perhaps a touch too much headroom but I love the feel of this shot with the light behind her.
Linda Harrison in make-up before shooting her performanceI don't know what was in that cocktail.
They were shooting fast and light, with two Canon DSLRs running at once.Stuart finding focusThe moment Annette's character picks out her man for the evening
Linda and the band setting up for their performance
This was a lucky, I mean nice catch, with the two red beams picking Linda out.Linda really threw herself into her performance, every time, many times.
I love the balance to this image, as well as the moment it caught. Perhaps bizarrely, this is definitely my favourite photo of the performance, really captures her energyFinal shot of the day, Tristan checking the last take before calling a wrap.
One of the shows I used to work on regularly as a cameraman was Something For The Weekend, a Sunday morning magazine-style chat and cookery show for BBC2. I’d always enjoyed watching the show before I started working on it and it’s been one of my favourite jobs despite the 5:30am start, which probably seems like a lie-in for the folk who work on breakfast telly.
There’s a really friendly atmosphere on the studio floor between presenters, crew and production, and I’ve known chef Simon Rimmer for years since Great Food Live for UKTV Food, so it was definitely one of those jobs that hardly felt like ‘work’. Another bonus is the fact that it’s live, which always makes things a lot more fun.
I got to shoot publicity stills for the show in recent years (a selection are in my portfolio) and on those days grabbed some behind the scenes shots too, just for myself really. Those are the first few shots below.
Then I got into using apps like Hipstamatic and Instagram on my phone and started using that during the rehearsals to catch arty shots; there’s 7 or 8 minutes of hanging around between recipe rehearsal set-ups so I’d snap photos for fun. As we got closer to the last episode I started taking more and posting some to Twitter for the fans; I find behind-the-scenes photography fascinating, and on a show like SFTW there’s always something going on somewhere.
The atmosphere of the whole show is quite different to most other things I work on – we’re all tired but we have to be alert so the art of preparing and serving the perfect coffee from the shiny espresso machine in reception is prized amongst runners and crew alike; as we rehearse, the light through those huge windows transforms in just an hour or so from broody darkness to the piercingly bright golden glow of sunrise. It’s just a great space to take photos in.
So to commemorate the final show, and also just because these have been collecting in my hard drive for the last four years and they wanted to be seen, here’s a hundred or so of my favourite snaps from behind the scenes of Something For The Weekend, presented in roughly chronological-ish order, culminating in a set from the last show on March 18th, 2012 (you can click here to skip straight to that bit).
I should add that none of these are ‘official’ snaps; I simply love documenting what goes on behind the scenes in my job and I thought fans of the show might appreciate these particular pics now it’s finished.
Thanks for visiting, and if you watched the show, thank you for watching!
The famous recipe chalk-boardsRound the table for the end of the showThat time Cerys Matthews fumbled the egg-crack
Wayne Eagles doing his thingFlicking through the morning papers
John, the camera supervisorSimon and Aled watching an interviewAmanda and Tim react to Deja ViewAled, Cerys & Tim watching a recipe from the sofaTim & Simon having fun with foodFun with a foreground monitorYas and Simon go through a recipeCookery rehearsalLining up a menu shotSimon's army cookery competition awardThe round table, from aboveAn arty detail shotChristmas decorations lurking around the setSetting up the mics for the showRehearsing cocktails with WayneThe view from the hothead camera controllerThe days before we all had tablet computers...Meet your friendly Twitter 'operators'All the cutlery lined up and ready to goVision mixer and director in rehearsalsJohn, prepping his food photos for the websiteThe chalk-board being preparedOli and Chris, the Sound departmentYasmin, one of many regular home economistsTim and Lou read through menu voiceoversEngineering crew testing a gadgetThe early morning light can be beautifulLucy and a big shiny hornValentine's Day 'gadget' itemMore Valentine's Day 'gadget' itemsGadget Roulette!Wayne and Simon watching a VTJanet and Claire, fantastic home economistsKieran, vision mixer, caught by surpriseVT: dauntingly technicalLou, Simon and his son hang out on the sofaRehearsing the show openingA big chopperSeconds before we're on airLucy Hedges, ready for gadget timeCocktails with WayneBackstage crew enjoying the showHome ecs, Yas and Janet, setting up the next recipeBen, Assistant Floor Manager, sampling some food
The last ever show
The last show wasn’t a great deal different to make than any other show, except there were a lot more studio guests watching behind the scenes including former producers, executives and friends of the show. There were a lot of cameras and smartphones out snapping pictures throughout the day, and I came away with around a hundred photos via Instagram; here’s some of my favourites:
Final SFTW call sheetEpisode 257: The Last EverPre-rehearsal meeting, 7amClaire Bassano prepping the kitchenPassing time between cookery rehearsalsGary and Geli: camera assistant teamSimon and Tim chatting between rehearsalsRigging a gadget pre-record outsideNick on boom, Paul on cameraPre-recording a gadget VT outsidePhotographing food for the websiteYes, we do try Simon's rehearsal food!Claire and Sarah, home economistsJohnny, the series editorJust some of the wonderful backstage teamEngineering & Lighting: The Lords of DarknessMark prepping graphicsNatalie, assistant floor managerOli, today's sound supervisorSimon and Seb check out the papersThe last ever fridge photos go upEveryone was snapping away in rehearsalsLiz and Jo doing Tim and Faye's makeupSimon checking his phone before airRelaxing in the last 15 minutes before transmission10 seconds to go...We're on air with the last ever show!Hair tweaks for Faye RipleyNick on 1 and Seb the Floor ManagerCan't resist arty wineglass shots!Tim, Lou, Will Young and "Morris Dancing"...Simon and Faye relax before their cookWayne's final cocktails itemSimon gets a tasteWayne & Simon: Top Men(l-r) Autocue, series editor, PA, director, vision mixerLucy getting last minute makeup touch-upsOne of the special guests"COME ON, ZIGGY!"Catching tennis balls. No idea what Will's doing.These mugs vanished after the show...Will, Lou and Simon, pre-cookThat's it! We're off airJohn, Paul, Nick and Richard: camera team (excluding me!)And here's me 🙂Taking down the set
And with that, Something For The Weekend came to the end of it’s 5+ year run! We had a lot of fun making it, and I hope you enjoyed watching it and flicking through these snaps.
I’ve known and worked with Tristan Versluis for a few years now since I did stills for his FX-heavy short, Pixel, in around 2007. He’s mostly known for his prosthetics work (recent credits include World War Z and Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part I) and has been moving into directing first via self-written shorts and now features.
His first big feature came a couple of years ago, called Not Alone and starring Lucy Benjamin amongst others. Frustratingly, that project seems to have left his control in the edit, taking a somewhat different direction to that originally envisaged. Since then there have been more shorts and now a brand new self-written feature that he’s in full control of, called OMNI.
An alien abduction story, OMNI started shooting in Germany a couple of months ago with Tristan’s core group of previous collaborators, led by Stuart White on cinematography duties, and this month returned to the UK with two night shoots on a rooftop in Hackney Wick. They’re shooting on a couple of different cameras but for this particular shoot the team got access to a Red EPIC and a mini jib arm which injected some real dynamism into the scene, one of the key moments in the film. Speaking of which, I actually know virtually zero about the plot of the film other than that some of the characters witness an extra-terrestrial visitation and one of them gets spirited away. Is Tristan keeping a wickedly tight grip on the secrets in the script, or did he just forget to send me a copy of it? I have a feeling it’s both, which is cool because I like a bit of mystery…
The scenes we were shooting featured Charlotte Hunter and Ray Bullock Jnr, and despite the freezing temperatures (but thankfully little wind or rain!) both put in very moving performances. At some points in the scene Charlotte was lying on the baltic concrete wearing really not very much (no more than the average lady wears to a nightclub, put it that way) and before the camera rolled was visibly shaking with cold; these actors willingly suffered for Tristan’s art – the effect of the staunch loyalty Doctor Versluis instills in those that work with him (he has such a calming, zen-like bedside manner when applying time-consuming prosthetics to actors that the name ‘Doctor Versluis’ was coined and stuck).
So here’s a bunch of my stills from the evening, mostly behind-the-scenes because I think that stuff is always a lot more interesting, and all approved by Tristan for their lack of spoilery content; if you’d like to comment on anything I’m @myglasseye on Twitter. Enjoy, and thanks for visiting.
(just click on images to see them larger without leaving this page)
On-set still, featuring Charlie Cox and Sophia Myles
While working my way up the ladder of ‘stills photographer’ on movies, I did a lot of short films. Several of the directors I worked with on those shorts have become friends who I’ll go out of my way to work with again, including Tristan Versluis, Ryan Haysom and Jacob Proctor. The first short I did for Jacob was Mother Time (on Vimeo here) a couple of years ago, and then Collectables (photo gallery on my blog here) a year or so later.
He recently wrote and directed a new short, A Sunny Morning, shooting over the course of a weekend in a house in Greenwich (the Art Director, Melanie Light, emptied a lounge and converted it into a bedroom). Like Collectables it features just two characters, played by Sophia Myles and Charlie Cox, and was shot by Director of Photography Trevor Speed.
When the film has completed editing, Jacob intends for it to be a calling card for his directorial skills and has been building an online following around the film and it’s cast using Twitter (follow them here) and a blog-based website (over here).
My involvement started with some concept photography for the website, followed by production stills on set. The film is about a woman called Grace who is on the brink of a life-changing decision following an argument with her husband and jealousy of her best friend’s career success. To create the mood, Jacob wanted to illustrate the website with specially-shot photographs of Grace’s ashtray, books, and a ring lit by soft, natural light and so one Saturday morning around a month before the actual shoot we set up in his own bedroom and shot the arrangement in as many ways as we could think of to give the website designer something to play with.
I wanted to post a few of my own favourites from that day, which you can see below. The film’s Twitter account will be releasing more stills from the set as they accumulate more followers and Facebook friends, so take a moment to add your support and they’ll get released that bit quicker 🙂
Here’s the social network links for the film one more time:
I’m very lucky to have two main jobs, both of which I enjoy – stills photography and television camera operation. I work on T4 as a camera operator a lot, and they just got a new set with lots of colourful neon lights so I was asked if I could bring in my camera and get some behind the scenes and action shots for the studio website. I also had a go at doing some for myself in black and white. I like to use the Nikon D700’s B&W mode. It’s a lot more flexible than most digital camera B&W modes, with extra controls for contrast, brightness, and colour filter to change tones of grey to suit the scene (I usually leave it on orange). The result is a nice punchy B&W with more character than if you just removed all the colour data like most B&W modes do.
(I’d still like to run them through PS for individual tweaks to contrast and brightness but these are all untouched, straight out of the camera.)
The shoot was in the upstairs room at The Old Queen’s Head, near Angel tube, which has these fantastic ceiling light fixtures made from what looks like old gramophone horns. There’s an old, lived-in atmosphere to the place, leather covered booths, golden-framed mirrors, peeling paint and a wooden floor, although very little of that was going to be seen as it happens.
