Chapter 901: Absolutely Unacceptable

Firing the still photographer was a minor matter for Duke. In the past, his crews had never even featured a dedicated still photographer. He had only created the position this time because Sofia Coppola had introduced a highly renowned photographer from the independent film circuit. However, reality had once again proven that someone who could handle independent films was not necessarily competent for a commercial film.

After the still photographer, Jack, left the crew, Duke handed this aspect of the work back to John Schwartzman's team.

The entire purpose of film stills was to make potential audiences look at them and think, 'Wow, this movie has content I like! I want to go see it!' Still photographers generally lacked the ability to judge what content audiences would find interesting or what held news value. Because of this, strict rules had to be established for their work.

Before filming began the next day, Duke called John Schwartzman over.

"John, the promotion for this film is different from our previous ones," Duke said straightforwardly, looking at the director of photography standing opposite him. "While we need to emphasize the news value of the stills, we also have to factor in our confidentiality principles."

"I understand," John Schwartzman said with a nod.

Duke continued, "I only have four requirements for the stills. First, there must be no fewer than three to five usable stills for every scene. Second, there must be no fewer than ten usable stills each day. Third, the photographer's total working time must cover no less than eighty percent of the crew's filming days, yielding no fewer than three hundred retouched, usable stills in total. Fourth, the stills must be in landscape orientation to meet the requirements for news photos."

These were all quantitative requirements. Every scene—or at least, every important scene—had to yield three to five usable stills. Because actors would sometimes have momentary awkward expressions during filming, this allowed room for selection, ensuring that key scenes always had adequate coverage.

John Schwartzman was a veteran who had followed Duke for a long time, so he naturally understood his meaning.

"Rest assured, Duke," he replied. "I'll keep an eye on this work."

Afterward, John Schwartzman found a very ordinary camera assistant to take over this work. Compared to the fame that Jack—the man Duke had just fired—enjoyed in the independent film circuit, this assistant was a complete nobody.

This sort of thing was not rare in Hollywood.

When a producer needed a still photographer, they would naturally look for someone excellent at shooting stills. Once filming began, however, the producer might review the work and suddenly realize that the photographer's output was worlds away from their requirements, with nearly half of the photos proving unusable.

At that point, the producer would be incredibly surprised and furious, feeling that the photographer wasn't putting any effort into the job. The photographer would be equally angry, believing that their work wasn't receiving the appropriate respect...

In truth, the reason was simple, just as it had been for Duke and Jack. The two sides simply had a massive divergence in their understanding of the film.

Many still photographers coming out of the independent film circuit viewed themselves as artists creating fine art. This was absolutely unacceptable. A still photographer was not there to shoot art; a still photographer was much more like a news photographer.

Furthermore, still photographers actually should not be managed by the production crew at all, but rather by the publicity and marketing departments.

Unlike art photography, stills largely served a film's marketing efforts, acting as one of the most powerful tools in a campaign.

Within the film industry, this material was often understood as offering a "tasting."

Stills, posters, and trailers—these so-called "materials"—were all promotional tools for a film. Audiences might not know what a movie was about or what its quality was like, but by looking at these materials, they could form an initial impression. If they were interested, they would look deeper into it or simply go watch it, which generated a ticket sale.

The crew needed the film's stills to arouse the viewer's desire, making them feel the movie was exactly to their taste.

Of course, a tasting sample had to be identical in quality to the genuine article; it was simply a bite of a restaurant's signature dish. This represented a core marketing concept: a movie needed to attract the audience that actually liked its specific genre. A Chinese restaurant couldn't insist on handing out Western food as a tasting sample. Guests who enjoyed the sample would go inside to order, only to find it wasn't the Western food they wanted. Meanwhile, the audience who actually liked Chinese food would take one look at the Western sample and refuse to step inside. This was why marketing had to honestly reflect the product's characteristics; it wasn't about tricking people.

Film stills and similar materials were as important as a first impression when meeting a stranger. A film's quality, key content, and actors' performances left their most authentic first impression on the audience through these stills, which largely determined whether the audience had any interest in buying a ticket.

Sometimes this first impression came from a poster or a trailer. However, in the current era of visual media, watching videos came with certain limitations. Posters and stills were the most widely circulated image formats, possessing the fewest transmission restrictions and the highest utilization rate. If stills were compared to posters, a poster's reach was even greater. This was why audiences could often spot a foreign film's poster at a glance and recognize what movie it was, even if they didn't speak the language.

A poster was a film's advertising canvas, and sometimes it alone could represent the movie—its main content, style, aura, and so on. But there was a massive difference between stills and posters: posters could be heavily post-processed and could "create something out of nothing." Stills could not.

This was exactly why Duke placed such heavy importance on stills during the filming stage.

Stills had to possess news value. Among the three types of materials—posters, trailers, and stills—posters and trailers could both be "produced," meaning they could undergo "secondary creation." Stills basically could not. They were very similar to news photos, though not exactly the same. The primary function of a still was to introduce the film, and they were generally released through various film news outlets or direct official channels. Therefore, a still's greatest exposure was through the news, meaning it had to meet the requirements of a news photo. For instance, it could not be tilted, crooked, heavily photoshopped, spliced, or otherwise "fake."

Since stills could not be heavily post-processed, their creation had to synchronize with the film's shooting schedule. The stills would only be handed over to the marketing staff once the film's production concluded. If there were any issues at that point, there was basically no room to maneuver. Because of this, Hollywood marketing campaigns frequently encountered problems where the stills were substandard, poorly shot, insufficient in quantity, or missing key scenes entirely.

Compared to its predecessors, the production scale of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was much larger. Yet, Duke didn't intend to take any of George Lucas's advice. Instead, he planned to return to the franchise's roots to produce the new trilogy.

Duke wanted this movie's cinematography to distance itself from the aesthetics of the prequels. It needed to feel like a continuation of the original trilogy; this was crucial. Star Wars: The Force Awakens needed to have the purity of the first film, but when appropriate, it also had to possess the theatricality, beauty, and shadows of The Empire Strikes Back. He hoped the image quality would be grounded in IMAX film and practical locations, making it feel real and believable.

The crew's art department had also traced back to those roots for inspiration, adhering to the "analog" film look and feel that Duke had proposed. The sets utilized practical locations designed and built by Hannah Serena. Some even incorporated physical monitors, fleshing out certain scenes with CG holograms.

These practical sets typically employed 2D-driven angles rather than green screen visual effect set extensions.

When filming came to a temporary halt, Duke gathered Anna Printz, Hannah Serena, John Schwartzman, and the other core crew members to reiterate the key points to keep in mind during the shoot.

The small group stood around the director's monitors, with Duke taking the center position.

"We know how to make the images gradually fall off and let the background naturally recede to avoid unnecessary criticism," Duke said, his voice clear and resonant. "Designing with depth of field in mind will help. I need the on-set textures and surfaces to have extremely high latitude..."

He paused and looked toward John Schwartzman. "The footage shot using IMAX must capture the stylistic essence of the original trilogy."

"Both the Death Star and Millennium Falcon IMAX Cameras have been equipped with specially made anamorphic lenses from the Panavision Company," John Schwartzman said with full confidence. "I've designed many retro shooting methods around them."

As he spoke, he walked over to the director's monitors and pressed the playback button. A previously shot take appeared on the screen.

Once the group had gathered around the monitors, John Schwartzman pointed at the footage and explained, "These shots will have the film feel of the late 1970s while retaining some of the modern traits we know and love. I wanted to keep the high contrast of that era, so I had Panavision add a layer of lens coating. At the same time, this also makes the lenses feel softer."

Some films in the 1970s used filters to achieve a softer look. John Schwartzman had been working as a camera assistant in Britain at the time, and he was "very aware" that placing a stocking over the front or back of the lens could help offset some of the flaws of the film stock.

Therefore, during pre-production, John Schwartzman had his team procure a massive amount of Dior 10# Stockings. They had practically bought out all the stockings from the Dior boutique in Los Angeles and conducted extensive field tests.

This small meeting did not last long. As it wrapped up, Duke had Tina Fey hand everyone an iPad.

Duke had saved a digital booklet on the iPads, allowing everyone to see the required traits and unique visual qualities needed for every shot.

In the past, due to color temperature, contrast, and other variables, cinematographers had to spend a lot of time matching shots. Nowadays, with the advancement of technology, these issues could be resolved through computer previews.

Thus, while mismatched colors between different shots might have been a massive problem in the past, Duke had made ample preparations, meaning it was no longer an issue today.

Star Wars possessed a massive fanbase, which included no shortage of celebrities. During the filming process, quite a few Hollywood stars participated in cameos, such as Charlize Theron.