I have no problem admitting that I’m a bit of a behind the scenes (BTS) junkie. If you are in my office you will regularly see, if not the news, some sort of tutorial or BTS video playing on my secondary screen while I’m working on something else. This is because I want to not only be learning constantly but about all things possible. What has been really bothering me is that when photographers post BTS videos they so often forget to tell us anything substantial. We get “here’s our location, here we are laughing while the model gets her makeup done, check out my cool shoes, check out this neat motion swoop we did with the video rig which almost shows my lighting setup, here are some artsy frames of stuff that doesn’t really show us anything except for how artsy we are, here’s a clip of me gesturing to the model and fade out to my logo” … all in 93 seconds. I’m sorry folks but what the heck does that tell me, a fellow photographer about how you work, any maybe more importantly: what does it tell a potential client about what you are like to work with? Not a whole lot.
The intent of these sorts of promotion pieces, because that’s what they are, is to inspire people to hire you. Otherwise they are nothing other than frippery to stroke your fragile ego. Now don’t get me wrong, there are some photographers who do it right. However I’m usually having to watch one two second section ninety eleven times to see that one important, to me, thing that is glossed over. BTW it seems that almost always when a BTS is posted by a major magazine, Vogue, or company, name of importance, they post the most meaningless and content less versions of this. I mean if you are going to post a video of Annie Liebovitz on set with Robert DiNiro how is it possible to not show us or tel us anything interesting other than “yeah that’s Annie and Bob”?
What I want to know is: why did you do what you did? More importantly when the subject is a person: how did you interact with the subject? I sometimes get the internal thought process but I never seem to get the photographer/subject communication. I more than anything else want to hear how Annie and Bob chat and what directions she gives him. I never get this! There is never audio from the actual shoot that means anything. Instead we get upbeat music and not the voice of the supposedly important person in the video: the photographer. I even watched a BTS where all the models were briefly interviewed and glowed about how wonderful it was to be shot by “some big name dude” but we never heard a word from the photographer during the entire video. How is this possible?
I will give a nod to Peter Hurley. Since he is a headshot shooter and is a major instructor these days he knows that his interaction is a critical aspect of what he does so he is very good about including his interaction with the subjects. Him aside the rest of you out there need to don a mic and let us in! It’s the subtlety of interaction and your personality that in many cases is going to clinch the deal of you getting that job. Your folio says that you can shoot. You as a person, and a BTS is a great way to show this, says what it is like to work with you.
Just a thought for ya!
Pic o’ the day:
This is why I always have a camera in my hands. I had just arrived at the location and was walking about getting a lay of the land to plan out my shoot. My handler and I stopped and I looked down. There was Ricky standing in this green tape box with green shoes. Click!
