Additional Photography 101 – Episode 6

PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Michael Hall: From ShoHawk Media, this is Filmmaking Footnote with your host Michael Hall. You’re listening to episode six. This is the show where we give you the best filmmaking and production information so you can make the best project possible. Without having to spend a bunch of time or money at film school. Let’s do it1 What’s up guys you got Michael Hall here today we are talking additional photography.

So additional photography this is a word, it’s a dirty word thrown around Hollywood a lot. It’s a it’s a dirty word disguised as a nice word. People say additional photography when they actually mean reshoots. And some people actually like to say that a additional photography and reshoots are two different things but really when you hear a studio head talk about additional photography he’s talking about a reshoot. Okay I might I might just be being a little a little callous and mean about this.

Reshoots and additional photography are actually two different things. additional photography can mean something like a pickup shot where you didn’t necessarily get a specific shot that you needed for the edit so you have to go back and reshoot maybe a stand-in doing something that the actor did not do because you didn’t capture enough on set that day.

A pickup shot is always something it’s always a shot that is relatively minor to the rest of the scene so say you’ve you’ve shot an entire scene already and you get into the edit and you notice that the flow of the scene is really weird. It’s just not coming together the way that you would like and the the editor the editor then comes to you and says well we didn’t get enough we didn’t get enough shots for that day we didn’t get enough for me to really work with and to make this the best scene that it could be. So, at that point at that point is when you would decide to do some pickup shots and like I just described.

It could be an actor or stand in doing something to to fill the scene out to make it feel a little more complete in a little more whole. A pickup shot can also be called a an insert. So that’s another term used for a pickup shot like an insert shot or a reaction shot. Those are two two different ways to describe a pickup shot so a reshoot is a little different than pickup shots or inserts or reaction shots, because a reshoot is when you have when you have a scene in post and you’re looking at it and it’s just not coming together.

The edit say you have a scene and you you have it within the rest of of the film and it just that’s just not clicking it just doesn’t work and so a reshoot is when you go back and you reshoot an entire scene or in some cases an entire portion of a movie. And the reason that there’s a lot of PR people, PR and studio and producers that refer to reshoots as additional photography is because most of the time because of focus groups. And you might be wondering how did I jump from reshooting a scene to a focus group, and the reason is because most Hollywood films or most big-budget films put their their movie into a test screening or a focus group before it ever ever sees the light of day. And the reason they do this is because they want to make sure the focus group or the test group feels good about the film they they have these these focus groups they they have them sit through the movie and then fill out a questionnaire at the end of the film.

And the questionnaire takes the the test audience member through whether they liked the film whether they liked the characters whether they they felt good at the end of the film how the film made them feel and if the studio and producers are not getting what they want out of the film with the test audience that means to them or that indicates to to the people with the money backing the film that means that the film itself is not working. Does that necessarily mean that it’s a bad film or that that the film itself really isn’t working?

No – no it doesn’t mean that but the people with the money the people backing the film they want to see a return on their investment they see the film as a a product that they’re putting into the marketplace. And the studios, their goal is to make a movie put it out and have a return on the money that they put into that movie so they want to make a profit and when they see when they put the film into a focus group or a test group and they see that it’s not performing well, that indicates to them that they need to reshoot portions of the movie or they need to fix stuff in the edit that’s not working. And so the reason that so many studios and producers call they like to disguise a reshoot as additional photography they like to go and they like to say oh no we’re just we’re just we’re doing some pickups it’s nothing huge because they’re trying to they’re trying to indicate to future audiences for people that really pay attention that they don’t they don’t want to let people in and that the film might not be working.

Because then that starts generating bad press and that those those things in the media can start to dovetail. After awhile they can start to spin out and before a film even makes it onto the scene before it’s even released it can already start generating bad press. Which is if you’re investing into in in a movie or your studio person and and bad press is starting to already spin out of control around your film that’s a really bad thing.

And so there really a the term additional photography is doing a little they’re trying to do some damage control they’re trying to do damage control around the the press of the film. And some good examples of this recently in the last 10 years is with films like Rogue One, the Star Wars film. It was the first Star Wars film that was not in the in the Canon of of the films so it was the first spin-off Star Wars film. And Disney actually went back and reshot a very good portion. No one knows how much of Rogue One they reshot, but they got they got the initial cut in front of audiences and they were getting terrible feedback. really bad feedback it was not performing well it was not performing up to standards and so they went back and they reshot a huge portion of the film.

I found a Vanity Fair article that says that they actually shot they roughly reshot 40% of the movie that’s crazy. If you have a hundred minute movie that’s forty minutes of the movie that’s, that’s insane. That means that they they fin it they wrapped they wrapped production they were done shooting they got it to the edit they edited most of the film and then they or you know they edited the film usually when they show these tests test screenings they haven’t done all of the CGI or post-production/ But that means that they did an initial edit and then showed it to a test audience and the audience was like, nah, it sucks.

That’s a really bad thing. I mean I saw the movie I really liked the movie in the end it was it was good it was a good movie from my perspective it wasn’t amazing but that means that they shot most of the movie or they shot the entire movie showed it to a test audience and the audience was like, no you should reshoot this this is not good. Or those were the scores that indicated that they needed to reshoot it and here’s what the star of rogue one Felicity Jones said about about the reshoot, “For Rogue One, she said obviously when you come to an edit you see the film to come together and you think actually we could do this better I mean wouldn’t you just give your first draft of this I mean sorry I mean you wouldn’t just give your first draft on this story would you.”

So, that’s the quote from Felicity Jones she framed it in the way that we’re not just going to give our first draft of the story to the audience which is fair but that’s a really expensive second draft as a film. That doesn’t just mean they they rewrote something that means that they rewrote something and they went and re-filmed it. A couple other examples of reshoots that have happened on big big-budget films are with World War Z that was the the Brad Pitt movie that came out several years ago now it was a big-budget zombie film and they did major reshoots at least fifty percent of that film was reshot.

Fantastic Four, the most recent Fantastic Four was it was a huge flop. It was it was a terrible movie it was awful. so they reshot most of that and that had to do with a lot of the the director was really inexperienced and didn’t didn’t know how to run a set. And so it was just it was a it was a cobbled together mess of a film because the production itself was not run smoothly.

And then the last example is Suicide Squad and both with Suicide Squad and World War Z it sounds like the scripts themselves just were not really tight and so there’s you know there’s a few reasons that you should reshoot something a your script is just a mess and it’s not it’s not where it should be be the production itself the the set is not being run well or see maybe some of the specific scenes just didn’t come together. So with World War Z it was really a big it was a script problem they it was an adaptation from a book and they they went and they shot it and when they started shooting it the book was a little more I think it was a little more nuanced and then the the movie the film itself was it became more of like an action flick and so they got to the edit they got to to screening it and they realized like there were all of these different points of view coming into the movie and it just wasn’t jiving.

It wasn’t working and so they actually hired the guy that he wrote lost he was the the main writer on lost not JJ but but uh Damon Damon Lindaf. They hired Damon to come in and and rewrite most of the third act which is the which is the last you know like the the big chunk at the end of the movie the third act is when usually most of the action the climax happens and then they resolve the film so they brought him in after after they had shot and edited the film they actually screened it for him to watch it and and come up with a new a new ending in a new third act.

And so that’s what happens is a lot of the time they bring in these these really well paid writers high high high end writers to come in and redo something so other examples of when you’re doing when you had need to do additional photography or a reshoot. If you’re working with mainly 2d if you’re if you’re working on photo shoots I’ve been on a lot of projects where we need to reshoot if you’re working in the advertising industry you need to reshoot some of the time because maybe the product wasn’t right maybe you’re shooting with with product that hasn’t been released yet and the the product team needs to go back and redo something.

And, and you aren’t able to fix that in post that would be an example of when you need to reshoot something for a advertisement. Sometimes you need to reshoot stuff because because the creative just wasn’t good I’ve been on quite a few reshoots where the creative just did not pan out and I have to say from experience those shoots are not fun. They’re not fun for anyone I go to great lengths to avoid reshoots because they are really expensive – they’re they’re time-consuming and then honestly it’s just bad for morale if you have to reshoot something.

It’s just not fun no one likes to do it. It indicates that ye someone did something wrong and so I personally as a producer I avoid reshoots at all costs. Even if that means spending a little more more money up front I will I will avoid a reshoot at any dessert sorry my sorry for the noise on my microphone my cat is on my desk messing around with my mic right now it’s a little distracting but meet Josie she’s beautiful. Sorry sidetracked um so yeah as a producer I I will reach I will avoid a reshoot the the most that I can I don’t like reshoots so I will invest time and money up front to avoid them because I just don’t like them.

Alright guys, thank you for another great episode. Really appreciate you listening if you have ever had to be involved in reshoot I would love to hear about your experience head on over to FilmmakingFootnote.com/6 and leave a comment there. I would love to hear your experiences with reshoots and additional photography if you have any questions hit me up on the blog or on Instagram my handle is @mikehallproper – I am very active on Instagram so give me a shout there and I’ll get back to you.

Thanks again and we will see you in the next episode.

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