Lessons

Lesson Info

Working with Models

All right, now we're gonna talk about two things. We're gonna talk first about working with our model and so carly's back. Okay, carly's, back. We're gonna talk about things you should and should not do. And so the first thing I want to talk about is our linds selection. And, uh, this lens is the lens, and I have a cannon and nikon version of this lens. This is a seventy two two hundred millimeter lens. And the reason that I use this lancers three reasons for this, the first is for compression and so compression. What it does is it actually takes, uh, objects, and it smashes them together, which makes them look like they're closely related, and so it's the opposite of what a wide angle lens does. So with the wide angle lens, everything is distorted because not because white england's distort because you have to get close to your subject. And so, if you are close to your subject, you get distortion. Things don't look good if you back up and zoom in, everything is has better perspective ...

and compression, and things look a lot nicer. The thing I like about these lenses, this is a two point eight lands, by the way, it just gives me a lot of ability, teo shoot wide open or two close down the aperture and I get really really sharp images so the first is compression the second is comfort and that's a big deal so um if I'm shooting with the model and I have a camera that has a whiting the lens normally you're going to be something like this somewhere crazy close to get a picture and that could be really, really uh disturbing to the model like what the heck are you doing? You're just write upon them fact with a really whiting a lynch you don't even know how close you are and you can actually smash into them so I've almost done that several times so it's just not very comfortable to be shooting really close for the model I mean it might be comfortable for you, but if you're working with a model and a model can be anybody right a model could be somebody that is a professional model like carly or ah a subject that's maybe you're doing an annual report it's the ceo of a company or whoever so I'm using model in terms of your subject so having a lens this a little bit longer allows you to back up and when you come back up then you can zoom in and you can get a picture from a little bit of a distance and you're just not breathing down the throat of your model which is it's not always good so we have comfort we have compression and the third eye's composition so with the zoom lens it's awesome so I know a lot of people shoot with primes and with the prime you have to use your flintstone zoom which is you know I was going back and forth with a long lens like this I can shoot at seventy millimeters and I can get sort of a a near full body shot likened zoom into one thirty five get something taider zoom into two hundred I've got a nice head shot and so I can go boom boom boom right from the same location and I have three different shots wide, medium close and I could do that pretty rapidly and so that's what this lens does for me so when I'm shooting people almost always I'm using a seventy two two hundred millimeter zoom lands in a two point eight and so I don't know how many times I've been asked which lens to use which lens nine times out of ten it is theseventy two hundred millimeter two point eight um me and I said I've got the cannon version and the night conversion and I love both um and they work I don't have the new cannon seventy two hundred millimeter to um I've heard it's terrific I don't know how I could be more terrific than the original, but evidently it is so uh you know if you're considering getting it get it it's awesome or the night all right so let me talk to you a little bit more about cem directing the model all right so first let's talk about me during so kelsey is going to come out kelsey is going to act as my assistant and then diane and aaron are gonna come out and so is it over there alright let's pretend that kelsey doesn't know what she's doing and I asked her to meet her the model she would maybe meet her way crazy right like this because a she's blocking the light she's not very close so normally the assistant needs to be over here meet a ring and then soon as she's done meeting go away that's what your team needs to do so as I'm shooting right kelsey can you remind her that she comes out? What is it? Three six okay, great so in fact we'll do a little exercise this is sort of real life we're not using live you right now but I'll show you how this normally works with kelsey and I working in the studio right here's ria life real life roll okay go ahead meter twenty nine twenty nine got it let me try that again let's take that down hold on. All right, try that ten ten all right, I'm in ten was that I so two hundred yes okay, let's, try to get this down a little bit more. Somebody take this all the way down. I'm gonna move this over, write me to that for for moon and that's about the speed that were normally working something like that. Okay, so, kelsey's onset, we're working. I want carly to do something. And the problem is from carly's perspective. All right? So I'm gonna go to this camera with this, all right? From carly's perspective, she has a big light right in her face. She can't see me at all, right? All she can see is a white blob because usually we're working in a dark room and all you can see is this light. And so if I'm back here and I say, pretend like you can't see me, carly moved this way. She has no idea what I just told her, especially if I say no this way over here, she can't see that at all, so I always have to say all right, carly, I want you to look to the light, right? Turn your shoulders toward the light. Now, if I'm working with a model that's experienced, the model is going to know what a key light is and fill light. They'll know how to do that so I can give direction so turned to the key light and then your eyes toward me chin a little bit more toward me head down just a little bit yes chin a little bit more away from the light perfect hold that let your arm come out right in front of body just like the excellent hold that boom and then I'm gonna shoot so I'm communicating at that speed almost constantly um the other thing that you don't want to do is let the model sit here and have no feedback from you whatsoever that is tragedy don't ever have that happen, so I get made fun of because they say the same things over and over two models but I do that because if you don't, the model has new idea if you're getting what you want if things are working out so this is don't do this all right? Here's what not to do? We didn't feel awkward in the room it does right? Totally awkward I've seen that over and over and over I do a lot of workshops where we have students shooting and that happens and like they're lost he only takes about two seconds so uh let me show you how I would normally do this right look right there we go these air about mid length to about right here I know she can't see me so I'm going to say this gonna be about right here that's what I'm shooting tio here so there really nice and tight so I'm gonna frame that so she knows if she needs to worry about her waist or not and so we're gonna have her looked right at me there you go turn your shoulders a little bit more toward me carly the other way there you go and then level those out beautiful hold that right there when you go really tight on your face hold that when you come right in this is gonna be horizontal good good I want your eyes right in now look right at the light thank you good and then we just keep shooting so it's a constant direction can we show you one other thing so cars going to come back here to this wall right back here all right hold this now this is something I do all the time I'm gonna show you another thing just as a because you didn't hear what kelsey just said slow motion it went like this got it all right don't have you heard that the first time but anytime we transfer equipment I got it so always when you're working really fast yes there has to be a verbal I have it because the last thing you want is but you only had happened once because I knocked something off the table um but always got it sometimes we have this you have it? Yes okay yeah and that's not being rude it's really fast I got it okay and sometimes we'll even well that yes, I'll even rip it out of her hands to make sure she knows I have this thing so just a little so fast that well I forget that we do that all right, so here you are. Thank you. Got it. Okay. Um so carly's back here she's a new model I want her to pose so what I'll tell her is ok what I want you to do is hold this like this look up shoulders back and I'll actually act this out and I'll do the whole thing all right just like that don't be afraid maybe put your hands back like this got it okay and then even look this way shoulders this way and all mimic the whole thing will probably see me do this multiple times tomorrow god thanks. Um if you just don't want your model out there lost now the other thing so come forward please. There you go. Stop right there. Good. Um so stand up straight excellent sort like simon says let's say I see something that's wrong and I've asked permission to do the wrong thing I mean clarify that I have permission to do the wrong thing I see that carly's hair is in the wrong place I should not come back here and do this it's weird okay it's just not right so what we do instead is diane I'll direct from here diane we have a problem with the hair I might even come over here and say this hair is falling in her eyes can you fix that for me please she's going to fix that here? Not me. Okay she's a makeup artist hairstylist it's her role to do that not mine all right, good she's done with that I might even have diane do some retouching maybe you know, do this fix that will do that while that's happening I might be reviewing images doing some other things let's say that aaron is gonna come out here let's say that I don't like the way that this is laying on her shoulder I'm not going to change that right? I've seen photographers do that. Oh, this needs to be fixed again creepy weird a little bit over the line so it would be these guys doing that so I I never worked with female models where I'm in the space where that's happening I'm always directing other people to do that for me it's very, very rare that I'm the person the other thing is if you're posing a model you this is my preference I don't ever come up to models and like okay this way in this uh uh again creepy that's very creepy and so yeah it's you're violating that space and it's just it's not the thing you so instead what I'll do is I'll try to mimic this is what I want todo right? I'm not a female and so I can't make my body do things and so if that happens I'll have one of these guys say can you come out here and show how to twist a lot and they will do it but they will give the instruction for me um and that's how we do that communication so it's very simple now the other thing that you have to do when you're working with models is once the shoot is finished right so carly is finished I have to pay her and I have to get permission from her to use the images have to have the rights to use those images that's called the model release now our model releases we have two flavors of model releases and we have one of them for download as a pdf as part of this course way haven't paid shoot model release and our expectation when we hire a model uh is I'm going to give you money and you give me all the rights to publish these photos in any way I want and we have a document that says that you got money I got the rights now carly is going to do as a model and she's going to say, where are you publishing these and I before the shoot starts and I will say, uh, we're gonna publish these in, uh, the new yorker gonna be the cover and she is going to say money, right? Or I'm going to say, I don't know I'm going to use these for personal work she's going to say, ok, it's going to be x it all depends on the style of shooting what's happening, and so I'll tell her what I plan to use those four, but I expect to be able to use them at any point in the future for whatever and then she's going to give me a price and I'm going to say ok or not, usually what happens is it's the opposite I say here's what I'm shooting here's what I'm paying do you want it or not? And if she says no next model over that's how that works so that's that's ninety nine percent of time that's how we do it now, let's say carly's a model and she's awesome and I just need thio learn howto do an inverse square ratio are something like that, right? I want to able to figure that out, well, what I can do is I can say, hey, carly I will shoot portfolio images for you as long as I can use them in my portfolio is that cool all right that's cool and I'll say what do you need for your portfolio and she'll tell me what she needs from and hopefully I will say this is what I need for my portfolio okay and then we will together figure out what that chute is and then I will still get a model of these but that model release is different it says you didn't get any money sorry but we got is the rights to use all of these images in your portfolio and I get the rights to use all those images in my portfolio as well well this promote and then if a client comes to me and says hey I love this image can I have it I have to then go to carly and says I don't have rights to use this because I didn't pay you kind now pay you x amount of dollars and she would say yes here it is I write your check she signs a different release and then I can publish those so that's sort of how that works for the other thing is there is a discussion about how you work with models and from my theater background it's the same discussion from for actors do you have a collaboration or do you have somebody that you tell what to do and they do it and I have um I do both so usually in my personal work I do collaborative collaborative I worked with models to figure out stuff together now is that um but on commercial shoots when you show up I'm telling you what to do no questions asked you do it that's the way it is so that's up to you to discover uh decide how you're gonna work with the model but some artists on lee say you're going to do what I want and some only say it's a collaboration I tend to say if I'm paying you money I'm in control if I'm not then I owe you the decency to allow you to give me input on what you need so that's how that works okay, we're done with working with models but we want to ask if there's a billion questions there always are a billion questions okay question from anna make jeet mickey eighty nine do we need a model release for advertising such as on websites or flyers? Any advertising ever? Yes here's the rule if you are publishing a picture of someone and you're being paid for it, you have to have a model release the only exception to that that I know of is if it is, um situation when there's no expectation of privacy like a public event and inauguration a news story, something like that and that you're gonna be printing uh in a uh the newspaper or is used for news that's a different thing but if you're being paid for an advertisement yeah, you have to have a release question from mira martinez if a model wants to use the shots in our portfolio, do they need to get permission from the photographer? Yes, they do way have an agreement with our models that, um, if I pay a model it's only out of the kindness of my heart that they get to use this in their portfolio. And so, um, the reason for that is I don't because I paid money I don't want to have the extra burden of making sure that I'm satisfying their ego because I might think these are worth anything or might put them on the shelf for a while or I might be really busy or there's a number of reasons, right? Just don't have time to go back and provide images for a model on di don't feel guilty about that because I paid them money. Yeah, I make sure that either it's money or it's photos but if it's money, then normally what I do is after the images are retouched and used able I'll send those and say, hey, look at this it's awesome because this is sort of fun, but until that time fact carly we shot months ago and there's a bunch of images she's never seen because they haven't been published yet I'm waiting until they're in their final form and then I can save you yeah, just the ones that say yeah so carly can attest to that she got money and she didn't get pictures until things were published yet they're all okay. Next question from silent stephen do you have a work flow to your shots like face medium full should you do close ups while the makeup is fresh and then work your way to a wider shots? I don't I don't have that no, I usually do outfit and we just shoot outfit so outfit one here it is and uh it depends if I'm shooting close or beauty shots but uh no don't don't there's quite a few questions from different people about if you don't have a makeup artist or a stylist asking permission of the model if you could touch them or you know what you mean that that is a huge debate my personal opinion is you don't touch the models ever, um for a lot of reasons, in fact, I rarely shoot with models by myself. I've probably done that maybe five times in the last two years, but the reason for that is you never know if you're working with model first time if who they are what's gonna happen, you could put yourself at legal risk doing that it's just a bad bad idea for I could list twenty reasons why you shouldn't do that touching models I think is just a bad idea period unless you get permission in front of a big live workshop where there's absolutely no possible way that you could have somebody misinterpret the intent of what you're doing yeah it's a legal issue so if I yeah I'm saying okay, don't do this and I'm teaching a bunch of people in every is here if we ever went to court and she said, you know, you harass me in a way I didn't like I'd have so many witnesses in life there's just no way that could be misinterpreted but in a studio by ourselves asking for trouble model do you think that's different for a female photographer? Is it different for female photographer? The answer is no, I think I think most models would agree to that I don't know if we have models online there are chatting, but I think it's consistent across um yeah, I don't touch uh male models I mean it's just I don't know it's weird the model carly is saying that she doesn't touch the photographer so ah question from jon snow regarding hiring a model how do you handle the agency booking fee does increase your actual final model spend in comparison to a direct model booking another question in other words, would you pay a model book directly the entire modeling budget or do you save yourself the twenty percent agency booking fee if you go direct yes so I don't know what city he's in but in the cities we work and it's not a twenty percent agency fee if you work with an agency you're usually paying triple quadruple the amount you would normally pay if you work directly with the model and so we rarely work with agencies that was one sentence all at once uh yeah, so what we found his agencies were great if you have a budget and you have a shoot where if the model doesn't show up, you have a number you can call to get a replacement immediately. And so we've found that we confined very high quality models outside of the agency world and use them usually that's that's who we used because we've found that we can get models that agency signed who contact us first for a fraction of the cost of the agency fees and we also find the agency's prohibit models from working because they overpriced those models obviously it's different if you have union uh laws or union agreements or uh there's all kinds of reasons that you have to use an agency but rarely but it's rare that you absolutely have to um so we used agency miles about twenty five percent of time when I go with an agency about a client paying for it um no, because usually clients want to save money so we have we have we used lots of agencies but predominantly don't use agencies for our work, nothing against agencies but there they haven't figured out the business model for the last five years there behind the times gpr sean would like to know if you can show us a couple of the common put your favorite poses that you have like a go to pose I don't now I don't know how to pose model uh my hire models didn't know how to pose so um uh tomorrow I think is the best the best way to see how I do that is we're going to be shooting all day tomorrow I think that it'll become obvious there, but there's no like do this and it's the best pose then I don't have any of those right? Yeah, exactly so we don't have everything it looks the same but it's just different, okay, we're going tio we have a few minutes left we have another burning question before we move on way always have questions way need to move on this now let's do this, we'll do three more questions and then we'll go teo because next up is we're going to go through the workflow of the actual shoot and we're going to go through what we're doing tomorrow and we're going to shift gears pretty significantly after this so let's let's take those three questions and then what we'll do is is well, we'll shift those gears andi as we're doing that kelsey can you get turned that off so it doesn't uh yeah, yeah it's roasting us so I have actually question for car key question for carly and I know we have a mic right here so if you wanna pick that up and the question is can you just talk about it now? I've lost it questions uh, please let the model speak on what is important for a model on the photo shoot any tips and that was from in phone did joe oh my god that's like such a multi faceted answer, I'll try to make it brief um, I think your comfort and trust in the photographer toe execute the overall concept because that makes it the easiest for me to do my job it's like what mark was talking about how boundaries set you free if I know exactly what it is I'm supposed to dio I have confidence in myself that I will then be able to live up to his expectations and overall the client would be happy the portfolio images they're going to be the best that they can be and so it's it's you know, a lot of times you're meeting the photographer like kind of cold turkey you walk into a shoot and there you are and hi, how are you and so that's where it comes back to what mark was talking about having really strong interpersonal skills and so comfort yes, I mean you're always going to be cold or hungry or tired or anything like that but I think just comfy jackoff coffee is a must please get us coffee but I think just a comfort with the team and when you work with somebody like snap factory where you know that they all have their end visual places and rolls that makes it a lot easier as a model to take on your role is model and not feel like well, should I be doing my makeup should I be doing this and so there's a lot kind of take ends I think just the trust and the execution of the overall ideas and carly and I when we did our last shooter only she really how many how many images and clarification emails that I send you I I don't know I mean but yeah, I mean mark is definitely somebody and a cz, especially as a freelance model and kind of like this floating world of freelance models if you come to me with very specific idea even if it's something that you want me to expand upon it just gives me a direction, you know, as a model you're trying to take on a role and it's it's a little bit of acting and in certain situations and if that role isn't clear to you, it's kind of like having multiple personalities during the entire shoot and that's why really difficult to kind of grasp and kind of change gears constantly? But if you know exactly what, what your role is, you have those boundaries and they will set you free. It will set you free awesome last question, because that was that do you know one mg hewett would like to know when the client has a say on what models use when you pick the clients? So normally clients have absolute sandwich models use so most of our casting calls for or for our clients, the client is actually in the room and they have ah lot of input on who were using because they're looking for different ethnicities, looking for different demographics, they know who they're targeting with those ads, and so normally they're telling us we're looking for this age range these ethnicities this look, we want people that have chemistry toe look like they actually are married to own a house, etcetera, and so, uh what we do is we actually bring in models and we do test shoots with the client in the room and then, after all the models leave the clients with our input. Choose who the models are. So usually this, the clients that chews them. So, thanks, carly.