8/19/14 The Morning Coffee: Stylist's in Trubba!

John Camp sent me this. It's a promo shot for the popular show "Downton Abbey," which is set in the 1920s. At least a couple of people got into trouble for this photograph, though—the person whose job it is to make sure the set is clean, and the person who vetted the shot for release as a promo. I don't know what the former are called in television, but on photography sets the person is called the stylist. It's the stylist's job to make sure that everything's in order and everything and everyone looks nice once they're on set.

I had very limited interaction with professional stylists back when I was a photographer—I didn't fly quite that high, and neither did my studio-mates. (Stylists are expensive.) I did get into trouble a couple of times, though, for stuff the stylist would have been responsible for if there had been one.

When I did portraits I kept a mirror handy, and I asked people to bring a comb or a hairbrush with them, and then I'd just have them re-do their hair a couple of times during the shoot—my experience was that sometimes people just didn't like the way their hair looked, and it was better to have some variety in the proofs. Only once did I have someone spurn this advice—a young woman declared that she liked her hair to be dishevelled, and it was fine the way it was. I tried to rearrange a flyaway strand on her head but she shooed me away. I was nothing if not go-along-to-get-along, so I let her have it her way.

Of course—naturally—in that instance, that flyaway strand of hair did indeed bother her about the final proofs—and of course it was in every single shot (that was before the days of Photoshop, back when retouching was specialized, difficult, and expensive). I think she did buy a portrait, but she wasn't happy at all about her hair.

Stylists needed everywhere.

So I wonder, in the Downton Abbey promo shot, did the person who left the plastic water bottle on the mantel also get in trouble? Probably not.

Mike

UPDATE: The cast and crew of Downton Abbey had the perfect riposte for criticisms. (Thanks to Darr and others for this.) Very graceful save!

"Morning Coffee" is auto-published weekdays at 3:30 a.m. Central Time today to be in time for morning coffee breaks in the UK and Europe. For those who rise later, it will be there. The feature is a month-long experiment to give people something to check in with while I'm busy moving. This is not permanent.

I'll write about anything. Want to suggest a topic or ask a question? Leave it as a comment.

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

K4kafka: "In my experience working on movie and TV sets, no matter how many hours of 'down time' actors spend waiting in their dressing rooms, you can usually bet that they will bring some morsel of food or drinks to the set. And yes, on a big ad shot, someone with the responsibility to watch over such things (not always the photographer) should be reprimanded."

Gordon Lewis: "From the overall look of this photo and from previous experience on movie sets, my guess is that this was a "quick and dirty" shot on a set that had already been lit for video. The stylist or continuity/script supervisor might not even have known about it. More likely than not, it's the photographer who screwed up. If you were alert enough to notice flyaway strands of hair, you'd notice a stray water bottle, don't you think? Even then, it would have been easy enough for someone to digitally subtract the water bottle after the fact if they really wanted to."

Mike replies: ...Or if anyone had noticed it.

Bernd Reinhardt (partial comment): "The set photographer probably jumped in with the publicist for about one minute and took the picture between setups. Most of the time, the set photographer is expected to be so unobtrusive that he or she wouldn't give any direction to anybody on set."

Tom Kwas: "Have to laugh, saw this a few days ago and it tickled me, less of a problem in the days of easy Photoshop than it would've been back in the day of real film work and retouchers working with dye! I was one of those guys that got to work with high-end stylists over my career, and have to say, many of them would have never made this mistake, but also, the onus would have been on me, as the photographer. One reason I used to stand back and look over a complicated set before I started shooting...back in the olden days, of course."

Larry Shapiro: "In the 1980s I had the good fortune to take a color Polaroid workshop with Marie Cosindas. She worked with an 8x10 view camera and told the story about how she spent a morning setting up one of her classic still life pieces at a Boston museum. Any painting that needed to be moved had to be moved by union workers who of course at noon promptly took their required lunch break. After lunch Marie made the single 8x10 Polaroid image and started the process of taking down the setup when she realized that one of the workman had left a beer bottle in the scene. By then the light had changed and she had to re-shoot the next day. She was always asking us to check for the beer bottles in our compositions. It became a running joke through the workshop and many images were made intentionally with beer bottles in them."

Comments

[John Brewton]

My wife tells me that after the gaffe was discovered the entire cast did a shot holding plastic water bottles.

[Rodger Kingston]

Congratulations on the new house, Mike! Are you documenting the move? That would be at least as interesting as street paving. Rodger

[Sven W]

Yeah, but they had a good comeback for the water bottle gaffe:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/downton-abbey-stars-mock-water-gaffe-20140818-105gj0.html

[Jeff]

In trouble? More like a reason to create a photo-op with the entire cast, for a good cause…

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/downton-abbey-cast-responds-water-bottle-gaffe-article-1.1905862

This gaffe has now generated publicity on TV, in national newspapers, magazines and on social media. It's a new world.

[Tom Burke]

Did you see the follow-up story? - here it is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28825576

[Bernd Reinhardt]

It is the responsibility of the set dressing and props department. Props department deals with everything the actors actually handle in the scene. But the reality is that in this instance nobody probably had any access to a monitor, as a matter of fact, the set photographer probably jumped in with the publicist for about one minute and took the picture between set ups. Most of the time, the set photographer is expected to be so unobtrusive that he or she wouldn't give any direction to anybody on set.

[Gordon Lewis]

From the overall look of this photo and from previous experience on movie sets, my guess is that this was a "quick and dirty" shot on a set that had already been lit for video. The stylist or continuity/script supervisor might not even have known about it. More likely than not, it's the photographer who screwed up. If you were alert enough to notice flyaway strands of hair, you'd notice a stray water bottle, don't you think? Even then, it would have been easy enough for someone to digitally subtract the water bottle after the fact if they really wanted to.

[Bob Dales]

By the look on their faces, I'd guess the bottle was filled with vinegar.
bd

[Jim Hart]

And the cast had a little fun with it, making a follow up photo:

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/news/downton-abbey-cast-pokes-fun-at-plastic-water-bottle-gaffe.jpg

Regards,

Jim

[darr]

Did the butler do it on purpose or did social media turn it around for the good of the stylist?

"After seeing the reaction the picture caused earlier this week, the cast and crew came up with the idea of turning some of this attention towards an issue around water that really matters. They hope that by posing for this picture they will be able to raise awareness and amplify the work of international charity - WaterAid."

"The UK government also announced plans to match every pound donated to the charity."

photo: WaterAid

Downton Abbey Devises Perfect Comeback for Water Bottle Gaffe
WaterBottlegate comes to its natural resolution

For full article: http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/2014/08/downton-abbey-water-bottle-recovery

[Dogman]

Oh, boy. Nothing like an errant object to stifle an otherwise perfect photo.

This reminds me of an advertising photo several years ago (70s or early 80s?) that appeared in sporting goods and shooting magazines for the German firearms company Heckler & Koch. It was an ad for one of their semi-automatic handguns. The ad showed the pistol on a table with a second loaded magazine lying beside it. The problem was that the magazine obviously had the ammunition loaded backwards. A very embarrassing moment for H&K, advertising agency, photographer, etc. I suspect a lot of people lost their jobs over that one.

The picture pops up every now and then on the Internet when someone mentions advertising bloopers.

[Tony Rowlett]

Absolutely priceless, Mike. I studied at the photograph for several minutes before reading to the punch line and I didn't notice the water bottle. I think I was under the same impression as the photographer: Everything looks just right. Thanks for posting.

[k4kafka]

In my experience working on movie & TV sets, no matter how many hours of "down time" actors spend waiting in their dressing rooms, you can usually bet that they will bring some morsel of food or drinks to the set. And yes, on a big ad shot, someone with the responsibility to watch over such things...(not always the photographer) should be reprimanded.

[Ranjit Grover]

Mike,
Is it possible that the bottle was placed there or purposefully left in place as a practical joke?

[David Dyer-Bennet]

It's much easier, I find, to check the actual subject of the photo for things like flyaway hair strands, than it is to check the background. No doubt a "perfect" photographer would find them equally easy and automatic, but there it is.

[misha]

Good Night,and Good Luck anachronisms:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433383/goofs

[Sean]

The best photographers never lose their bottle

I'll get my coat

[Stephen Scharf]

This is what the content-aware tool is for in Photoshop!

We motorsports shooter-types use it to remove plastic orange cones from the apexes of corners (like the driver or rider doesn't know where the apex is...sheesh).

[Richard Newman]

Given the amount of comment and publicity this shot generated, the sylist -or whoever was responsible- at least got an "attaboy" or maybe even a small bonus.

[Robert]

Topic possibility?
How do you design a modern photographic office/processing room? I guess this is one of your current tasks.
Many of us will be familiar with the layout of a darkroom but for digital work the requirements change. Just a simple thing like where do I keep all the battery chargers that I need, whee and how do I store the many more prints that I make with inkjet. Over the years I have accumulated a lot of equipment, which includes my old 'analogue' cameras, with which I still like to play from time to time. My equipment is dotted all over the house where we have spare cupboards and I have also made a small set-up in the loft but this is far from the perfect solution. If one day, we are able, like you, to have a dedicated office I often think about just how I would store equipment and lay it out. Apologies for typos but I did this in my mini ipad.

[Ross]

In Oz/NZ film industry the job title is "stand-by props" Might be "stood down props" for this worker

[cgw]

Speaks volumes about the general inanity of this lamestream series assembled from the wreckage of British and American public broadcasting.

[Rob]

Water Bottle or Shoe: Stuff happens.

There were plenty of opportunities for someone to spot the water bottle, so obviously it was not any one persons fault. It took me quite a while to figure out the problem as well, but that's not saying much.