Headshots - and how to do them on a budget

Getting a headshot

I'd like for hopeful actors to send in their photos and get listed in the casting section. To do that, they will have to get a headshot. Since I am a photographer, I may be able to help a little bit. I'm not a movie industry headshot photographer, but I have gotten countless portraits and people photos published in major magazines. I've stopped keeping track of the tearsheets, and even years after I got swallowed up by the computer industry, my agency tells me my photographs sell well.

OK, let's have a look at the casting section to illustrate my points. http://www.nativecelebs.com/casting/ On the front page you'll see two photos. The one of Eric Schweig is a typical movie industry headshot. You'll notice that many of those photos are with a non-smiling pose. Big point. When you get photographs taken, they should be with a variety of poses, to see what will work best for your face. Then there's also the stoic Indian myth to live up to <grin>... Seriously, some of those shots are really powerful. I've got a new August Schellenberg photo that's really dynamite. The shot of Eric was taken in a studio, the typical black and white shot with relatively standard lighting. In New York and LA you'll find lots of photographers making their living doing nothing but these headshots. Look at the yellow pages or ask an agent for a recommendation in your area.

The other photo is of Duane Loken, and this photo was taken for a magazine spread. He's smiling, and tilting his head. NOT a common pose for a headshot. It's a great photo none the less, and works for him. The photo was taken by a professional photographer (a movie still photographer, actually). Because of my photography background, I can tell that the photo was not taken with on camera flash, and it's what we'd call diffuse but directional light. You can see shadows, but not deep. The shadows on Eric's photo are a lot more marked.

OK, the Males1 page. The only apparent industry standard headhosts there are August, Eric, Don and Pato. Jonathan (moved to Males2 page) got his photo from the Sundance calendar shoot. Nick gets his wife to do most of his photos.

As you can see, even though the industry standard is the studio headshot, these guys used a variety of photos. If you have a friend who really knows her stuff, or know a professional photographer (or a newspaper person willing to do a story on you), that could be a possible source of casting photos. What you need to be aware of, is that it's kind of hard to do a really good headshot. A friend of mine got a really good new camera, and did some pretty good headshots on the first few rolls. She had the eye, and that's not true of everybody with a good camera. It takes either luck or know how to get all the elements right.

The elements: I'll run down the list as I think of them.

*1) Focus

If the camera isn't good enough to take a very sharp photo, forget about that camera. If it's an old fashioned SLR, get a person behind it with good eyes and enough skill to keep the photos sharp.

*2) Lens

You need a portrait lens (the pieces of glass in a housing the photo is taken through), or one that can be used for that. Forget about non-zoom compact cameras. They produce portraits with big noses and small ears plastered to your scalp. Really unflattering. To make it technical: With 35 mm film you need a lens about 90- 135 mm. These numbers will be clearly marked on the front of the lens. Some zoom-compacts are good enough for an amateur headshot - for web use.

*3) Shutter speed

With a moving subject relatively close to the camera, and a 'tele photo lens', you need a shutter speed that will freeze movement, or a burst of flash. Depends on the photographer, but if the light isn't there, forget about it. 1/250 is good.

*4) Light

This is one of the elements that separate the pros from the wannabees. What you should use depends on the person in front of the camera. Use the photos in the casting section as inspiration, but remember that the film sees the world in a lot more contrast than you do. What you see in the work of professional photographers is rarely natural light unadulterated. I sometimes use natural light, but then I use some tricks not available on cameras (a separate light meter, for instance). One good amateur trick I use a lot if I have to use a compact camera, is to use fill in flash. Knocks down the contrast and makes it easier for the film to cope with it. I could go on and on about lighting technique, but I guess that's too long winded for this medium. Another thing: Models with very dark hair is a problem when it comes to lighting. You may end up with a blob of black, unless you take into account it's difficult to get details with very dark hair.

*5) Background

The background for a headshot needs to be very smooth. No busy details in the background. A busy background is a dead give-away of an amateur. To accomplish that you need to look at the background, keep your distance to it, and step down the aperture (good amateurs may know what I'm talking about, otherwise, just ignore the part about the aperture) to see what it looks like with the aperture you've selected. The really professional photographers add some depth to the background as well, for instance graduated backdrops. Don't worry about that, but try to get a separation in tone between the head of the actor and the background. If you're using black and white, that means you'll have to think harder to make sure you get that. Black and white film doesn't see colors exactly as we do either, so that compounds the problem.

*6) Exposure

This means making sure the photo isn't too dark or too light. Modern compact cameras usually gets loaded with negative color film, and you can get it really wrong and still get a pretty good photo. Portraits aren't always that easy. It depends on how you're shooting them. With a compact camera, ordinary color film and fill in flash, you'll get OK results. If you get creative with a different type of film and an advanced camera - watch out. Stick with what you know, or practice before you do a really important shoot. Different color skin means different exposure, same goes for hair. That's one reason I use separate light meters. They won't be fooled by these different situations.

*7) Poses

I'm not going to go into posing techniques and theory here, just remind you that you should try out a variety of standard facial expressions. Some people have one smile they present to the photographer every single time. It's usually very pretty, but as a photographer I get annoyed! Try a toothy smile, try a serious expression, try the stoic Indian look <smile>. Peope are very different when you put them in front of a camera. I'm the type of person who has a thousand expressions, and getting two photos with the same expression is almost impossible. This means I need to shoot plenty of film when I take my photos (I usually do everything myself, including pressing the trigger - easy when you know how!). Others have a few expressions that they can summon at will. Much easier, and you'll waste less film. Be aware that a two dimensional photo and what you saw when you took the photo are two different things. That's why the finished result is often quite different from what you imagined. An experienced photographer will often know when he has a good model and good results, but that really takes a lot of experience, and even then you can't always know for sure if the camera will love a model, and if you get everything else right.

*8) ?

Can't come up with more off the top of my head, but you should have a better idea of the elements of a good head shot now? This advice works equally well for a happy amateur photographer taking photos of her friends as the wannabee actor on a budget.

Like I said before, the casting section is open to wannabes, but I have refused photos on occasion. They need to be big enough and sharp enough for me to use them cropped to the size I use them. One note of caution. I crop the photos very close for the casting section. Have a look at August's photo on his page for an example of how these photos are before I start 'ruining' them. http://www.nativecelebs.com/celebs/august.htm

I recently found a standard "price list" for among other things headshots. It says you could expect to pay $175-200 (Canadian) for headshots, then $125 for 100 8x10 glossies.

There's more advice on this site

The NativeCelebs Casting Photos is part of the http://www.nativecelebs.com/ site. I have permission to display the photos for this use by the actor, management, agency or internet representative. You can not display these photos elsewhere on the net without their permission.
Owner of this site: . I do not represent these actors, I merely gather NA actors so it'll be easier for casting directors to see the selection. This directory is not complete (as my actor directory should give you an indication of), and probably never will be - nor will any other casting service! I usually don't include contact info on actors I know are with SAG.