I feel 100 feet tall today

My roommie is going to film school at Columbia College right now and her new assignment is a short stop motion animation. So she's turned our dining room into a workshop of some kind, with lots of tiny trees and clay people, and made my dining room table look like a miniature park.

I walked by it while really sleepy the other day and thought for a split second that I was about 100 feet tall. Only a split second. I think it was the half bag of Oreos I ate that day... I started to hallucinate a little bit.

Anyways... I snapped some quick photos of her and her friend animating some clay people. I've played with stop motion before, and it can get a little frustrating if you're not in the zone- or if you're on a deadline and have to have it finished soon, in this case. At some point I heard her scream something like, "only 5 feet of film?! We've been moving that person's eyeballs for an hour and a half!"

I love the idea behind stop motion animation because it gets so close to the roots of filmmaking and reminds a person how film cameras work. When the first motion picture cameras were made in the late 1880's, they were modeled after the novelty-turn-boom picture cameras. They took single photos in quick succession, to create the illusion of motion. That's how film cameras still work- snapping 24 photos in a second, one after another, then projecting them at the same speed to recreate the motion.

Actually, when the first motion picture cameras were made, the cameras were hand-cranked and the average speed was about 16 frames per second (fps), not 24. The camera operators used to sing songs to keep a steady rhythm while cranking. 24 fps was introduced when sound film was invented and the projector needed to operate at a steady 24 fps to get the strip of sound to play properly. Which is why most silent films appear jerky now- because they were filmed at 16 fps but are being played back at 24 fps. When they were originally projected, the motion was smooth and normal-looking.

See. A degree in Cinema Studies can be useful now and then. Makes for good chit-chat at crappy dinner parties.

Headshots: four eyes or two?

I've taken a lot of headshots for people who, at some point during the photo session, suddenly turn to me and ask, "should I wear my glasses in the photo?"

And, as usual, my answer is, "it depends."

The first question to ask is, "do you always wear your glasses?" If the answer is yes, then put your darn glasses on for the headshot. A headshot is supposed to be a photograph of you, depicting what you generally look like on a regular basis... while looking your best and in a good mood, of course. So if you're always wearing your glasses, then wear them in your headshot.

Now you might be thinking, "I always wear my glasses, but sometimes I take them off when I'm on stage... or I want people I'm auditioning for to know that I can go without glasses too..." Aha! Very good point. Gold star. Most people look completely different with and without their glasses, so if you want people looking at your headshot to see both of their options, what do you do? If you're expecting an answer like "you should always wear your glasses in a headshot" or "you should never wear your glasses in a headshot" then I apologize, but you're not going to get that here.

There is no right or wrong answer to something like that- it all depends on what you want, need, and are comfortable with. Here's a case study with Victoria DeFrancesco Soto. She came to me asking for headshots for publicity purposes as a television personality and expert on minority figures in international politics. (With the recent Obama campaign, she's obviously been a busy lady...) She normally doesn't wear her glasses on camera, but is looking to expand her reach and believes some people might think she looks more learned and professional with her glasses on. So we snapped most of her photos without glasses, but made sure to grab a handful with her glasses on.

Now she has the option between two different looks and can use the glasses headshot for gigs she knows she'll wear her glasses for, and the other one for purposes that she doesn't think having glasses on will necessarily give her a leg up.

Like with any question about determining your look for a headshot, just remember to go with your gut and what you believe depicts you at your best. And ask yourself simple questions like, "do I ever wear my glasses?" And if your answer is, "only when I wake up in the morning to get myself from the bedroom to the bathroom where my contacts live, I'll never wear them outside!" then of course you should leave the glasses off for the headshot. Or maybe ask yourself the question, "am I a Groucho Marx impersonator?" If the answer is yes, put your Groucho glasses on.

And find a headshot photographer who will ask you these questions so he or she can help you set up the best possible photo.