Modeling Tips for Actors and Dancers

In working with actors and dancers who haven't done much modeling before, I find that there's a bit of a learning curve involved when trying to transfer their skills to modeling.

Essentially the biggest differences concern duration and tempo.

First, in talking about duration, what I mean here is how long you hold a particular pose. Usually in dancing and in acting, there's a certain flow that goes on from one movement into another. This transition, however, cannot be captured by a camera, or at least, not captured well. I think back to Annie Leibovitz who said, "dance cannot be photographed...and there is something beautiful about that." The camera records and perceives time differently than video cameras and the human eye. It basically strips away the flow of time and replaces it with an implied sense of it, a sort of proxy. Timing to a model, or at least to me as a photographer, works differently than in a typical dance performance or scene.

When a model who is an actor or dancer goes into a specific pose, or explores an idea, there's a tendency to continue flowing through the movement, as if they are being observed by something that understands and can witness the concept of time. But this just simply isn't the case with a camera. It has enough problems trying to imply a sense of depth, let alone time.

The issue arises when the photographer isn't quick enough to capture a shot, or wants to capture the shot in multiple ways, but the model has already blown through it to the next thing. If the pose can't be recreated, then an idea, a moment, is essentially lost and effort has to be made to try and recreate it again. There's nothing wrong with that in itself, as it's going to happen through out the shoot anyway, but it eats up time. It's just less efficient.

So one thing actors and dancers can use as a guideline is the sound of the shutter clicking or the pop of the flash. If you go into a pose, try not to change it until you hear the shutter click, or even click a few times. The click becomes your metronome for duration. It gives you a base to work off of to get a feeling for how long you should be holding any particular pose or exploring a particular idea.

The next thing to look out for is tempo, or the speed with which you move from one pose to the next. In general, it's best to slow down, at least as a warm up. Pose, hold, click. Pose, hold, click. Depending on the energy of the shoot, the intent, and the speed of the clicks you hear coming from the camera, you're going to move faster or slower.

Now this doesn't mean you're never going to do a fast movement that has to be flowed through, like jumping into the air or committing to some movement that just cannot be stopped. It's going to happen all the time. Those kind of shots, however, have a different dynamic and tend to work better with performers than people who do only modeling. The perfect shot of a model jumping into the air will more than likely involve the model jumping up and down multiple times. It has a different pacing than just moving from pose to pose exploring looks. Just remember though, the faster you move into a pose, the more effort it will take to freeze it, and the more effort you use, the more tension will show in your photo (which might be good if that's what you're going for). An example of this is if the model is looking in one direction and then snaps their head at the camera, the natural tendency is for the eyes open wide as your body assumes it's doing that because something dangerous is happening. It's practically an involuntary action. But slow that down, and you bypass the whole eyes widening reflex.

So in summary, slow down first and then speed up the tempo as necessary. Hold your poses until you hear the shutter click and then move into the next pose if you have one. Think of the shutter as a changing beat that you move to; form a relationship with it. If you can't hear the shutter, then error on the side of slowing down and holding longer, unless the photographer instructs you differently.

As you get used to this, you can start playing around with duration and tempo on the fly and start exploring uncharted or more experimental territory, assuming the photographer you're working with is even interested in such things.

In conclusion, just remember, if you have a photographer who's quick enough to capture everything you do, then that's great! But why make their job any more difficult than it has to be? Give the photographer opportunity to capture what you're doing with an imperfect tool. When you're on set, it's in the best interest of the photographer and model to make eachother's lives easier, and if they communicate and work well together, it ultimately means better pictures and a much more efficient use of time.

Make it easier to capture good photos, not harder. -C