Thu, July 22, 2004

A CD full of images came into our office today from the production of Cast Away. (We're right on the cutting edge of those four year old movies!) Actually, a co-worker is writing a story for the USC alumni magazine about the 75th anniversary of the film school and Zemeckis graduated the program in '73, so the story is just doing the usual pimping of celebrity alums.

Anyway, among the haul was the following shot (one of only two that actually feature Bobby Z), and it made me crack a smile.

I said, "Oh, come on. He's obviously posturing for the still photographer. They have little viewfinders you can use to line up a shot – what if his hands aren't creating a 1.85:1 frame? Then his shot will be off!"

So, just for fun, I decided to see how close he was. As it turns out, damn close. The man is a pro! You always hear stories (okay, once, from the weird kid "Weird Jamie" in our film class) about how Kubrick could walk onto a set, and just from the heat on his skin tell the DP that he was a quarter-stop under. Zemeckis may not be able to do that, but he can frame up a perfect 16-by-9 by hand!