Whoopi Goldberg has a laugh

500 Weeks #25

Whoopi Goldberg in Toronto, 1990. Oh how I can't stand the microphones at these events

Once a week, the managing editor of Share newspaper– Jules Elder – would drive the finished artwork for that weeks' issue to the printers on Bloor St in downtown Toronto. I would get a ride with him and take the subway home afterwards. 

 

I had been working at the paper for several months and had booked a few vacation days off, which I planned to spend watching movies at the Festival of Festivals - now known as The Toronto International Film Festival. I had been a regular patron of the Festival since I was in high school, and continued attending every year.

 

A few weeks before the Festival, Jules and I were talking about it in his car on the way to the printers when he asked me “Do you want a Press Pass?”

 

Big pause, as I was trying to figure out how he was trying to fool me. Eventually I asked: “What do you mean?” He explained that the paper received a couple of press passes to the Festival every year. Would I like one?

 

I asked him what I would have to do for this gift. He said I had to write some articles about films at the Festival that would appeal to the papers audience. I wanted to know how much writing he wanted me to do. He told me he wanted “about a thousand words”. I wanted to be sure of what he was asking. How may thousand word articles was he expecting? One thousand word reviews for every film I saw?

 

No, no, no he went on. He only wanted one or maybe two articles, of approximately one thousand words each. My brain instantly calculated: that’s it? I’m a film school graduate. I could whip up a thousand words about movies without breaking a sweat. No trouble, whatsoever. This would be way, way too easy. Plus, he told me, the paper would pay me for the articles.

Whoopi Goldberg in Toronto, 1990. Photo taken after the press conference, while she was signing autographs, so no microphone in the way

 

What??? That’s it??? I was convinced there was going to be a catch, but I agreed. Yes. Yes please. Please get me that press pass. Which is how I landed my first medal credentials. That first year, I didn’t even take a camera. I didn’t know enough about how the event worked with the media as a place to generate coverage for every film involved. As I was picking out which films to see at that years Festival – I saw a total of 31, many of them at press screenings - I made sure to include several that I could write about for the paper’s Black and West Indian audience. 

 

By the time the Festival came up again the next year, I had been taking photos for the paper for many months and made very sure I took a camera with me.  I also started going to press conferences, just to take a few photos of the famous faces and maybe have them run in the paper, and pocket the fee that went with it.

 

Which is how I encountered Whoopi Goldberg, who was in Toronto in September 1990 to promote the film “The Long Walk Home” and I made sure I was at the press conference.

She had first come into the public consciousness through her stand-up comedy, released as Whoopi Goldberg, Original Broadway Recording. An album one of my friends made sure I sat down and listened – and laughed – to. She really came info fame through the film "The Color Purple", a role that garnered her a Best Actress Academy Award nomination. She was in a lot movies after that.

 

Press conference’s are held  in not-so-large  conference rooms, with tables on risers at the front, where the film’s creative team sit and take question from the journalists seated in temporary rows of chairs set up opposite and facing the tables. Video cameras for TV are at the back. 

A photo you would absolutely not get these days. Whoppi Goldberg enjoys a smoke at a press conference in Toronto, September 1990. The hotel provided the ashtrays.

 

From my photographer point of view, I really couldn’t stand the microphones. They were always large, and a little too high up, and frequently featured the sponsors name plate. Because the interview subjects are elevated on the risers, almost all the views from the seats have a microphone intruding on the subjects face. I tried to arrive early in order to score a seat that would provide a clear view of the person I was trying to take a photo of. A view without the microphone in the chin of the main subject – to me- is more flattering than an angle that included the microphone. That viewing position was usually on a slight angle to the main subject, and you have to aim the camera through the gap between two different microphones. Taller actors were easier, because they were above the microphone.

 

Once the conference was concluded, a large number of the assembled media would rush to the front of the room and try to collect autographs. I started to join in on this, at first just to try and capture a more candid photo, and eventually, to get my own Festival guidebook signed. It gave me a short, brief one-on-one that was might also be a good photo opportunity, plus the autographs helped me to remember everyone who I took photos of in the weeks that followed. After spending ten consecutive days photographing multiple performers and directors every day and soon they all kind of blur together.

 

One of my photos from this assignment ran on the cover of Share Newspaper. The editor cropped the microphone out.

 

Ms. Goldberg won the Academy award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “The Long Walk Home”

 

Technical stuff: Not sure. Nikon FE camera or possibly a Pentax K1000 camera body using Kodak T-MAX TMY 5053 400 ISO B&W negative film.