Quincy Jones is Cool
500 Weeks #26
Quincy Jones was at the Toronto International Film Festival to do media promotion for “Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones” a documentary about his life.
A media outlet can decide to approach the Film Festival in two main ways: as a method for gathering original interviews and photographs that it will use in the year ahead, as the films are released locally; or, the outlet can use the Festival as an event in and of itself and publish photos from and articles abut the Festival guests and parties as they occur.
At the time I was working for Share Newspaper and in regards to Mr. Jones appearance, they were taking the latter approach. By the time the issue came out, the Festival screening of the documentary would be past, and Share did not publish film reviews. The paper filled its’ entertainment section with stories that reflected the nightclubs that advertised within the paper. Since no theatres bought ad space promoting their films, the paper didn’t expend any resources covering motion pictures.
Yes, the economics of weekly newspapers were really that simple. Working at other newspapers I learned that a bad review of a film could result in the distributor pulling all their movie ads for the next week or two. It was a common occurrence.
For Mr. Jones appearance, my job was to get a decent photo and that was it.
Surveying the room where the press conference was taking place, I could see that it had windows on one side and some very nice available light to work with. Looking at the scene and knowing how the image would translate to film, I decided to put away my on-camera flash. When possible, most photographers prefer to work with natural light, which looks great on film. The drawback is that the beautiful subtleties are almost all lost in the mediocre reproduction quality of newsprint.
When attending the press conference, I only knew a few things about Mr. Jones: he had been the arranger for Frank Sinatra’s band, he had written a few film scores, and he was the producer for Thriller by Michael Jackson, the best selling album of all time. It was only years later that I learned that I was aware of only the tiniest amount of his career accomplishments. Multi-instrumentalist, record, film and television producer, songwriter, jazz arranger and conductor, composer of more than 50 motion picture scores, winner of 28 Grammy awards, the list goes on and on and on. The man is a legend for a reason.
One of the photos from the day ran on the cover of Share and then I was contacted by Now Magazine, another Toronto weekly. Apparently, they planed to run a story of Mr. Jones, but had failed to assign a photographer. Would I have any other photos for them to choose from that were not used by Share?
Well, yes as a matter of fact I did. This became the first assignment where I sold usage rights to two publications. It was also the first – and last – time I ever had a photo published in Now Magazine. Within a year I was contributing photos to Eye Weekly, which was seen as a competitor to Now. Management at Now just could not bring themselves to ever utilize the services of a freelancer who had lowered themselves to contribute to a publication with – and I quote – “the wrong point of view”. Must be great to be able to reject self-employed artists who are just trying to pay the rent.
Technical stuff: Not sure. These photos may have been taken with a Nikon FE camera using a Tamron SP 70-150mm f/2.8 lens, or possibly a Pentax K1000 camera body with a Ricoh 135mm f/2.8 lens. Shot on Kodak T-MAX 400 B&W negative film processed in T-MAX developer.
A media outlet can decide to approach the Film Festival in two main ways: as a method for gathering original interviews and photographs that it will use in the year ahead, as the films are released locally; or, the outlet can use the Festival as an event in and of itself and publish photos from and articles abut the Festival guests and parties as they occur.
At the time I was working for Share Newspaper and in regards to Mr. Jones appearance, they were taking the latter approach. By the time the issue came out, the Festival screening of the documentary would be past, and Share did not publish film reviews. The paper filled its’ entertainment section with stories that reflected the nightclubs that advertised within the paper. Since no theatres bought ad space promoting their films, the paper didn’t expend any resources covering motion pictures.
Yes, the economics of weekly newspapers were really that simple. Working at other newspapers I learned that a bad review of a film could result in the distributor pulling all their movie ads for the next week or two. It was a common occurrence.
For Mr. Jones appearance, my job was to get a decent photo and that was it.
Surveying the room where the press conference was taking place, I could see that it had windows on one side and some very nice available light to work with. Looking at the scene and knowing how the image would translate to film, I decided to put away my on-camera flash. When possible, most photographers prefer to work with natural light, which looks great on film. The drawback is that the beautiful subtleties are almost all lost in the mediocre reproduction quality of newsprint.
When attending the press conference, I only knew a few things about Mr. Jones: he had been the arranger for Frank Sinatra’s band, he had written a few film scores, and he was the producer for Thriller by Michael Jackson, the best selling album of all time. It was only years later that I learned that I was aware of only the tiniest amount of his career accomplishments. Multi-instrumentalist, record, film and television producer, songwriter, jazz arranger and conductor, composer of more than 50 motion picture scores, winner of 28 Grammy awards, the list goes on and on and on. The man is a legend for a reason.
One of the photos from the day ran on the cover of Share and then I was contacted by Now Magazine, another Toronto weekly. Apparently, they planed to run a story of Mr. Jones, but had failed to assign a photographer. Would I have any other photos for them to choose from that were not used by Share?
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| Quincy Jones in the first and only photo of mine that ran in NOW Magazine |
Well, yes as a matter of fact I did. This became the first assignment where I sold usage rights to two publications. It was also the first – and last – time I ever had a photo published in Now Magazine. Within a year I was contributing photos to Eye Weekly, which was seen as a competitor to Now. Management at Now just could not bring themselves to ever utilize the services of a freelancer who had lowered themselves to contribute to a publication with – and I quote – “the wrong point of view”. Must be great to be able to reject self-employed artists who are just trying to pay the rent.
Technical stuff: Not sure. These photos may have been taken with a Nikon FE camera using a Tamron SP 70-150mm f/2.8 lens, or possibly a Pentax K1000 camera body with a Ricoh 135mm f/2.8 lens. Shot on Kodak T-MAX 400 B&W negative film processed in T-MAX developer.
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