Caught in a still moment

By Susan King

Dec. 31, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

They are the fly on the wall of a movie set -- a small corps of still photographers who not only snap the traditional celebrity portraits and action shots for press kits and posters but also capture candid, behind-the-scenes moments that would otherwise go undocumented.

“Take 2: Recent Images From the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers,” which opens Jan. 7 at the Fourth Floor Gallery at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, features a window into that world with photos that show a more intimate and unscripted side of moviemaking -- the directors and actors, of course, but production designers and art departments readying sets for a scene as well.

“You never know where the great images will come from,” says Andrew D. Schwartz, vice president of the society and one of the group’s five New York-based still photographers. Two of Schwartz’s photographs on display in the exhibition that continues through April 17 catch Nicole Kidman and Jack Black in unstaged moments. Schwartz snapped Kidman in the grocery store after she has been transformed into the perfect woman in “The Stepford Wives.” In the other, Black was hamming it up on the set of “School of Rock.”

The “Stepford” picture, says Schwartz, is a “compromise between a funny image and a really classic image. The other image of Jack Black

“Take 2” is the sequel to the academy’s first exhibition in 2000 of images from the 10-year-old organization. “The academy was great because they gave their support at the very beginning,” says society President Suzanne Hanover. “Because of their backup, it lent credibility to the studios because the studios own a lot of the photographs.”

In turn, society members have donated photographs to the academy’s Margaret Herrick Library. The photos from both exhibitions have been given to the library. “It’s a great place to have our images live on,” says Hanover.

Hanover admits that most press kit photographs are “sort of stuffy” and don’t really challenge the photographer. “Our group is really with people who are interested in going beyond the normal publicity type of photography,” says Hanover, who has in the exhibition black-and-white photographs of Robert Duvall and Will Ferrell from the upcoming “Kicking and Screaming” and an image of Jenna Elfman from “Looney Tunes: Back in Action.”

There are 28 active members in the society and six honorary members -- actors and shutterbugs Jeff Bridges and Brendan Fraser are among the honorees. Many of those in the society are fine art photographers who support their art by shooting stills for the movies.

Besides Schwartz and Hanover, among the others exhibiting are Claudette Barius, Phil Bray, Andrew Cooper, Brian Hamill, Kerry Hayes, David Strick, Bob Willoughby and Peter Sorel, who founded the group and was its president for the first two years

Sorel, who began his career in the 1960s with such seminal films as “Easy Rider,” has three pictures in the exhibition, including a portrait of the late Marlon Brando that he describes as “very lovely and very sad.”

The academy show is the first time he has exhibited the photograph. “I couldn’t show it when he was alive because it always upset me a little bit because he looks so different from what he normally looked like,” explains Sorel. “This was shot in the late 1990s when he was huge and not well, and it shows. So it is a bit dramatic.”

Sorel has also included a candid snapshot of Salma Hayek sitting on a bench and a humorous picture of a bust of “The Hulk” resting on a stepladder.

While on a set, says Sorel, a photographer can shoot pictures at any time. But certain actors, he adds, don’t want any candid pictures taken.

“Brando was an absolutely sweet, lovely guy, but the one thing he did not like was to have candid shots,” he says.

“He requested that the photographer let him know when they would shoot. I worked with him first in the 1970s on a film called ‘The Missouri Breaks.’ I told him, ‘It is very hard. When I see a great shot, if I don’t shoot it, it will be gone.’ ”

Though Brando was sympathetic to Sorel, he wouldn’t budge. “When he was doing ‘Last Tango in Paris,’ he had so many problems in Paris with the paparazzi -- they would try to take photos of him when he was in the bathroom.”

Brando agreed to do the portrait in the exhibition after the film they were working on was completed. “I shot maybe 14 or 15 pictures,” recalls Sorel. “Then he approved every frame.”

‘Take 2’

Where: The Fourth Floor Gallery, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; noon to 6 p.m. weekends. Begins Jan. 7

Ends: April 17

Price: Free

Contact: (310) 247-3600 or go to www.oscars.org