Salma Must Look Perfect

This is post-Sultan.

I have to do a shoot with Salma Hyack.

It’s a corporate video for Avon. Their spokesperson is Ms. Hyack, considered by many to be one of the most glamorous women in the world and, without a doubt, the most high-powered celebrity I’ve ever come into contact with.

We need to interview her. Simple stuff, sit her down, frame up a headshot, get a few soundbites. Nothing to it, the kind of thing I do every day. But it’s Salma Hyack, man, so the pucker-factor is high: she’s a genuine movie star; I’m the guy who used to make action porn.

And, I learn from the producer, there’s a problem. The problem is Salma. See, Salma is a smart actress. Not only is she a smart actress, but she’s a smart actress who knows lighting. The producers made a similar video with her in LA the previous year, and apparently she gave the DP a run for his money when she wasn’t happy with the way he lit her. The poor dude spent half the day re-lighting several times until he made a set-up she was okay with. This, of course, caused everyone on the job major agita.

No one wants a repeat of that experience. Especially me.

The other problem, typically, is that we don’t have a lot of money to rent lights and equipment. We’re going to be shooting her with the same bare-bones type of package I’d use on any other job.

Figuring that knowledge is power, I watch a few of her movies, and pay close attention to how her close-ups are lit. I study the tape from the prior Avon shoot, I call the other DP to learn what he did to make Salma happy.

But I have to be honest, I’m not crazy about his approach. I know what she wants, glamour lighting. I know how to do glamour lighting. But the safe move is to just replicate the look of the last tape, then everyone will, hopefully, be happy.

The day of the shoot comes. We’re working at Silvercup Studios in Queens. Salma is shooting a series of Avon commercials on the main stage – a room the size of an aircraft hanger. There’s a crew of about a hundred, a crafts service table so big it has its own ZIP code, a crew of about 5,000 (including a DJ blasting tunes when they’re not shooting dialogue), and every piece of lighting and grip equipment yet invented.

Our shoot, on the other hand, is consigned to a dressing room that’s maybe 12 by 20. The commercial set has a perfect 30X30 white cyc for their background, we have grubby grayish walls scuffed from years of abuse and stained with God knows what. The producer has brought some drapey cloth which we can hopefully construct sort of a shimmery background. My crew is myself, one PA and the soundman doubling as a grip. I have five lights.

Salma has to look perfect.

We get to work. We’re only going to get access to Salma for a half hour at some point during the day – when, we’re not sure, so we have to be ready and standing by as she could show up any moment.

I light the shot using a stand in, exactly mimicking the set-up from the tape they did the year before. As soon as I see the shot on the monitor, my gut rebels. I just don’t like it. I tear it all down and relight the way I feel it should be done. Whether this is a good idea or not, I don’t know. It’s sad to say, but a major aspect of surviving in the film world is having your ass covered, to not lay it on the line too often. If, say, I were to copy the LA tape lighting, and get a complaint about it, I could just say I did exactly as I was told to do by everyone involved – I replicated a look they were happy with before, so I don’t understand what the problem is now.

By striking out on my own, I'm putting all the responsibility on my own ass. And if you’re wondering – can there be that much of a difference in the way a headshot is lit – the answer is yes. To a lighting geek, the two approaches are night and day. By following my instincts, it’s all on me. I have no one else to blame but myself if Salma hates it. My guts are churning.

I go and visit the commercial set to see how they’re lighting her. (And to raid the craft services table.) Their approach and my approach are similar, which makes me feel better, though not enough. I so do not want to fuck this up.

We learn we’re not going to get Salma for a few hours, and shoot a couple of other interviews with Avon executives for the video. They look good. But good enough for Salma?

Word comes from set. Salma is sick, not in a great mood. She doesn’t have a lot of time, so everything had better be ready when she arrives. And she had better like it. Great. No pressure, right?

The producer, the clients, the soundman, even the fucking PA keep asking me: are you sure the lighting is okay? Are you sure she’s going to look good?

I assure them in a calm, reasonable voice, that she will look fine. That’s the outside. Inside, I’m a 9 year old watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Finally, Salma arrives. I don’t know what to expect. Is she going to want to see the monitor with someone else sitting in? Or will she know just from where the lights are set if I’ve screwed the pooch or not?

Exhausted, sniffling, suffering through a cold, and at the end of a very long, draining day, Salma flops into the chair in front of the camera. I have my head jammed into the monitor, studying the shot. I breathe a sigh of relief and feel my internal organs reattach themselves to my body cavity. Salma looks great. Not just great, but perfect. Radiant. There is no way in hell anyone could not think this shot is awesome.

“She looks great,” I say aloud, and with utter confidence. I do this on purpose. Opinions can be like viruses. I learned that on the Julie Andrews PSA shoot. The clients were very nervous about how the shots would look, so I kept repeating, loudly and confidently as we rehearsed that “it looks great.” This gets into the air, and when people look at the monitor, they have the expectation that it will look great. That expectation helps them decide that it does, in fact, look great. Call it subliminal advertising. Call it brainwashing. Call it Jedi mind tricks, but it works.

I step away from the monitor. 12 producers/clients/members of Salma’s entourage, all impossibly crammed into the rear corner of our dressing room, crowd the monitor for a peek.

A moment’s silence. Then, everyone begins to nod. “It does look great. Oh my God, she’s so beautiful.”

I begin to relax. The producer, the clients are happy.

But the only person who’s opinion actually counts hasn’t spoken yet. I politely turn to Ms. Hyack. “Salma,” I ask. “Would you like to see the shot?”

This is the moment. She can make me, or she can break me. If she doesn’t like how it looks, she’s not going to stick around while I fix it. She’s going to leave, the shoot isn’t going to get done, we’re going to have to come back another day and I am going to look like the biggest dumbass in the world.

She leans back in her chair, sighs wearily. “I don’t fucking care,” she says. “I just want to go home. Let’s shoot this thing and get it over with.”

Okay, maybe not what I was hoping to hear – that everything is great, or “this is the best I’ve ever looked, no one else will ever be allowed to light me again!” But at least it isn’t: “You suck. I’m leaving.” So I’ll take it and call it a victory. Because sometimes, simply surviving is triumph enough.

We shoot her interview. It goes fine. The second we're done, Salma excuses herself and hurries out. I'm feeling great, having made it through another nightmare.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm in the hallway outside the dressing room loading lights onto my magliner when I'm approached by a young woman. It takes me a moment to realize it's Salma in street clothes. She offers her hand and we shake. She smiles, and thanks me for "making that so easy." She goes into the dressing room and thanks the rest of the crew before heading off.

You know, every once in a while you win one.