>>From Bernie Ente, ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), Conrail Historical Society: Here is a recent discussion I had with John B. Corns, regarding an Amtrak advertising "shoot": ===========>
Dear John, I was trackside on Conrail's Chicago Line at Fonda, New York, on September 25th. My friend and I were sitting in our folding chairs, sipping coffee and enjoying the crisp fall day. About ten trains passed by, between 7:30am and noon. At 12:30pm, a van pulled up to us and the driver asked us if we were there for the "shoot". "What shoot?", I asked. He explained that his Washington, DC-based ad agency had been shooting Amtrak promotional photos for the past three weeks, and that there was going to be a shoot at our location in a couple of hours. He had the photo gear in his van -- a jet-copter would land later with the photographer and his Amtrak escort/guide. We really weren't going to hang around that long, but, if an Amtrak special train was going to appear and pose, certainly we would stay. "Oh, there's no train involved", said the ad guy. "That would ruin the scene." We couldn't believe what he was telling us, until he showed us a finished photo from a previous photo session. The Amtrak train was added to the scene electronically, via computer. It looked very realistic, although the lighting on the train did not match the rest of the scene. John, is this how the big-boys do it? Shoot a scenic railroad location and add the subject later? Rail photographers -- we are out there, suffering all day, hoping something comes down the track, and that the lighting will be right. Now I learn that the ad agencies "cheat"! REPLY FROM JOHN B CORNS--------- Dear Bernie, All of the ad agencies that I ever worked for were smaller affairs, and none ever did such complicated commercials. Of course, this also was in the days before all of this computer animation and the blending of studio scenes with location scenes with the use of blue-screen backgrounds for movies and Adobe Photoshop for still photos. If Amtrak were to shoot real trains in service for such ads, it would be a crap shoot with no retakes possible with the moving train. By shooting the very best locations first, they can later photograph the RR cars at the same angle and drop them into the scene electronically, something that was not possible a few years ago. This way, you can shoot as much as you like of the location from a variety of angles (with no trains) for as long as you like or whenever you like. Then you decide which angle you prefer, and then go to the RR yard in order to photograph the stationary car from the same angle. You can use low-speed film for higher quality, get the best angle, best location best exposure, best lighting, etc., for each of the two scenes instead of attempting to have everything come together perfectly for just one photo. The odds of this happening in real life are nearly zero, so they do it this way to guarantee the best results for the money and time spent on the project. About 100% of your automobile ad photos are done this way, with several outdoor shots combined electronically to form one background, and the car photographed in the studio to control the lighting on the car's many curved surfaces, which would be impossible outdoors. For example, maybe it is a super shot in the afternoon because of the scenery and the direction of the light, but the Amtrak train only rolls by in the morning. So, to prevent running an empty train in the afternoon and all of the associated headaches and expense, they just shoot the photos separately and combine them later. I hate such cut-and-paste photos, but in today's reality of tight budgets and greater visual effects, there is no other way to do this. The average person doesn't know the difference, costs are cut, a super-real photo image is created from lesser images, and the client is happy. It may not be "real life", but it is 1990s reality. John --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects
