It wasn’t very long after I stepped into the business of film production, when I realized – my job is fun.  Meeting new people in different places, the collaborations with professionals, the wacky products, and the curious and fantastic locations – have made most of it all big fun.

My career path has taken me from fake snow to lighting the stuntman on fire to blowing stuff up and eventually, to a whole other level of production in producing TV commercials and print photography.  While it seems there is more production than ever, why then does it feel like there’s less fun happening?  Even on projects that yesterday, would default automatic fun, today the people involved (crews, clients, shooters) seem to not be having any.

I do blame technology on some of it.  Sure, digital has made certain things easier and better.  But when it comes to the ease of “creating an image on your desktop” that’s only fun for one person.  The photograph above is from a fun day on a still shoot project for a print ad.  It happened before the infestation of graphics editing software.  The product was a pharmaceutical – for pigs.

The creative hook was – since your animals are valuable.  Let’s put pigs in an armored car.

I scouted and found the pig farm.  Hired a capable pig wrangler.  Rented the armored car.  And hired the real models.  The photographer shot the real pigs as they walked up the ramp into the real armored car.  Fun.

Today, sadly, this shot would be stock photo shots and an assembly “in layers” on a monitor.  Doing it this way has summarily reduced the value (and use) of locations and location scouts, and even nixes the Photographer.  Importantly though, it deletes the on-set collaboration.  Hence, no fun.

It’s almost criminal.

Photos and words COPYRIGHT Jamie Vesay 2012  ANY USE requires permission.