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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Mary Ellen Matthews: It's Saturday Night!

SNL staff photographer Mary Ellen Matthews does the photography equivalent of herding cats every week as she makes cool, quirky and creative images of the show’s guests

This Article Features Photo Zoom

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Matthews makes “keeping it fresh” look effortless, but it’s something she works at deliberately on a week-to-week and year-to-year basis. From one show to the next, she maintains a continuity in lighting and postproduction effects that gives each season a distinctive visual identity. Although it’s achieved in both lighting and retouching, the lighting she says will more than likely remain essentially the same—flattering portrait light, with the classic Hollywood kick from hard lights.

“I think it just helps the image pop off the screen,” she says. “If you use soft or flat lighting, it becomes not as dimensional. The advantage I have is I have dimension to work with. It’s not just a billboard; it becomes something that has some depth to it. The [classic Hollywood lighting] gives a little more contrast, and if I use edge lights and then light the background, it goes farther and farther back. I try to achieve that depth as much as I can.

Matthews is in a unique position as a photographer, with her images going out to an audience of 10 million every week. Since so many people see her work, she works hard to keep the look of the images fresh while maintaining some continuity in the lighting and postproduction effects that give each season its visual identity. Matthews is fortunate that her subjects are usually willing to do whatever she asks; she says it creates a looseness to the photo shoot. Above: Actor Hugh Laurie.

I’m so used to seeing everything that way, if I see something like a softbox, I just think, ‘Ugh.’ It’s really not rocket science. [The classic Hollywood] lighting formula works for what I do.

“I want to determine a look and stick with it,” Matthews continues, “but each person looks different and reacts to the treatment a little bit differently, so there’s kind of a balance of keeping consistent and yet making everything look great and also artful. There’s definitely a lighting thing, a color palette that we’re working with, and I’ve used a kind of solarized look this season.”

This year was busier than most for Matthews because in addition to her weekly portrait responsibilities (as well as all of her team’s other photographic responsibilities for the show, including shooting rehearsals, archive management, promotional photos, cast photos and more), this year she took on the added role of director—wielding a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with SNL producer and director Jim Signorelli to shoot video as well.

“I got very busy because I worked on the opening credits, the title sequence” Matthews says. “We had the Canon guys come, and they were with us for the whole shoot and they had the 5D Mark II and the 7D. We just used those two cameras, and
it was amazing. The look is incredible. How it picks up ambient light is just amazing.”

Actor Will Ferrell

Matthews doesn’t claim any plans to abandon still photography in favor of directing, but it’s clear that she’s willing to embrace new technologies and special effects to help shape her creative vision and keep it fresh. Thankfully, the job of still photographer for SNL doesn’t appear to be on the way out anytime soon. After all this time, the images have become an iconic part of the show—and they’re actually a product of the technical peculiarities of live broadcast TV.

“Because of all the national affiliates,” she explains, “because it’s a live show, they all go to different commercials at different timing, and they have to come back to something still to start the show. So there’s a real good reason for the photographs.”