Clay Enos: The Watchmen Portrait Book Interview

By Cole Smithey

If you've walked by a book store in recent weeks you've probably noticed a batch of Watchmen books, of which one very large coffee table book loomed bigger than the rest. If you dared to lift the hefty tome to peer into it's fetishistic celebration of Watchmen characters, you were rewarded with some of the most gorgeous, thought-provoking black and white images of faces, costumes, and characters that you could imagine. Documenting every day of the filming of the Watchmen movie, photographer Clay Enos amassed over 40,000 photographs. In this book of Watchmen portraits, the photographer places a different kind of artistic filter over the humanistic quality of the Watchmen ensemble and milieu to enable for the reader a more intimate interaction with the material. I spoke with Clay to find out more about the creation of this amazing art project.   

CS: It seems like a golden opportunity to have such a great range of characters to photograph.

CE: Not only just characters, but perfectly cast, made up--hair, make-up, wardrobe. I've done this kind of thing all over the world, but to have the world come to you is pretty rockin'--and across generations like that.

CS: Your book puts an entirely different spin on the Watchmen characters, costume designers, and other crew members who worked to put these people on screen.

CE: I think when you strip away the context of the soundtrack, the drama, and the narrative, you really do get to find a sanctuary and maybe a meditation with those faces. While you're removed visually, I think you're still in the world of the Watchmen.

CS: What did Watchmen graphic artist Dave Gibbons think of it?

CE: He loved it. It's a treat for him because I think the two of us are much more used to a two-dimensional world. And we're both thrilled by what [director] Zack (Snyder) presented. For him it was a transformation of his imagination into the three dimensions--for him to be able to bounce around the Owl Ship--I can't even imagine what that's like. For me, I harnessed that world back to a place that I'm more accustomed, and that's a place where the two of us meet.

CS: How was it working with the actors to attain the cohesion that the photographs have?

CE: Everybody kind of understood that I was working on this as an art project. Maybe the first few times I shot the actors it was very scientific--3/4 view, head-on view, turnaround--and it was being used by make-up artists and graphic artists to make some posters and things like that. But as the work progressed and my methods were distilled to their essentials in terms of gear and stuff, it was very much a shared art form. They [the actors] knew I was making art over here, and were happy to oblige. It didn't take a lot of time--we're talking about 30 seconds when they were on their way to or from somewhere.

CS: That seems like very little time to have with your subject.

CE: It wasn't that I needed a lot of time. I remember one time I shot Billy--I got one frame; it's not in the book, but it was just a very spontaneous thing. I would often be setting up strategically to and from the set--usually in the garage door of the studio.

CS: Have you ever done this for any other films?

CE: No, this was my feature debut--can you imagine?

CS: On your blog there's an Errol Morris reference. What's that about?

CE: He is a brilliant thinker, not just a filmmaker, and he is well-versed in the documentary spirit. My website and my blog are very much a place to keep people thinking, to sort of strip away some of the mysteries. I've been keeping it for four or five years now. It's part travel diary, but it's very much intended to inspire folks, to allow folks to know how my pictures are made. I think that's a big part of people's curiosity. I think often what intimidates folks when they first approach photography is, "How do I do that?" I have no objection at least to talking about how I go about it.

CS: How did you come to photography? Was your initial goal to do commercial photography?

CE: I'm interested in experiencing the world with a little more purpose that just blending through it, and for whatever reason photography has been the way of doing it. You move with a little more intention, with a little more attentiveness when you have a camera in your hand--or at least I do. And I think that that facilitates  a dialogue with the world, and it also gives you an excuse to engage the world and then you have a responsibility, if that's your chosen way, to then share those images. I'm very much into that.

CS: You're involved with something called "Street Studio," what is that?

CE: Well, the "Street Studio" is essentially what the Watchmen portraits book is--it's a way of engaging a place through its faces, to strip out the landscape and explore the peoplescape. If I find myself in any place for more than a day or two, I'll try to figure out a way to spend some time on the street photographing random passersby as a way to really know a place very differently than visiting landmarks.

CS: In looking at the photographs in the book, it gives the reader time to contemplate other aspects of the people in the story.

CE: Yeah, that would be an ideal, because it's that kind of return. Socially, we're not allowed to stare; it's frowned upon. In the Street Studio mode you don't just get to stare, you get to tap them on the shoulder.

CS: Do you shoot in black and white when you do that?

CE: It is generally how I go. I've explored color but I find it distracting. Part of that is because color is powerful, but often powerful in a more negative sense; it's distracting, it doesn't have a cohesive quality as you start to amass a collection. These are very straight, un-retouched documents. Also, because they're black and white, they tap into a kind of dream memory. It immediately also feels like an artistic interpretation.

CS: Two of the images that jumped out of the book were the images involving the swastika.

CE: Anybody with a modicum of progressive thinking responds to the swastika with a kind of repulsion. A lot of those were prisoners--and they had some amazing casting going on there--and then of course there's Captain X, which is more formal with the gas mask and stuff. It also has to do with the way black and white mixes fantasy and reality. Those two are kind of in that space. These are actors playing prisoners. They're not real Nazis, but for a moment you can be there in that space.

CS: One of my favorites is the Billy Crudup picture with the green screen dots all over his face because it's got everything going on; it's the actor with the artifice in this hyper realistic context.

CE: That's Billy Crudup playing Dr. Manhattan. We've stripped away the computer graphics and it still has importance as a document for Watchmen fans. Also, it's such a bizarre photo. It's the closest thing to Avedon's Bee Keeper photo that I think I have.

CS: There's a lot of campy stuff that goes on in the movie, and I think with your photos you've taken the camp element away.

CE: Yeah, I think that's it. For some camp helps them engage in a character. When you take it away you get to focus on other things that I think are often lost or taken for granted. Just as I've privileged super heroes, I think I've maybe equally privileged what I'm calling the unsung heroes--the extras, the crew--folks who are equally valuable.

CS: How long were you on the set to take all of these photos?

CE: I was there from three weeks prior to shooting, and then all 106 days of actual shooting. I made about 45,000 photographs.

CS: What was your editorial process like for putting together the book?

CE: The editing was very gradual because I didn't make all those pictures in one day. I would shoot a dozen a day or so--very quickly three or four would sort of rise to the top. I have a work flow that allows me to rank images, so when it came time to do the book, the entire thing came together in a weekend--from final edit to layout. Layout took about 15-minutes on Zack's floor.

CS: Has there been any kind of interest in any kind of gallery or museum exhibit?

CE: By me there is (laughs). Let's get this thing on a world tour baby! (laughs).

CS: If you did a show, would the images be the same size that they are in the book?

CE: They could go bigger. It's all up to the computer algorithms. It would be wise to do so if you're really going to hold it up in a gallery, but then there are so many of them that it might be fun just to have them the book size. But I think you'd have to go twice as large. That close-up of Mothman is so neat. It's part of the selective focus. The photo of the original Night Owl close-up. If you lift up the dust jacket of the book--I really love that they made that the cover.

CS: Yeah, for me anyway, it really brings out the integrity of the character. You see this character who's subjectively a real person who has decided to spend his time doing this.

CE: There you are filtering it through the Watchmen reality. And I really like that. Then you'll flip to Matthew Goode--he's faking it, it's an actor--I really love that. That's a black and white province. If they were all in color, they'd all just start to feel like Rolling Stone covers.

On some level I was the only journalist that was there [on the set of Watchmen] everyday. While I was a publicity shill, I was getting paid. It's not pure journalism. My approach as a photographer is very much that of a documentarian aside from the portraits.

CS: What kind of camera were you shooting on?

CE: I was shooting a Nikon D-200, nothing crazy or too fancy--shooting raw. All the portraits are made with 50mm 1.4 lens. I shot in front of a 4x8 piece of foam core I'd pull off the grip truck. I'd throw the flag over their heads to keep the uplight from overwhelming. I shot everything in natural light. With a few exceptions during some of the night shoots when I had some friends in the electric department who hooked me up with the biggest bounces they could muster to emulate daylight.

CS: Have you had any feedback from the actors about their photos?

CE: Carla Gugino and Jackie [Earle Haley] both said it's their favorite take-away from the movie. For this art book to be a favorite of theirs is not just rewarding, it's also a testament to Watchmen. How many films could support an art book? You could do a Watchmen portraits drinking game. Every time you spot one of the folks from the book, you've gotta take a drink.

CS: So what else are you working on Clay?

CE: Well, I'm doing a little advertising work to pay the bills. There are a couple of Zack Snyder projects on the horizon that I'll more likely be attached to. I'm giving a talk at the Apple Store in Soho on Friday, March 20 at 7pm.

I also made a Night Owl coffee company. I got inspired on a photo assignment to start this coffee company. It's super high-quality coffee, completely organic. There's a scene in the graphic novel where Night Owl and Laurie have coffee, and I thought wouldn't it be fun to sort of spin off and make a real coffee. I thought, what coffee would they serve in the Owl Ship? "Night Owl" is a great name for a coffee--now we have this limited edition collector's item can for the geeks, but for the rest of us who just like good coffee it's some of the best coffee in the world--single origin Peruvian. People can get it at organiccoffee.com. If you use the checkout code of "watchmen" you get a dollar off. http://www.organiccoffee.com/Nite-Owl-Dark-Roast/M/B001O2KSZA.htm

Breaking the Mold: Dev Patel Spills His Guts On "Slumdog Millionaire"

By Cole Smithey

Director Danny Boyle has made a cross-cultural cinematic milestone that plays with the edgy energy of "Trainspotting," albeit with considerable influence from its vibrant Mumbai (formerly Bombay) locations and talented cast. Based on a novel by Vikas Swarup, screenwriter Simon Beaufoy's terse script pedals between the set of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," a hugely popular Indian television game show, and the past life of 18-year-old "slumdog" orphan Jamal Malik (played to perfection by newcomer Dev Patel) as it informs his correct answers to multiple choice questions that have won him 10 million rupees so far. On the eve of Jamal's return to the show, where he will answer one last question that could double his winnings, the show's suspicious host Prem (Anil Kapoor) sends the boy to be interrogated by a local police inspector (Irrfan Khan - "The Namesake") to discover if and how the uneducated boy cheated. Flashbacks reveal Jamal's troubled childhood that saw his mother brutally murdered during a random attack against Muslims inside their impoverished ghetto. The vastly different trajectory of Jamal and his criminal brother Salim finds uncomfortable unity in the boys' mutual attraction for a girl named Latika.

I had the unique pleasure of interviewing the spirited Dev Patel in the Midtown Manhattan offices of Fox, where Dev's excitement at visiting New York for the first time was infectious to say the least. His guileless attitude and passion supports his impressive feature film debut. Dev Patel is the hottest newcomer of the year, and well on his way to an illustrious and varied acting career.

CS: How did you get the role of Jamal Malik?

DP: My mum saw an advert in the paper. It said, "New teen drama--no acting experience necessary." I was doing my GCSE exams at the time, and I'd always wanted to be an actor, but it's one of those things that you think you can never get into it. She took me down there and there was all these drama students doing their warm-ups outside and there was this long que. I'd just done my thing, and everyone started smiling and I got it within the second audition. From there, the casting director Gayle Stephens saw me for "Slumdog" and that was a much more grueling auditioning process. I went for a screen-test, and five or six auditions.

CS: You live in London, but what's your background?

DP: My parents are actually born in Nairobi, Kenya and then they moved to London at a young age. But my heritage is in India--so they call us British Asian because I was born and bred in London.

CS: What's it like being a leading actor in your feature film debut?

DP: Man, being plucked from a really minor character in a teen [television] show where he's not the most in-depth character in the world--to being put in the center of Mumbai with Danny Boyle and his great film crew--it kept on daunting on me. I had this recurring nightmare where if I'm bad the film's going to be bad. There was a lot of pressure, but it really made me grow up. I tell everyone that I matured five years in the space of five months being in India. It's a place where you can actually reflect. I had some time to reflect, and I did. I had this pressure on my shoulders that I've never had before but saying that, I'd never been passionate about anything in my life like I did in this film. I was so eager to impress Danny and the crew who had worked on wicked films. I was like I'm this kid from "Skins," I'm not going to mess up. I'm going to show people what I can really do.

CS: What was it like working with such well-respected actors as Anil Kapoor and Irfan Khan?

DP: Walking around with Anil is something else man. I didn't see that much of him. He was in his trailer for most of the time. On set, both Irfan and Anil have got this affinity with the camera. They've done so many films. It's great to watch them. I was in awe most of the time. Going into the scenes with them, they really set the atmosphere. I was like, "Yeah, I've got bring my A-game to this."

While sitting in the police station after my interrogation, and we're doing all those scenes where I'm handcuffed to the chair, Irrfan Khan is one of those guys who really sets the scene. He's barely not even acting when you look at him. It's all in the eyes. It's the subtlety that makes the performance. When you watch it on the screen, the smallest movements make such a big difference. I learned from that, because in "Skins" I wasn't subtle. That wasn't my thing. But I really learned that on this set.

I was still finding my confidence in front of the camera during "Skins." The most experience I'd had prior to that was doing school plays in front of my parents. There is an art to pitching your performance to the camera. When you've got a wide shot you can be louder, when you've got a small shot you've got to tone it down a bit. And I learned that on the set of "Slumdog Millionaire." I really learned how to do it.   

CS: Had you watched many of Danny Boyle's movies before you auditioned for him?

DP: Of course. I was born and bred in London so Danny Boyle is big. I watched "Trainspotting" guerilla, sneaking out with my friends. It was the thing to watch at sleepovers and stuff. "Let's watch "28 Days Later" and get really scared shitless." I'm bad with horror movies and I decided to watch it again at 17 before I worked with Danny. I bought loads of DVDs of his films to watch the directors cut and all that. He's a big influential director all around the world, and it was a pleasure to work with him. I remember from my second audition I was sitting there with my mum and there was a good looking guy with his girlfriend. Then Danny opened the door and said, "Dev you're next." He has this aura about him. When I first met him and we'd done the first audition he was talking to me about the scene with so much passion it was almost eccentric. I was like, "This guy's a bit kooky actually." He was explaining this love scene to me, and he was doing this thing with his mouth and he was really feeling it and I could see him sweat and his eyes were welling up when he was talking. I'd never witnessed that before, and then being on set with him, you could call it eccentricity or you could call it passion. He's read the script and he knows it like the back of his hand and he's just so passionate about that it rubs off on you which really helps.

CS: How did you come to acting initially?

DP: I'm really energetic as you can see now I can't sit still. I was a classroom joker and my teachers were just having trouble keeping me entertained. I wasn't listening so my mum needed to focus my energy so she tried musical instruments--it didn't work. Then I got into martial arts and I'd done karate for a bit, then I'd done Tai Kwon Do and I've been doing that eight years. I found that was brilliant. I could express myself and I learned discipline. Then teachers were telling me, " You know you should try out for the school play because you're really funny and there's no lack of confidence." And I did. I went for this school play. I was 10-years-old and it was the big end-of-year production. It was Twelfth Night and there was a standing ovation afterwards and everyone came up to me and mum afterwards. "What acting school does he go to? He's great." And my mum's like, "No, no, no, he doesn't [go to acting school]. This is what he does." I won a best-actor award for that performance and that was the day I knew I want to do this. I want to be an actor. And then you don't pursue it because you don't know how to and then luckily, thanks to my mom pushing me, I stumbled upon it. 

CS: What are some actors that inspire you?

DP: As a kid I used to stay up well past my bedtime watching "Enter the Dragon." So at first I was like, "Yeah, I wanna be that Bruce Lee. I'm going to be an action hero. And then, getting older, I went through this phase about Jim Carrey. He's such an over-the-top guy, the way he acts, but then you still manage to empathize with his characters. It's crazy because they're so un-naturalistic sometimes but he's amazing. Now I'm Leonardo DiCaprio's biggest fan. I love his films and the way he acts and the intensity about his performance. I'm a big fan of Will Smith as well because I met him in Lester Square. I was walking to meet some friends and it was the premiere of "Hancock" and I remember I needed to go to the toilet and I was like, "God no I'm going to meet Will Smith." So I had to hold it for like three hours just to shake his hand. I was so star-struck. I just like his personality and the way he comes across in interviews. He's cool.

CS: Your character plays against the intimidation of the game show host and the police interrogator. Did you know going into to those scenes how much you would have to play against those strong personalities that were really out to get you?

DP: I did know. Obviously Danny was always there. I was immersed in Mumbai--in the people and the atmosphere and the culture.

On "Skins" if I didn't agree with someone or something, I'd still do it because I was new and nervous. But in this film it was the first time I felt like I could talk and improvise on a character. It was like I was going to war in that game show. Watching the little kids with their big eyes, I knew that I was going to play it subtle and I was going to really use my eyes to generate this emotion and these feelings. I wanted there to be a contrast because I wanted my character to the be total opposite to the host of the show. From the way he's dressed to everything, Prem Kamar is out there and massive. I wanted to defeat him with subtlety. I was a soft-spoken kid who goes on to the game show. My character goes through all this shit to find this girl. He gets made a fool of on national TV. He gets interrogated and tortured by these officers. It's so endearing. He's a great character to play to play.

Chuck Palahnuik On "Choke"

By Cole Smithey

In adapting Chuck Palahnuik's novel of sexual addiction, con artistry, and subjugated maturity screenwriter/director/actor Clark Gregg creates a fantastical brand of satire that is engaging as it is diabolically ribald. If the film never gets around to paying off on its absurdist themes of debauchery and search for identity, it at least points in a direction of public liberation that is at direct odds with the outrageous level of surveillance Americans are subjected to. Sam Rockwell is positively devilish as medical school dropout Victor Mancini who works a day job at a Williamsburg-styled colonial theme park where the staff is made to speak only olde English to one another. At night, Victor chokes on his food in fancy restaurants in order to be Heimliched by rich patrons he then bilks in order to pay for his dementia-suffering mother Ida (well played by Angelica Huston) to stay in an expensive private care facility. "Choke" is the most assertively anti-mainstream film of the year, and to that end it succeeds as a positive form of cinematic/social rebellion.

I met Chuck Palahnuik at the 20^th Century Fox publicity offices in Midtown Manhattan where he charmed everyone in the room with his soft-spoken yet effusive demeanor.

Cole Smithey: You asked screenwriter/director Clark Gregg not to stick to the book when adapting it. That seems like an unconventional way to go.

Chuck Palahnuik: Yeah, I said, "I know the book, I’ve read the book." I always really curious to see how people interpret things. I know my version, and I’m kind of bored with my version so I want to see their version. Also, I didn’t know it at the time, but Clark’s father is a minister--so he had a body of information that allowed him to write a speech, which I think is the most important part of the movie, and is not in the book. So he was able to bring things to the movie that I had no inkling of.

CS: What was your reaction when you saw how Clark handled the sex scenes?

CP: When I first started writing, there was no way I’d write a sex scene. That just seemed impossible. That’s why in "Fight Club" all the sex happens off-screen. It’s all just a noise on the other side of the wall or the ceiling. I just couldn’t bring to write in a scene like that. So one of the challenges with "Choke" was I wanted to write sex scenes until I was really comfortable just writing them in a very mechanical way.

So I thought he (Clark Gregg) handled it just perfectly—in a very mechanical, perfunctory way—cutting right to the physical moment and then cutting away from it.

CS: "Choke" is a mix of several genres. How do you view the genre it best fits?

CP: It’s interesting because when David Fincher was making "Fight Club," he said, "It’s a romance." And it really is. Almost everything I ever write is just a romance. And that needed to be sort of pointed up at the end of "Fight Club." The film has a very different ending than the book does. Now "Choke" has a much more romantic ending, which I think is important, otherwise you lose track of the fact that it is a romance.

There is a social contract in "Fight Club" and in "Choke" where the protagonist has deceived a whole bunch of people. In "Choke" it’s all of these people who think that they’ve saved his life, and really care about him because they’ve embraced him and they’ve been his saviors. In "Fight Club" it’s all of these people who are dying of various diseases, and they thought that Edward Norton was also dying so they allowed him really strong pent-up emotions. In both books, there’s a scene where the deceiver is brought back to these communities and is unmasked and is humiliated in front of those people that have been deceived, and the social contract is completed. In both movies that social scene is missing. It’s interesting, but it is of a pattern that the social contract is absent from the third act of both movies. People didn’t miss it in "Fight Club," so I think ultimately they won’t miss it in "Choke."

CS: Can you talk about your use of support groups like the 12-step sex addict group in "Choke."

CP: I’m always looking for context in which people tell stories. In "Fight Club" it’s these support groups for dying people, and then in "Choke" it’s 12-step recovery groups. In one novel it’s artists’ colonies, in another novel it’s a diary form that submariners’ wives typically keep so that when their husband comes back from serving on a submarine they have an accounting of their spouse’s time. So I’m always looking for, number one, a non-fiction context—because you can tell a more outrageous story if you use a non-fiction form. "Blair Witch Project," or even "Fargo," which had the "Based on true events" part at the beginning, lent a gravity to an otherwise outlandish story. "War of the Worlds" told as radio broadcasts—suddenly this Martian story becomes frighteningly real because it’s told in this non-fiction context.

Number two, looking for a place where people go specifically to tell stories. My theory is that church used to be that place. Instead of being a place where you went to look good, it was a place where you could risk going every week to look your worst. You could go church and you could describe your worst behavior, your worst self, and despite your worst behavior you would be forgiven and then redeemed and then accepted back into the community through communion. So you didn’t have to carry this burden your entire life. Once a week you went someplace you went someplace where you could really look terrible and be loved despite how terrible you were.

Nowadays church doesn’t seem to really serve that function. It’s more of yet another place you go to look good. I find that people willing to risk looking bad go to support groups, 12-step groups—those have really become the new church for us. Phone sex hotlines—that is people at their worst self, and they’re seeing it and they’re confessing it. And they’re bonding and they’re uniting with other people despite their worse selves. So a non-fiction sort of form for gravity, for credibility, but also finding a storytelling situation where people present the worst aspects of themselves.

CS: Did you visit a 12-step program to help you develop the book?

CP: I went to Sexaholics three times a week, and it was fascinating. It was absolutely the most incredible…because it’s not just people telling really outrageous stories that are completely in opposition to how they present themselves. The most boring ordinary person you’d ever want to meet, suddenly opens their mouth and describes the completely outlandish secret life. But also, they’ve really become performers and so they know how to craft and present their stories to get the strongest reaction possible. It’s good for your writing as well as for your content.

CS: Were any of the scenes in the movie derived from a specific story you heard?

CP: I didn’t use anybody’s story. I used the context and the structure of the situation. People were so, so desperate to tell their story and begin to digest their experience—like turning it into a story—that after the fist few weeks I could go with a pad and pencil and take notes. People didn’t seem at all bothered by that.

CS: Did you ever have to tell any stories?

CP: Oh my God…people were so desperate. No. We were lucky if we made it half way around a room. There was a two-minute rule and nobody ever told a story in less than 20 minutes.