Few of us have the patience to watch the credits scroll to the end after watching a movie or TV show. However, if we do, we will notice just how many people are involved in bringing that story to life. And many have some obscure-sounding job titles. From gaffers to best boys, it really is a different world from still photography.
But did you know that all movie and TV productions have a stills photographer working on set, capturing production images for publicity? DIYP chatted with production photographer Dennis P. Mong to find out more. Dennis has recently worked on shows such as Mayor of Kingstown for Paramount, amongst others.
L-R: B. Todd Johnston as Norseman, Michael Beach as Kareem, Richard Brake as Merle Callahan, and Lane Garrison as Carney in episode 6, season 3 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
DIYP: Can you explain the role of a production photographer and what the work involves?
Dennis: The primary function of the job, if you were to put it into just one short sentence, is to document the making of the production. You’re usually hired by the studio from the publicity department. The actual job title is Unit Still Photographer. So that means that you’re travelling with the production unit. The way I look at the job is that my job is to highlight what everybody else does. It’s closer to photojournalism than portraiture, even though you’re photographing people. You really don’t have the ability to direct your subject, so you’re reacting to what they’re doing.
It’s literally behind the scenes as part of the job. Sometimes, those are shots where you see an actor with the slate, and sometimes, a kind of publicity shot, looking into the camera. I also cover the scope of the production, like how much stuff we are using, and where it is located, what the set is like. Because the people at the studio or maybe in LA or New York don’t know what the show looks like. The story that we tell for publicity is not always the story that’s happening in the scene.
There are times when we do help to make the show. For example, maybe they need a driver’s license photo or a family portrait that appears on a mantle, and they bring in a child actor. Sometimes, those briefs are even harder because you’ve got five hours with this six-year-old, and you have to make photos that match the light. But most of the time it’s documenting the production.
L-R: Emma Laird as Iris and Yorick van Wageningen as Konstantin in episode 5, season 3 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount +
DIYP: Can you give us some background info about yourself and how you got started in this line of photography?
Dennis: I was a real estate agent in 1999. I would show people what their house looked like in the Multiple Listing Service, and then I would take nicer pictures of their house—and by nicer, I mean on a day when the sun was out! Or I’d open the windows, or I’d clear off the countertop. It was really, really basic, not even photography-related. I think I had a two-megapixel digital camera, and that’s what I did.
I moved to a different state, and then, when I met my wife, she loved taking pictures and wanted me to take pictures with her. So, I started to play around with cameras again. Then, I came upon Don Giannatti’s Project 52 Pro course. His course is practical, hands-on advice rather than academic. It was very helpful because you have to be a generalist on the film set because you don’t always know what you’re going to shoot.
Then, I became a public school teacher and ended up moving closer to my parents in the northeast. I happened to move next door to someone who worked in the film set construction department. And they were like, “Oh, they’re always looking for photographers.” But I had no idea about the journey and how hard it would be to get started and get going because this is not a thing that you fall into easily.
Taylor Handley as Kyle McLusky in season 3, episode 4 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+ Photo Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
DIYP: Can you describe your typical day on set?
Dennis: There really is no typical day; each time, it’s different. The day for me usually starts the night before. So there’s a lot of preparation. Most of the time, my kit is already on the truck, so it’s waiting there for me somewhere, and I typically come in at the shooting call or sometimes even later in the day. I’m not usually there first thing because I need an hour to set up, whereas the production has to travel somewhere most of the time. Most of the time, you’re somewhere different. You have to find where you’re going, and then it’s usually a short walk or a van ride to the actual set. It’s always a little bit of an adventure because you never really know where you’re going to be.
The call sheet will tell you location parameters and maybe safety concerns, and also what’s going to happen that day. Maybe there’s going to be gunfire, an explosion, or a car crash. So you have to be prepared for things like that. And then in addition, you have to be prepared for the weather, because no one is going to do that for you. You might end up shooting in the rain, so you have to be prepared for almost everything.
Season 2 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+ Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
The days can be really long. A couple of years ago, I did a show where we were on boats, literally in boats for 13 hours for two days. We only got off the boats for lunch and were on them until midnight each day. sometimes we don’t work every day of the production. You might come in for specific days when things are more interesting or more visually what they need.
I’ve done a couple of shows like that, a few shows, and you’re jetlagged constantly for six months, and you’re just like a zombie. You still have to perform, you still have to do all those things. And it becomes day in, day out, eight, nine, ten hours a day, going home, processing, renaming, uploading, and doing it over again the next day.
Tobi Bamtefa as Deverin ‘Bunny’ Washington in episode 1, season 3 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+ Photo Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
DIYP: What is the most challenging part of the job?
Dennis: Your job really is your job is to document the production, but the actual skill that you need is the ability to read a room. It’s not what people would think the job is like, it’s a lot less glamorous, for sure. It’s one of those jobs where you probably should take a shower both in the morning and at night because it’s hard work!
When the rolling actually starts, there are a relatively small number of people in the room. You’re usually only a few feet from the principal actors. It can be as few as three people plus the actor and myself. And yet, I am probably the least important person on set, and I have to stay out of everyone’s way, including the cine cameras.
You have to make do with what you have in front of you. You can never approach a day going, there’s nothing to shoot. It’s like going to a wedding and being uninspired and saying, “I didn’t like the bride’s dress”! You have to be fascinated with everything that’s there, and you have to be interested and excited to show somebody else what’s in front of you. I think that’s the key to making it more fun and interesting because it’s easy to go, the light’s not set up for me, or there’s a light stand in the way. So you have to think: Well, you know what? Maybe I can shoot over here instead.
You have to make these decisions very quickly, and if you blink, you miss it. Sometimes you only get one chance, if it’s a difficult action sequence with explosions, for example.
Jeremy Renner as Mike McLusky in episode 3, season 3 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+ Photo Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
DIYP: What technical considerations are there in doing this job?
Dennis: You can sit near the big cameras and try to understand what they do. But you definitely have to frame it wider, you know, for context. So, it really is photography, not cinematography. When you are working with cinematography lighting, it’s gorgeous, but it’s not ideal for photography. I’m always pushing the ISO.
You have to stay out of everybody’s way and not slow things down because that can be expensive. These are big-budget productions. That can be difficult if they are shooting with wide cinematic lenses, and often, the sound guy is taking up prime real estate with a boom mic, but he (or she) always gets priority.
Some days, you’ll have five cameras plus drones, GoPros, and press cams everywhere, and staying out of someone’s frame is really, really tricky. The biggest difference between the still person on set and everybody else is that we’re not contributing to the making of the show; we are helping to sell the show.
You really want context, and, the more shallow or the deeper you can shoot, the better. You want everything behind the people to be visible and, you don’t want to isolate too much. You definitely want context and you definitely don’t want to have, to be kind of having out lensed yourself and be too tight or too long. It’s not like you have an assistant that you can snap your fingers and go, “Get me a different lens.” You can carry two cameras, but, you know, that becomes heavy after ten hours.
L-R: Keir O’Donnell as Macon and Jeremy Renner as Mike McLusky in season 3, episode 4 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+ Photo Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
I shoot 100% hand-held. There’s not even space for a monopod, and you don’t have time to fiddle with that anyway.
The lighting used to be really bright, in film days. Now, these cameras from ARRI, Sony, and Red can almost see in the dark. The native ISOs on some of those cameras are around 5000, it’s crazy. Whereas our camera’s mirrorless native might be 50 or 100. If you’re doing night shoots and somebody wants some bokeh behind the big camera, they’re going to be at T14, maybe, and you’re going to be shooting at 10,000 ISO at f/2, 1/60 of a second.
The noise can be corrected later on, but you want to deliver an image that doesn’t need a lot of work because nobody has time to fix it. And a lot of the time, there just literally isn’t time.
These big cinema cameras have huge sensors, for one thing, and so their depth of field is different. Their colour is different. You know, there might be somebody in a tent doing live colour, so they might be using a white balance that is specifically for their colour grade while we’re shooting.
So I try to stay near the white balance, but sometimes it doesn’t quite work. And it’s like, you figure it out, no one’s going to tell you.
What part do you love the most about it? Can you walk us through one of your shots?
Dennis: This particular shot is from season two of Mayor of Kingstown, which was filmed in Pittsburgh. I love it for a lot of reasons. We were on this very sketchy rooftop right here. The big cameras were on a dolly track, and I was at the end of the track. They were setting up the shot over his shoulder and straight onto him. I noticed these power lines in the background, which are usually a pain in the neck, but I figured I would use them.
These two characters—on the left is sort of the bad guy and Renner (on the right) is the antihero—are very connected. So, I connected them in the photo with the power lines. He’s the power broker, so I put electricity near his head. There’s also a hint that this show deals with the American prison system, so I wanted to make sure to get the flag in there.
There’s also an old roller coaster. It was just kind of one of those things where everything that I wanted came together just perfectly. I remember the day, it was very hot, like 92F and very humid.
I love getting shots that are just perfect and capturing this tense moment between these two characters with all the elements of the background falling into place. That’s the most fun you can have.
Jeremy Renner as Mike McLusky in episode 2, season 3 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+ Photo Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount +
DIYP: Can you tell us about the craziest things you’ve shot on set?
Dennis: Some of the stunts that you see, you know they’re doing them, but the first couple of times, you’re still not prepared. For example, you see somebody get pushed off of the roof. Logically, you know it’s a stunt, but you’re still seeing someone getting pushed off of the roof. How do you react to that? Logically, you know it’s not real, but you just wait for them to come back up, and you do it again. But it’s still kind of weird to see someone getting pushed off a roof, so you have to be prepared for it.
Season 2 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+ Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
I did have to photograph a boat exploding once on a show. I had one chance to capture it because they weren’t going to repeat it with another boat! It looked like a nuclear bomb went off, like a mushroom cloud. It wasn’t close to us and it wasn’t noisy, it was just fire. But it was enormous. And at that point, I hadn’t really shot a lot of explosions, I mean how often do you shoot fireballs at night? How do you practice that?
I had no idea how bright it was going to be, and it was insanely bright. I went from 1/50 to 1/1250 in seconds. I had to just drag the shutter because it was so bright.
Jeremy Renner as Mike McLusky and Taylor Handley as Kyle McLusky in episode 1, season 3 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
DIYP: What equipment do you always take with you on set?
Dennis: I shoot Sony. The last show I shot was on an A1, which has massive file sizes. Normally, I would shoot with an A9 ii. I shot Fuji for a couple of years but then changed to Sony. The sensors on the Sony cameras have a readout speed that is fast enough to overcome the challenges of lighting with continuous multiple light sources. You avoid the banding effect that can be there when using the electronic shutter, which is usually essential on set.
The lens I’m using a lot right now is the Tamron 35-150mm zoom. You don’t really get to pick where you where you can stand, so those big zooms are really helpful. Fast primes are not so helpful because you don’t want such a narrow depth of field. I often have a 24-70mm with me, but I almost never go wider than 35mm because I’m not that close to the actors usually.
Jeremy Renner as Mike McLusky in episode 6, season 3 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
DIYP: How do you manage your workflow and image processing?
Dennis: I get the images straight out of the camera and send them off; I don’t even have time to cull them down. Someone else retouches them from the publicity department.
The workflow is probably the most important part of this job. It’s day in and day out, and you’re tired. If you don’t have a really solid step-by-step process, you’re going to forget something. Something’s going to get overlooked like leaving the memory card at home or something. So I have these rituals of where I put things for the next day, what I bring home, what I don’t bring home, it’s a whole thing.
D Smoke as Raphael in episode 7, season 3 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
DIYP: What would you recommend to someone who wants to become a production photographer?
Dennis: Don’t be like a paparazzi. Find your spot, stick there, and don’t try to move around. Don’t try to move from one side of the camera to the other. If you’re moving around, it can be distracting for the actors. I wear a black shirt so I don’t reflect light. You don’t want to cast colour onto an actor.
Season 2 of Mayor of Kingstown streaming on Paramount+ Credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
You have to have a portfolio. They’re looking to see that your portfolio looks like the end result of what they want. So, how do you build a portfolio? There are a lot of indie films out there, a lot of student, project stuff. I went to New York City, and I worked for free on a graduate-level thesis film for 4 or 5 months. I was happy to be there, I begged them to do it. If you do stuff in New York, there are recognizable actors who will show up, and they’ll do these student films. It wasn’t easy to be away from my family for that long.
Living near a production hub is a big part of it, too. There are several production sites in the US like Pittsburgh or Atlanta, New Orleans and obviously LA.
Finally, you have to be a reliable photographer. These are 40 or $50 million projects, why would they hire you? These are big productions. I mean, the production costs this much, but they’re going to spend almost that much again on marketing a show. They need the work that they need, and they know what they want. And they expect you to know what they want and then they expect you to deliver it, no excuses.
You can see more of Dennis’ work on his website.
All images courtesy of Paramount and published with permission.
