Curated by Luca Ciuti
Founded in 2014 from an idea by Lawrence Sher, ASC – cinematographer of films such as Joker, The Hangover and Garden State – the ShotDeck platform has become one of the most valuable resources for professionals working in the audiovisual industry. Designed by filmmakers for filmmakers, it began as a simple tool for archiving and searching reference stills, and over the years has evolved into a true visual library that celebrates the art of cinema and the professionals who bring it to life. From the early stages of development to on-set work and post-production, ShotDeck presents itself as a creative ally for directors, cinematographers, production designers and visual artists looking to shape and deepen their vision. We discuss it with its founder.
Hi Larry I wanted to ask you about shot deck, do you realise you created something that is amazing, right?
Well, I mean, very useful.
At least.
I hope it’s exactly that. I hope it’s both amazing and useful. Useful. I hope it’s first. I mean, Shotdeck was and is a massive part of my life and it was born in the same way as anything. It was born simply because I wanted it to exist.
You needed it.
I needed it. And it was after many, many years of doing a version of Shotdeck, but on my computer. Every time I prep a movie, and this goes all the way back to my career, every single time. I would even get a script before I would even get the movie when I was just interviewing for it. Part of my process was trying to Dind reference materials that expressed the vision that I had for the movie. A lot of people do this. You do tear sheets from magazines. You look for art books, whatever it is. And I would have a bunch of art books. Sometimes I’d go to a great art book place in Los Angeles and I’d look for something that maybe struck my eye. But a big part of that process was also thinking about the language of movies. So I would rent dvd’s and I would take screen grabs of things that I felt were reflective of the look of the movie. And then once I got the job, then the process even went further where I really needed to now have conversations with the director, production designer, all the rest of the team to express the vision of the movie and express what the movie is, what it isn’t. And invariably, that was reference materials from screen grabs, because the language of film is what we discuss all the time. “Oh, remember that shot from this movie? It’s not really that, but I like that part of it. Oh, I like those blinds from that diner”, that kind of conversation. And then it was just like: “okay, I wish I could have each one of these screen grabs that I had on my computer key-worded in all these different ways”. And this went on for literally ten years, and then in 2015, so it’s been a while, I was like, if I don’t build this, I’m gonna just kick myself, because I have to at least figure out how to make my stills more of a searchable thing. And that’s when I hired a team of a designer and a coder to start building the architecture for it. And then it wasn’t until 2019 where it was in a place where I could invite people in to start using it. But the intent was, could I make this thing so scalable? And it’s still the intent. I mean, my dream is to a billion stills, right? That’s my dream. I even set that dream out. Like I said, when we start, I wanted to see if we can get to a billion stills only in so much as, like, could this basically be the visual library, the visual encyclopaedia of film? Could it just be the most ubiquitous searchable research tool in the history of filmmaking? And that’s still the intent, you know, and how can we expand it and give more tools to the people? So it’s been amazing. And, you know, like you guys with the organisation having two jobs. I have a job as a cinematographer, and I have a job helping to build Shotdeck and to make it grow. But I love it, and I love hearing from people that use it, and I love hearing that it’s useful, and I love hearing that it helps people get jobs.
I think the greatest idea you had about Shotdeck is not just having the library of stills, but the way you can look for them. You know, all the keywords, all the different specifics, because once used to be, “okay, let’s check, let’s Dind a picture from that movie”. Then you kind of find a picture, and you kind of try to remember a movie that was shot on a certain film stock or a certain camera, but then you would be limited by just a few options. Now you can say “Okay, I want some red. Let’s go”. Just an example, but it makes your life a lot easier and gives you a lot. What I like about it is that it gives you inspiration. You go in there and you don’t know exactly what you want. You might get out knowing what you want.
I love that. I mean, always say it’s for reference and research and education and inspiration. And that’s how I use it now, is for inspiration, because that’s exactly right. Like I used to say, “oh, I’m doing a prison movie. I want to look at, like, the prison scenes from Shawshank Redemption”. So you go and you try to find Shawshank Redemption. Great. So you Dind those shots. But then you’re like, “well, what other prison movies are there?”.
Yes
And so the beauty, of course, of how we built Shotdeck was that not only will you find Shawshank (Redemption), but you’ll find prison movies. And hopefully you’ll find a prison movie you’ve never even heard of. And now, because we’re adding so many shots, the thing for me, I go on Shotdeck whether it’s Tuesday when we drop new titles or just sometimes, I’ll just open “browse shots” and I’ll just search images and I’ll go, “that’s an interesting image”. I’ll put it into a deck of just things that catch my eye. I’m constantly building decks just to have a landing place for what is catching my eye. Composition, lighting, whatever it is, it’s got a little favourites folder or many, many folders of favourites. But the beauty of it is I’ll go, “what is this movie here? Oh, it’s a music video from this or it’s a commercial or it’s a tv show”. In the early days, there were 5000 shots, they were all added by me and I knew every shot. Now it’s like with a million and a half shots, there are more shots that I don’t know and that I discover and are inspired by and discover some brand new filmmaker or a new DP. So that part of it is also a dream for Shotdeck.
I know loads of directors using it too.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
It’s a useful tool for everybody.
I’ll tell you that. Gaming companies, visual effects companies, of course, designers. I mean, it’s really a tool for anyone who’s in the creative arts. But the fact that it’s inspiring and is a place for inspiration is has become something that I use on every single job ever, but I use it in a different way. Some people think it’s just for pitch decks. Because I’m building a pitch deck to get a job, or I’m building a pitch deck to get a commercial. I almost rarely build pitch decks. What I do use it for is a conversation starter. I’ll take every movie or every project I do, whether it’s a commercial, a movie, television, whatever it is, and I’ll start by breaking down every scene or location that’s in the movie, and I’ll create a special deck for each one. And then I just start filling it with images that I think might be applicable for a conversation. So the next time I have a conversation or a meeting with the team or production designer, you know, anybody on the team, including the director, when we talk about that set, I can open that up and go, well, what do we do? We like this. I like this. And the person is like, oh, yeah, I like that too. The director is like, I don’t like that. Oh, but I like that. And so we find a place to have a conversation, to get us faster to the point of what do we want this to look like. And often it’s to discover things we don’t want it to look like. But it’s a great conversation for that, too. So I always say it’s truly something you can use at every stage, even down to post production, because you might be saying, “what’s that cyan I’m actually looking for? Oh, here’s a good example of it”. Or to a visual effects artist, “that sky looks weird. Let’s go look at some skies, real skies, whatever sky”. Let’s just look up skies and go, “why does that visual effect sky look weird?” Let’s find a really good reference point for a good sky so your artists know what to paint to. Yeah, so brilliant.
Well done.
We’ll keep going. There’s so much work, trust me. But I’m not making a movie right now, I’m working on Shotdeck all the time, and we have a lot of stuff in the works. And we’re always trying to make it better.
Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.
Hey, real pleasure. Thank you.
