The Stories Behind the Photos
Norman Jewison, September 1999
The 1999 Toronto International Film Festival was my second one as Photography Office Manager. Like the previous year, we had set up our office and portrait studio in a suite at the Park Plaza Hotel, where most of the festival press conferences took place. The festival is always a 10 day event, and about half way through, staff, volunteers, invited guests, movie goers, everyone starts to feel burned out as nights of excess start to catch up with people.
During the festival, the department’s staff photographers would cover various premieres, parties and other festival related events, and in our suite, we’d photograph anywhere from 20-30 celebrities a day. That’s a lot of portrait sittings- most of them only lasting around 15 minutes. One afternoon I’d booked Norman Jewison for the following morning, and my boss Sam, who shot most of the studio portraits, asked me if I’d like to do the shoot, as he had an event to cover that evening, and would probably have a late night. I said sure.
Although he might not be a household name, Norman Jewison is one of the most respected people in both Canadian cinema and Hollywood. His body of work is impressive and spans six decades. His latest film at the time was The Hurricane, starring Denzel Washington. Most of it was filmed in Toronto the previous winter, and I’d actually worked on it for a day that January, on a bitterly cold -20C day inside an unheated warehouse where they shot the boxing scenes. But I wasn’t working as a photographer that day. I was an extra.
There were hundreds of extras on set, many of them elderly people, most of them dressed in 1960s era costume. There were problems with the generators. We lost all electricity for a time. The food wasn’t very good. Waiting in the line-up for the portable toilets outside was awful. Morale was terrible. It was a long, uncomfortable day of shooting, and frankly, I was happy when it was over.
A true professional, Mr. Jewison showed up right on time for his portrait sitting. It was just me and him. I made some coffee and we chatted for a moment and got down to business. He was quite amiable and very cooperative. I shot a roll of color and a roll of black and white.
When we were finished, I thanked him, wished him luck with the new film, and then, curious as to how he’d react, out of the blue I said, “It sure was cold inside that warehouse in January, wasn’t it Mr. Jewison?”
Without skipping a beat, he replied, “It sure was Bob. It sure was.”