Jeffrey Katzenberg

Had an opportunity to shoot Jeffrey Katzenberg at Dreamworks a couple of weeks ago for Bloomberg Businessweek.  David Carthas and the rest of the photo department have been dong an awesome job with the re-designed magazine.  I find myself picking it up at newsstands when I'm passing through airports now as it's a great read.  I had a feeling that our meeting with Mr. Katzenberg was going to be intense and I was right.  We were fighting all kinds of logistical challenges with the location, trying to set up what was essentially a fairly intricate studio lighting scenario in a not ideal location and were getting closer and closer to our call time with the subject.  We made the last lighting tweak seconds before Jeffrey appeared exactly (to the minute) at the time that I was told he'd be ready.  He walked into the "studio" that we had built in an empty corner of the backlot (actually a large outdoor patio) and sat down right in the middle of the set.  It took a bit to connect with him and get him to not break into his stock "photo smile" but we talked about Malibu a bit and that loosened him up and then I got him actually laughing about a ridiculous idea for an animated movie and then things were looking up.  What I really was looking for, though, was a rather serious portrait.  This is one of my favorite.

Very shortly after I shot this frame Jeffrey said "ok, locked and loaded" and I knew what that meant.  I put the camera down, shook his hand and told him I'd see him at the beach, and he walked off the set.  Total elapsed time?  About 8 minutes.