On my archetypal day, we were shooting extracurricular a Broadway theatre, connected a artifact successful midtown that had been made to look similar a mid-century streetscape. The acceptable was organized and civilian but inactive hectic, with dozens of radical milling around: extras and adjunct directors, camera-crew members and accumulation assistants, hair-and-makeup artists and prop specialists, each moving successful concert, nether expanding unit to get the country portion it was inactive airy out. Standing successful a doorway, my bosom pounding, I was looking for the cue for my archetypal take—I’d look and locomotion down the thoroughfare toward Chalamet. As I waited, I noticed a bespectacled middle-aged antheral with a camera astir his cervix lasting a mates of feet distant from me. Catching my eye, helium wordlessly lifted the camera toward maine and raised his eyebrows slightly, arsenic if to inquire if I agreed to person my representation taken. Once I nodded, helium clicked the shutter a azygous clip and past bowed his caput successful thanks. I didn’t cognize the man, and the speech was brief, but its comparative hush—especially amid the surrounding scrum—stayed with me.
Later, I learned that the antheral was Atsushi Nishijima, known arsenic Jima—an on-set stills lensman who successful the past decennary and a fractional has worked with immoderate of our era’s astir important filmmakers, among them Safdie, Yorgos Lanthimos, Ava DuVernay, and Noah Baumbach. Born successful Japan successful 1977, successful the municipality of Shizuoka, astir an hr extracurricular Tokyo, Jima moved to the States to be college. (“Me and my person visited his uncle who lived successful the D.C. country erstwhile I was fifteen, for outpouring break,” helium told me, erstwhile we spoke by telephone recently. “And I was, like, Wow, America! Everything was truthful big! I thought, I privation to travel here.”) His involvement successful photography was archetypal piqued erstwhile helium took an undergraduate people successful black-and-white darkroom printing, and aft helium graduated helium began to marque his way—“slowly, slowly”—as a nonrecreational successful New York. He fell into his existent enactment of enactment astir accidentally, successful the aboriginal two-thousands, aft moving connected a task with Derek Cianfrance, who was making a TV amusement for Nike and needed immoderate inactive images to usage successful the bid itself. This led to Jima’s archetypal occupation connected a large movie set, shooting stills for Cianfrance’s 2012 drama, “The Place Beyond the Pines,” starring Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes, and Bradley Cooper. “On the archetypal time of the shoot, Derek took maine to a country and determination was Ryan Gosling, and helium said, ‘Here, you guys instrumentality pictures,’ ” helium told me. “That was my archetypal clip interacting with a large star.”
The information that stills photographers often find themselves shooting precise celebrated subjects astatine what mightiness beryllium sensitive, stressful moments connected acceptable is lone 1 crushed that the occupation requires a discreet, diplomatic presence. There is besides the substance of the role’s fundamentally secondary position. The stills lensman indispensable hover unobtrusively connected the sidelines of moviemaking, taking pictures that volition beryllium utilized to beforehand a film. And yet what emerges from this elemental minorness is an creation signifier with its ain significance. “I’m documenting filmmaking connected set, and yet the photographs tin go a benignant of history,” Jima said. “I consciousness that’s my job.”
To look astatine the images themselves is to spot what are, by definition, hybrid moments. There are the performers, who are dressed successful the garb of their characters, and positioned successful the situation successful which those characters determination onscreen. But determination is also, astir always, the extracurricular frame, which clarifies the artifice of filmmaking, and the labour that goes into it. And, though the pictures don’t replicate the movie itself, their tenor nevertheless ends up reflecting that of the acceptable they were taken on. The manager whom Jima has collaborated with astir often is Yorgos Lanthimos—Jima has changeable the stills for each Lanthimos movie since “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” from 2017—and successful the pictures presented successful this portfolio, from the shooting of the 2025 sci-fi drama “Bugonia,” Lanthimos’s vocabulary arsenic a filmmaker is intelligibly refracted done Jima’s lens.
In “Bugonia,” 2 conspiracy-minded kidnappers fishy a pharma C.E.O., played by Emma Stone, of being an alien sent to Earth connected a ngo of destruction. Much similar the movie itself, the images captured by Jima connected acceptable are spare and enigmatic. In one, we spot Stone, whose caput is shaved, lying connected a cot, presumably betwixt takes, portion her look is being misted by a constitution artist, the spray forming a mysterious puff of fog; successful another, Stone, dressed successful a tidy skirt suit, with her flowing reddish hairsbreadth inactive intact, stands connected a manicured bright-green lawn, facing a cameraman and a roar relation and their respective implements, portion a hulking Lanthimos checks retired her likeness connected the camera’s viewfinder. These images are perplexing, thrilling—visual nuts to crack. The armature astir the scenes—cameras and mikes and props, on with the radical who run and negociate them—adds to the austere, theatrical atmosphere. “Yorgos’s movie sets are similar the Acropolis successful Athens, but without tourists,” Jima told me.
If “Bugonia” comes crossed successful Jima’s images arsenic an otherworldly puzzle, his pictures of “Marty Supreme” suggest thing rather the opposite. “The acceptable was engaged chaos,” Jima said, laughing. “It was sometimes loud, speedy. It’s New York filmmaking.” His photographs grounds this municipality tumult: a teeming assemblage of crewmembers preparing a changeable connected a thoroughfare successful the theatre territory portion Chalamet and Safdie basal gravely astatine the frame’s forefront, the erstwhile successful a acheronian play suit, the second successful a scruffy denim shirt, jeans, and a shot cap; oregon Safdie raising a ample camera lens aloft, his eyes wide and his teeth bared successful a rictus grin; oregon Bellizzi, the costume designer, tending to the covering of a kid other connected a Lower East Side street, the representation an unusual premix of modern and humanities elements; oregon Abel Ferrara, a filmmaker who plays a transgression successful the movie, laughing arsenic helium reclines connected a stained coverlet betwixt takes, gripping a script, his limb fake-bleeding from an mishap that befalls him onscreen. Jima’s images picture a beat-taking—the interstitial moments that hap successful the people of filmmaking. “On the archetypal time of ‘Poor Things’ ”—a Lanthimos movie from 2023—“I was rushing around, trying to instrumentality pictures,” helium told me. “And Yorgos said, ‘Slow down and beryllium human.’ ”
On my 2nd time connected the “Marty Supreme” set, I was seated connected a seat wrong a theatre wherever Kay rehearses her play. I was waiting for my cue to measurement guardant and airy Paltrow’s cigarette, bring her a seat and a solid of water, and soothe her with murmured, obsequious reassurances. I was, erstwhile again, a spot sick with nerves. Then I saw Jima approaching. He raised his eyebrows and held up his camera. Was I acceptable to person my representation taken? I was. When I look astatine that photograph now, I spot my character, but I besides spot myself: 2 anxious women acceptable to execute the relation they’ve committed to. Even successful the hall-of-mirrors satellite of a movie set, Jima managed to seizure thing real.
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