of Warner Brothers studios. He looked through files of continuity stills.
These are documents made of sets between takes to record the position
of propsandlighting.Inthe 1920 sand’ 30 stheyweretechnicallyexacting
images,shotonlarge-formatcamerasbyhighlyskilledtechnicians.Divola
foundthemfiledbyfilmtitle,buthewasstruckbytheirgenericrepetition
(evenbythe 1920 sproductionwasformulaic).Heretrievedandreorganized
severaldozenbytype,exhibitingthemasgridsofHallways,Mirrorsand
Evidence of Aggression.^14 Thelastgrouprecordsthescatteredremnantsof
pretendfightsandfakerage.Rescuedandhunginthegallery,theysuggest
forensicevidence,butareclearlycaughtbetweencooldocumentationand
theatricalartifice.Withperfectlighting,perfectprintingandperfectdetail
inperfectfocus,thesheerexcessofvisualinformationhastheperverse
effectofmakingthemlookunreal.^15 Today,veryfewimagesshotonsetare
madewiththislevelofattention.Polaroidssoonbecamethenormandnow
digitaldocumentationisstandard.WhilemakingthefilmPecker( 1998 ),the
comicstoryofanaïvesnapshotphotographerpropelledunwittinglytoart-
worldfame,director/artistJohnWaterstookaseriesofphotographsofthe
132 setfloors.Hit Your Markshowsthelegsofactorsastheystandbybitsof
114 Production still from Shezad Dawood’s
Make it Big(2002).
115 Hand-painted poster by Faiz Rahi
commissioned by Shezad Dawood (2002),
reworking the original poster design for
Michelangelo Antonioni’sBlow-up.
