PHOTOBOOTHS IN MOVIES & TV

Clockwatchers

Jill Sprecher (US, 1997, 96 min.)

Toni Collette stars as Iris in Jill Sprecher's ode to the life of a temp employee. Along with Margaret (Parker Posey), Paula (Lisa Kudrow), and Jane (Alanna Ubach), Iris works in the lifeless, overbearing Globat Credit office, where her bosses worry about stolen office supplies and no one seems to remember anyone's name. The film conveys a wonderful sense of office ennui and the dead life of a cubicle farm; Bob Balaban, Jamie Kennedy, and David James Elliott ("JAG"!) round out an interesting cast.

As the shy Iris becomes friends with the more established temps, they start socializing outside the office, and in one scene, they visit a street-side photobooth. They all cram in, and in quick succession, the photo strip comes out and we see a single frame in Iris's hand. She's not smiling and glamourous like her new friends, and in fact looks a little uncomfortable, but at least she's a part of their group. The strip is an obvious manufacture of the prop department, as the photos have the wrong look and the paper is too wide and too white.

Like clockwork, the photobooth photo makes an appearance later on in the film, with Iris's single photo sitting framed on her desk as she sits in contemplation.

If I'm not mistaken, this may well be the exact same booth used in The Net, turned around so the other side faces out. It seems likely that production companies would rent a booth from the same vendor; we'll investigate.

Another photo from the same shoot that produced the fake booth shot is used (in horizontally flipped form) as the cover of the DVD.

Thanks to Mat for the tip on this film.

Contributed by Brian

A pedestrian passes by as the girls take their photo in a booth.
Paula (Kudrow) begins to step out as the photos finish.
The girls gather outside to wait for the photos to develop. Since it's Hollywood, they won't have to wait long.
Boom, they're done! Margaret (Posey) holds the faux strip for everyone to look at.
They giggle at how silly they look.
This scene is cut to give us the impression that this shot happens immediately, but where are the scissors? How did this shot get cut off from the rest? And why does Iris look so out of sorts?
Later in the film, Iris sits at her desk, the small photo framed in the multi-color frame.
As we get a close-up, we see that even though it's a fake photobooth photo, at least it's the same fake photobooth photo as we'd seen before, avoiding the typical continuity error.