Oscars 2018: Getty photographer Larry Busacca reveals his secrets from the red carpet, after parties
THE “limo drops” begin. Celebrities arrive and a photographer’s adrenaline starts pumping as the Oscars begin. This is how they catch A-listers in the moment.
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THE “limo drops” begin. Celebrities start arriving and it’s the moment a photographer’s adrenaline starts pumping as the Oscars get underway.
But it doesn’t stop there. There’s the annual Vanity Fair Party and the Elton John Party to cover, where photographers can be on their feet for 15 hours straight, carrying several cameras that weigh two to three kilograms each.
But for Larry Busacca, who has been covering the Academy Awards for the last 15 years, he just takes it in his stride and describes it as “just your average very, very long day”.
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Now, as Getty Images’ Senior Director of Entertainment Editorial, Busacca told News Corp Australia that there is an art to getting the right shot at the right time of every Hollywood star.
Fortunately for him, he’s had the extraordinary privilege of getting one of the most coveted spots on the Oscars red carpet for years.
He is now the “eye in the sky” for Getty’s team, but has a close relationship with many of Hollywood’s celebrities and their managers, who know him well. Others know him by sight, but trust him even though they don’t know him by name. Some, like Justin Timberlake, “pleasantly surprise” him by creeping up behind him as he’s working to catch up.
“Any of us (photographers) get into a true zone, you get into this silent space where it’s just movement in front of me, and you’re anticipating where a AAA star is about to be in a moment,” he said.
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Busacca did his first major walk through on-site on Friday, before the 90th Academy Awards begin at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
He’ll be overseeing Getty’s operation this time instead of being on the red carpet. But he says that one good thing about the high-octane Hollywood event is that “everybody in the industry is on their best behaviour”.
“It’s Superbowl of the entertainment industry. Nobody is being divas or being difficult, generally you don’t have problematic experiences with talent,” he said.
In his experience, one of the A-listers he loves to shoot is Red Sparrow star Jennifer Lawrence. She will be presenting the Best Actress award alongside Jodie Foster on Monday.
In one of the photographs Busacca took of her at the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, he recalls how she turned away from the crowd of photographers and looked into his camera lens.
“We don’t have a relationship, but I find her wonderfully quirky and adorably awkward,” he said.
“She was there on the carpet and she turned around and did the uncomfortable ‘Oh Hi’, there was not attitude,” he said.
“She’s always fun, she doesn’t know what she’s going to do.”
Busacca also says he loves shooting Jared Leto, because he “plays, has fun and has a good time”. He recalls a time where Leto photobombed Michael Keaton at a Vanity Fair Party in 2015.
“I just love him, while he’s a serious actor, he doesn’t forget it’s a night of celebration,” he said.
“He’s not afraid of being goofy and having a good time. You’ve got talent who are always self-conscious, who freeze up even though they play someone for a living as an actor, but everyone has that at some point.”
One such actor that Busacca wishes he had done a proper portrait of is Robert De Niro.
“With Robert De Niro, if he just doesn’t want to be photographed, he won’t acknowledge you and doesn't interact with you. But seriously, the guy has earned it,” he said.
“He’s the energiser bunny.”
Even when the celebrities like Jennifer Aniston are on show in the face of dozens of cameras after they make world headlines with their private life, Busacca says she has only found her and others to be “professional”.
Busacca only has praise for Australia’s Hollywood exports including Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban and Hugh Jackman.
“Hugh Jackman doesn’t know my name, he knows my face, but he’s one of the kindest people you’ll meet,” he said.
“I’ve shot Nicole and Keith many times in Nashville and all three of them are the first three in and out. They are patient and pay attention to the audience and crew and they’re really cool people.”
While he has only photographed Oscar nominee Margot Robbie at Sundance Film Festival in 2015, he describes her as a “doe-eyed kid”, who was loving the festival she was part of.
“It was like she was saying ‘I can’t believe it’s happening to me right now’,” he recalls.
But when the stars finally let their hair down at the Oscars after parties, Busacca says he becomes like a “fly on the wall”.
“And just like the ballet you have to tip toe and dance to the right spot in your tuxedo, and make sure you don’t knock anyone over,” he said.
“I love going inside these parties because the talent calms down and they’re not as exposed to a lens at every turn, hoping they do something, even if it’s just a smile.
“They don’t have to worry. They know we are there, but they know they are safe at these elite parties. I don’t care if they know my name or not.”
Busacca even says that there are ways he captures the most candid shots of A-list stars when they aren’t constantly looking at the after parties.
“Even if there’s a flash of light, you could even set the flash so low that only a tiny little pop goes and no one notices you took a picture,” he said.
“But the stars know we are there to do a job and they know someone might be recording something.”
Throughout the night, he says you can shoot around 5000 frames, of which only 250 are used.
“We’ve got to get so many pieces right, there are so many people involved and it has to be curated correctly, and be beautiful,” he said.
And this year, he’s hoping that the Best Picture stuff-up doesn’t re-occur.
“I was in the press room and we were thinking ‘Wait what just happened? Why is there a guy with a headset walking in to the show with a clipboard?’”
Originally published as Oscars 2018: Getty photographer Larry Busacca reveals his secrets from the red carpet, after parties
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