Each week, I take time to scroll through my RSS feeds to stay up-to-date with our photographers’ current projects. Last Thursday, while searching for weekend link-worthy items, I suddenly stopped short. I quickly scrolled back to the top of the post and exclaimed, “The Three Amigos!”
Yes, THE Three Amigos, comedic icons Steve Martin, Martin Short and Chevy Chase, shot in full on amigo gear by our Los Angeles-based celebrity photographer Austin Hargrave. The Three Amigos was one of my favorite movies growing up and Steve Martin is still one of my favorite actors (I even skipped my high school’s after prom to catch a midnight screening of Steve’s The Jerk with my date). I had to know more about this shoot so I immediately emailed Austin for details. He replied quickly, and to my delight, said he’d be happy to fill me in on anything I wanted to know.
The shoot was for Empire Magazine. Austin has worked with them several times in the past and told me that, “after each Empire shoot I think it’s my favorite until my next shoot with them happens.” Austin stated that this shoot was one of his favorite days at work, ever (or at least until his next Empire shoot).
I dove into questions about the photos asking Austin about the fake backdrop concept,
We didn’t know how much time we would have with them, what costumes they still had from the movie, etc. We were told they still had the hats, so the first idea was to shoot them in black suits on a background with hats. Being a fan of the movie, I took the opportunity to watch it again. I really liked the parts where they shot in front of the beautiful huge fake desert sunset singing Blue Shadows, and that gave me the idea of shooting them on a desert scene in a desert.
Austin also shared with me about the most difficult aspect of the shoot—the hats,
The Three Amigos hats were important, they were the only prop from the movie we were going to use and they really pulled the shoot together. I was originally told the guys still had the hats and that they would bring them along to the shoot, but 48 hours out we were told Chevy thought his was still in NY, and Steve or Martin could not find his.
After ringing around to every prop/costume shop I could find, we decided to try and make our own. My girlfriend and I spent a night trying to cover straw sombreros with black felt. After hours of gluing and cutting, we had three hats that looked a mess. While searching for close up pics of the hats we came across a group of Three Amigos impersonators. We tracked down their agent, and a few hours later I got a call from Florida offering help, the only problem being that they all lived in separate parts of Florida and each hat had to be sent extra priority FedEx to stand any chance of arriving before the shoot. I spent most of the night on the FedEx website hitting refresh on the tracker, the hats arrived the morning of the shoot.
So then it was time for the actual shoot which was, of course, a blast,
It was great. One of the funniest parts of the movie is the Three Amigos salute, which I had hoped they would recreate for us, the only problem was Steve and Chevy could not remember it. Marty could still remember most of the lines and dances so he had to re-teach them, which was really fun to watch as Chevy just could not get it right then accused Marty of doing it wrong.
We only had the a short time with everyone together, so when Chevy started joking around and having everyone in fits of laughter, I was properly the only one thinking come on Chevy give it a rest, we’ve got three more set ups left. Yet, overall it was amazing to see three comedy legends interact which other and make each other laugh.
In the end, Austin ended up with some great shots, priceless memories, and three homemade Amigos hats.