Jasper Johal

Balancing on Apple Boxes

Added 2021-05-19 17:06:59 +0000 UTC

I heard from some of you how much you loved the “Back Beauty” post. So I decided to share a bigger selection of photographs from that shoot.

These images were taken on one of my early visits to Houston, before I had moved to the area. Liz and her partner we so welcoming; I had a very enjoyable afternoon visiting with them. Afterwards we went and had a delicious Mexican meal.

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APPLE BOXES: By the way, those cool looking wooden boxes Liz is balancing on are called “Apple Boxes”. They are an ubiquitous part of every Hollywood movie set.

The story of their origin goes back to the pioneering days of silent movies. A director was shooting with a leading man who was very good looking, but who wasn’t very tall. For that project he had been cast opposite a leading lady who happened to be several inches taller than him.

In the medium and close up shots the handsome actor had to look up towards his paramour and that seemed odd to the director’s eye, so he pointed to a box of apples sitting on the crew’s lunch table. “Empty that out and stick it under him”, he directed his assistant.

The lead guy was so pleased with the result, he insisted on using the apple box to stand on for every shot that did not show his feet. Soon other male lead actors were asking for an apple box to stand on for their closeup shots. Enterprising set builders sawed apple boxes into halves and quarters to provide different heights.

Now no studio equipment room is complete without a set of “apple boxes”. Nowadays these are fully enclosed to provide better support, so they cannot be used to cart apples, but the name continues to stick.

The next time you are on a movie set and hear someone yell “bring me a quarter apple!” you’ll know he is not asking for fruit.

Incidentally, besides the full, half and quarter “apple”, there is also an eighth height one. But that one has it’s own name. It’s called a “pancake”. Hollywood loves odd names for the gear they use.