Sobin discovers 'charmed' life of shooting the stars

Rick Sobin (IVCC 1986-89) has spent the past 18 years manning a camera on Hollywood sets and exotic locations around the world.

The Dalzell native and former Illinois Valley Cinema projectionist has now worked on 26 movie sets, most notably with director Oliver Stone on “Nixon,” “JFK,” “Heaven and Earth” and “Natural Born Killers.”

Sobin has an acute appreciation for job stress. He said Stone sometimes uses only one take per scene if he likes the actor’s performance. That requires flawless camera work.

“You certainly don’t want to ask a stunt man or an actor to do anything twice that they may never be able to do that well again,” he said.

The son of Carlene and Jim Sobin of Dalzell, Sobin attended St. Bede Academy, IVCC and Columbia College in Chicago. With one child already and another on the way, Sobin now lives and prefers to do most of his work in Chicago.

He recently completed work on Robin Williams’ new movie “License to Wed,” helped shoot the television show “Charmed” and will soon be going to Los Angeles to shoot scenes for “Loop,” a movie set in Chicago.

Sobin is happy he chose film production for his profession.

“You meet so many different people from all walks of life. You get to travel all over the world and you get to be in places most people don’t even have access to,” he said.

This story was excerpted from a News Tribune story written by Allison Ryan.