IMAGE MAKING

Brief 4: Reflexivity

“What are you looking at?”

For this task I researched quite a lot about “Breaking the 4th wall” and the various ways you can do it.

I read about how video games like “Undertale” had done it before, making the characters realise they’re in a game and start talking to the player. Same thing in a variety of Mel Brooks’ movies like the iconic “Blazing Saddles” where in the middle of a fight the characters fall off set and start entering sets of other movies.

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” is another masterpiece, where King Arthur evades an animated monster because the current animator is having a heart attack. Another way to break the forth wall is to make the character look directly into the camera, making us realise he knows he’s being filmed.

By the angle in my final project being static and from above, I wanted to give the impression of it being a security camera or just our vision paying close attention to the girl’s current mundane action. I also made the conscience decision of not showing the girl’s face until the very end, because the original scenario was someone reading, but once she realises she’s being watched she breaks the rhythm of the scene and snaps out of character acknowledging the camera, showing us her face.

Inspiration for my project:

Eddie Murphy in the movie “Trading Places” where he acknowledges the camera at the very end.

Brief 3: Loop

Insomnia

This gif represents a sleepless night, when a person spends hours working or just browsing the internet non-stop. The blur and late focus allure to the vision of the person who is looking at the computer night after night, but it’s not from that person’s POV. With the crooked angle I tried to give the feeling of uneasiness, although being different from the type of perspectives I researched and that’s because I also wanted to give a tired and not so electric atmosphere.

(Research) I wanted to show an obsessive side of the idea of constantly being on the computer, hence the research on hand close-ups with kind of “drastic” and dramatic angles.

I decided to film it in the dark to show the person’s problem (if it’s during the night that person should be sleeping), so I searched more sordid kind of pictures, like this one:

Brief 2: Personal Space

I photographed a man in his natural working space (the information cabin of the Ealing Broadway tube station) without his acknowledgement. These photos transmit the idea of that man spending his entire day inside that compartment, therefore adapting that little space into his own.

Some tentatives before the final work:

I was trying to capture people working in small compartments in which they had to spend their entire working days.

Brief 1: Self-Portrait

Brexit

I cut the eyes out of frame and pasted them on top of the passport to show what she was really thinking about. You can see the worry by the piece of hand being against her head. While she tries to study she is constantly reminded.

Addiction

“Addiction” represents the constant presence of millennials on social media these days. Locking themselves in their rooms with only one focus.

Forgotten

With not showing the face of that same person in every picture I intended to transmit the idea of there only being a space there, therefore she not being present in that life anymore. You can see the silhouette of the cropped out person, representing the feeling of nostalgia and fear she must feel.

Interesting clips I researched:

I recently discovered Edgar Wright. He’s one of the best movie directors alive or dead and inspires me greatly. Here’s a montage of some of the best Edgar Wright’s close-ups and quick cuts:

And two of my favourite quick cuts scenes of his: