SURVIVOR STYLING

CLOTHING


I thought about using some sort of black lace accented clothing, whether it be a nightgown or top, to link together the murderer, survivor and fabrics. I also wanted it to highlight the story (she had slept in her clothes from the night before in an effort to not wake her friend), and themes of darkness and a lethal presence.

Alternatively, I could use a white dress, to act as contrast from the darkness and murderer, also symbolising life and escape.

I do however want the chest and neck area bare, as I feel that this area is somewhat vulnerable to attack (jugular), and I could place some material around her neck, slowly tightening as the threat of death increases.

PHOTOGRAPHY

I want to try and utilise some of the photography skills I learnt at A level for this project, to add to the uneasy feeling I want the audience to experience. This will allow a more disturbing image without cheapening the piece with gore etc.

MURDERER: Multiple Flash

A Level Multiple Flash

Studio Plan

This sketch shows the layout of the studio. I will need to change the shutter speed to 'bulb' so that the shutter stays open whilst the shutter release is held down (rather than closing after taking the image like usual). I will require an assistant to fire the flash when prompted whilst I control the camera after each position the model changes to.

I wanted to use this effect for my murderer shoot, to give an inquisitive, fast moving and adaptive feature to my character; similar to a cat playing and toying with its prey.

SURVIVOR: Slow Sync

I would like to use this effect to photograph my survivor shoot, by adding in the mouth of the murderer to the side of the portrait, but having it fade away into the darkness.

The set-up is relatively similar, however I will need one softbox to provide continuous light, whilst the other flashes as I take the shot. This will give a ghostly smudge of a feature across the image.

EVALUATION

I feel happy with my final images, as I believe that they represent a good interpretation of the brief and bring a balance between the themes of horror and fashion. However, I feel that this project lacks a lot of background research on the blog, due to not being able to find suitable references for ideas I had imagined. By practicing drawing and painting over the summer I hope to remedy this, so that all my ideas are represented fairly and give my audience a clearer insight into my design process and inspirations. I also think that more experimenting and testing is needed to solidify ideas on styling and photography, including model choice. I also want to prepare budgets for each unit next term, so that I have money to spend to make sure I can effectively communicate my ideas through image via styling, makeup and hair.

Hair is a particular area I need to improve on, more so the design rather than execution of ideas. I find that it is very secondary to my make-up design, and that I have only a limited pool of styles that I can utilise. Perhaps by watching youtube videos and flicking through hair magasines I will learn different techniques that I can apply to future projects. I do feel that in this project I have got a lot more to grips with blogging my ideas, but want to again improve in terms of uploading daily even if only to voice concerns on the project or to post a few images I had found relevant, and learn more about showing my ideas in an effective but visually interesting and stimulating manner.



Overall I am quite pleased with the outcome of this unit, and can feel my confidence growing with every look I create in the studio.

FINAL IMAGES OF SURVIVOR

I also love these images, as they are very subtle in their symbolism; all lies in the detail. However, I wish I had alternative styling to make the images more diverse, as when choosing my two finals images to submit I found that my favourites were all very similar in pose, styling and overall composition. Maybe by pulling back and taking a longer shot of the model to expose more styling could have remedied this.

FINAL IMAGES OF MURDERER

I am happy with the position of my model, but think that I need to improve a lot on my editing skills, in order to give a more realistic background. Alternatively I could book out a larger studio ahead of time to practice such positions and images to make sure I can be completely happy with their final outcome. Finding a model that had background in performance or dance/gymnastics would have helped too, with positions and posing.

I am VERY happy with this final look. I think it has the right balance between fashion and horror, giving it a slightly eerie feel without being overwhelmingly terrifying to view.

FINAL SHOOT - murderer

I am really pleased with these images, as I felt that I could have the model pose in multiple ways due to the number of details that I wanted to capture; From the bloodied hands around the face, contortion on the floor, and wrapping herself in a cloak of darkness. These images will need a lot more editing that the survivor images however, to darken them without losing the detail of make-up and styling. I am a lot more pleased with this hair, as it is much more wet look and neat than the previous shoot.

FINAL SHOOT - survivor

I was very happy with my final shoot, as I feel that I got the balance just right between fashion and horror, using subtle symbolism to add a hint of uneasiness and doubt to the beauty of the images. I like the reference to the Christian religion that I drew on with the roses and blood, symbolising a crown of thorns, and I feel that the fabrics work well creating an illusion of darkness or blindfold.