Presentation & Speech

IDEA:

My idea is to create a set of 5 photographs to tell the story of Arachne. Arachne is a Greek mythological creature, however I will be recreating Ovid’s Roman re-telling of the story. Although the story is fairly short, I will use the five photographs to depict the end scenes, in which Minerva turns Arachne into the half-woman/half-spider after beating her in a competition to prove who is the more superior weaver, judged by the gods themselves.

INSPIRATION:

Harry Potter : Prisoner of Azkaban

Professor Lupin morph into werewolf

DUANE MICHALS:

I find Duane Michals film strip type of technique a refreshing way to present a narrative structure. Showing them like this each capture a still moment in time, helping for you to focus on each step as it happens.

He also enhances this effect my keeping the camera central in every shot he takes, this keeps the audiences thoughts on the literal movement in the shot.

I want to try and use both of these techniques with my story telling. It will work perfectly for my narrative as I have chosen to focus upon a smaller segment of the story.

I also love the way he actively keeps in the blurring of the separate characters in shot to add a mystical sense to their belonging in life. This would work really well with the transformation from the woman into the half spider, this movement can indicate the passing of her life into this myth and story. Or I could use it to have Minerva leave the scene, as if leaving Arachne hopeless in her transformation.

GREGORY CREWDSON:

Although I love Gregory Crewdson’s use of light on his sets, he has a lot of financial backing, allowing him to work on such a large scale. These large scale sets are best lit with tungsten lights, as he would have to have enormous flashes for it to illuminate such as vast space. I am working on a fraction of the size he would be, so this means I am able to use a lot smaller of a set-up, utilizing small flashes or small tungsten lights to expose my scene and subjects within it.

FIRST TWO LOCATIONS:

After viewing these two locations, I found they weren’t quite right for me, I decided that an indoor location would give me the most creative freedom. Being indoors will allow me to be able to have my shoot at any time that suites me, because I can control where my light is going and how much ambient light I am permitting to enter the frame.  (Also talk about uneven floors and busy areas for lower west gate)

ST MARYS:

I have chosen the St Mary’s Guildhall as my location that I will use for my final photographs. This location was built to be used in the Roman city to hold meetings for large gatherings due to the way the rooms were built. The architecture of the building therefore has really large roofs and wide open spaces.

The pillar will be a perfect central figure in my final pieces. It will create a powerful backdrop behind both characters and will also act as a subtle split between the two characters, contrasting the differenced in their hierarchy, from goddess to normal roman woman.

I spent a lot of time finding the perfect location as I feel it is one of the most important aspects of the piece, I really wanted the heritage and look of the location to suite the roman history behind the Roman myth that I am trying to represent.

FINAL SHOOT:

These are two shots I have puled from my first practice shoot. I chose to do it in the studio as it allowed me to be able to use both tungsten and flash light to evaluate which I prefer not only the look of, but which I prefer to use too. In this shot, she has just poured the potion onto Arachne and now is leaving her to transform in the mythological creature that the story is based upon.