Philip-Lorca di Corcia (Heads)

I have looked at Philip-Lorca di Corica's series heads. The series was created in Times Square, New York. di Corcia attached a strobe light to scaffolding on a subway, he then set up a hidden camera to secretly capture the people who became highlighted by the strobe lighting.The lighting is highly effective, giving the images his trademark cinematic feel. The portraits appear as if they are stills from a movie, which is even more impressive when you consider these portraits are not staged in any form.

Mike Valentine

Mike Valentine started working for the BBC in 1972. He took up scubadiving as a hoby and began making his own short films in the red sea. He was asken by Nick Roeg to shoot and direct underwater scenes for "Castaway". In 1986 he left the BBC and worked on featured. With his wife he has built up the world renowned production company, Valentine Films.Some of the feature films he's done include, Casino Royale, The Beach, Sexy Beast, Trainspotting and loads more.

I First saw Mike Valentine's work when watching Trainspotting... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJrWlHRT-18 and thought it would be good to look at some underwater videographers/photographers for possible underwater location shoots.

Film stills.

I have taken a load of screen shots from the film that I found inspiring and that I can use as a starting point for my shoots...

LOCATION:

I like the simplicity of the scenes. Tension and involvement in the scene are all created by different camera angles and use of lighting.

STUDIO:

For the studio side, I liked the prop shots. They were good at either adding information about the characters or created tension and comedy.

Final Film Choice

I have chosen to base my project around O Brother Where Art Thou?. I found liked the lighting and Sepia toning of the film and liked the way the different camera angles were used to create tension and moods in different situations and how there were different typical camera angles for different characters (eg bad guys shot from below). I also liked that there was an underwater scene in the film and as I want to get into underwater photography I thought this would give me the opportunity to broaden my practice.