The realisation that I wanted to study film came whilst watching Michel Gondry’s ‘The Science Of Sleep”. At the age of eleven, everything about that film had me captivated. He presented a world in which horses could fly, limbs could inflate and romance was not lost. Struck by the sudden awareness that, with film, the confines of reality could be abandoned, my current pursuit was fuelled in developing a deeper understanding and respect for the artistic medium which is film.
This reverence for film spreads into other interests in literature, music and art. It is no coincidence that iconic art works such as Giorgio de Chirico's “Red Tower” share commonalities with the formalist movement. The dreamlike atmosphere within the painting is achieved by an uncertain light source, elongation of shadows, irrational
…show more content…
With the cinematography, I used a variety of gels, designating each scene and location a different colour, as Debie did in ‘Enter the Void’. I aimed to conjure feelings of darkness, eroticism, and violence within the viewer, whilst also incorporating chiaroscuro techniques and low- key lighting to add depth to the surrealist world I attempted to create. I hoped that through a creative use of depth of field, the audience's perception could be altered as David Lynch did in ‘Lost Highway’; the protagonists Fred/Peter have their worlds represented in opposing ways. For Fred, Lynch's use of a minimum depth of field with monochromatic tones, low-key lighting and long bouts of silence represent his confusion. Like Fred, the audience has no clear bearings and are lost in his world. In contrast, Lynch shoots Peter’s world following the conventions of Hollywood realism. A clear sense of place is established in Peter’s world, whilst Fred’s location remains ambiguous, something I tried to imitate in my own