08:45
23:46
I have always been the one, who wanted to be on the other side of Youtube. Vlogging was always a part of my life, but only until recently I...
I have always been the one, who wanted to be on the other side of Youtube. Vlogging was always a part of my life, but only until recently I became more confident in myself, so that I could make videos myself. Obviously long time before that I had to watch loads of them and to be honest I do still watch them. I have more than 100 subscriptions on Youtube, that's my guilty pleasure. As I have a lot of watching experience, I can try to explain what's for me cinematic vlogging.
Cinematic vlogging is extremely hard. Because not only you have to think about the narrative of the story, you are telling, but also you have to think about cinematography, it's aesthetic and meaning. That's what nearly impossible, because when you try to capture your everyday life it's hard to think about cinematography, as a lot of stuff happens really fast and there's no time to analyse - you just have to record the moment.
But there are certain people on the internet (and I have to stress that they are Youtube filmmakers), that managed to nail it.
I will start with my role model, as she is the woman filmmaker, which is hard to find nowadays. Her name is Hazel and the reason why I decided to show her work is her series "Time of the Month". During whole month she records her life, then reflects on it and edits in a beautiful video. There is may be not that many perfect cinematographic shots, but she tells her story amazingly! My personal favourite video from that series is August. It is emotional, has an artsy intro with a deep meaning and a beautiful cinematographic decisions and also a brilliant editing.
Hazel is not the only person, who does this sort of the videos. There tons of Youtubers with monthly vlogs. But she is my favourite so far.
There are also bloggers who do amazing travelling blogs. With traveling it is much easier, because you usually have a lot more time to think about constructing the story. Jack Howard for example (one more inspiration of mine, yes) does them really well. Obviously as a filmmaker. I don't know how, but he always creates an amazing narrative and edits the whole thing in a perfect video. Is that magic or a superpower? xD
The whole Youtube topic is overwhelming for me. I can talk about it for hours, but it is really hard to write. Making usual vlogs cinematic is hard, because essentially they are just videos from people's bedrooms. But it is possible to bring them to a new level. Even normal vlogs with talking to a camera. You can easily make them more cinematic by adding some more relatable shots or may be creating a sketch (if the channel is a comedy one). But anyway it is a lot of work.
Cinematic vlogging is extremely hard. Because not only you have to think about the narrative of the story, you are telling, but also you have to think about cinematography, it's aesthetic and meaning. That's what nearly impossible, because when you try to capture your everyday life it's hard to think about cinematography, as a lot of stuff happens really fast and there's no time to analyse - you just have to record the moment.
But there are certain people on the internet (and I have to stress that they are Youtube filmmakers), that managed to nail it.
I will start with my role model, as she is the woman filmmaker, which is hard to find nowadays. Her name is Hazel and the reason why I decided to show her work is her series "Time of the Month". During whole month she records her life, then reflects on it and edits in a beautiful video. There is may be not that many perfect cinematographic shots, but she tells her story amazingly! My personal favourite video from that series is August. It is emotional, has an artsy intro with a deep meaning and a beautiful cinematographic decisions and also a brilliant editing.
Hazel is not the only person, who does this sort of the videos. There tons of Youtubers with monthly vlogs. But she is my favourite so far.
There are also bloggers who do amazing travelling blogs. With traveling it is much easier, because you usually have a lot more time to think about constructing the story. Jack Howard for example (one more inspiration of mine, yes) does them really well. Obviously as a filmmaker. I don't know how, but he always creates an amazing narrative and edits the whole thing in a perfect video. Is that magic or a superpower? xD
The whole Youtube topic is overwhelming for me. I can talk about it for hours, but it is really hard to write. Making usual vlogs cinematic is hard, because essentially they are just videos from people's bedrooms. But it is possible to bring them to a new level. Even normal vlogs with talking to a camera. You can easily make them more cinematic by adding some more relatable shots or may be creating a sketch (if the channel is a comedy one). But anyway it is a lot of work.
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10:20
So here we are, the week of editing. Where we barely had any sleep, any food or rest itself. We are in every day no matter what and we figh...
So here we are, the week of editing. Where we barely had any sleep, any food or rest itself. We are in every day no matter what and we fight with some computers that keep corrupting our work.
Transcription was a thing. We retyped all 30 minutes of the interview just to make sure that we include the most valuable and touching parts. The editing part was a collaboration mostly, so it's hard to say how exactly we split the work. We are just helping each other.
As putting all clips together not the most difficult part of the whole film, cause we already had a plan, we concentrated on colours and VFX for titles. Here we go. As I did titling in the end (once again, not without a help of the group) I will show you how on just one of the sequences.
Obviously I had to choose after effects. I already had some experience with after effects couple of years ago, but i needed to remember everything I knew. So here is the slight idea of what I was doing.
Yeah, this is the main process that we are going through during editing.
Here's a video example of the title from the above.
Transcription was a thing. We retyped all 30 minutes of the interview just to make sure that we include the most valuable and touching parts. The editing part was a collaboration mostly, so it's hard to say how exactly we split the work. We are just helping each other.
As putting all clips together not the most difficult part of the whole film, cause we already had a plan, we concentrated on colours and VFX for titles. Here we go. As I did titling in the end (once again, not without a help of the group) I will show you how on just one of the sequences.
Obviously I had to choose after effects. I already had some experience with after effects couple of years ago, but i needed to remember everything I knew. So here is the slight idea of what I was doing.
 |
| See the ceiling at the top of the shot? |
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| I added a black solid layer to hide it and placed on a certain place at a certain time on the timeline. |
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| There we go. No ceiling anymore. |
 |
| An example of motion tracking. Here's how it goes. The bit on the left was made by the tracker that AE has. But I had to correct every point to make the action a lot smoother. The top one was entirely produced by me. |
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| This is how it looks on the timeline. I had literally to correct every single frame. |
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| Masking. Maskin. Masking. Pretty close to Photoshop, but with action bits. |
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| Motion tracking of the mask, so that the text appears "out of nowhere". |
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| This is our main sequence. Main editing process. A lot of stuff is happening there: BG music, upsync from the performances, interview, additional shots from performances and cutaways. |
Here's a video example of the title from the above.
It's 6:20pm on Friday, October 4th. We are in the library. Editing. Deadline in 2 days. We'll see how it goes.
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09:38
While we were doing our paperwork, I had to think about the concept. There is one amazing film about magicians. I honestly think that it...
While we were doing our paperwork, I had to think about the concept. There is one amazing film about magicians. I honestly think that it's one of the bests itself. I you are a film nerd as I am, then "The Prestige" is probably already watched by you. May be even several times.
"The Prestige" is the most realistic film about magicians. That's what Sasha said. So I watched it once again. And came up with a concept based on the film.
"The Prestige" is the most realistic film about magicians. That's what Sasha said. So I watched it once again. And came up with a concept based on the film.
Pre-production was a bit hard for us, because in the beginning we were suffering from a lack of communication. Luckily we managed to cope with that by making all the docs by the deadline.
***
When everything was signed, we went into the studio. Recreated the set from the video I mentioned in the previous post. And I asked the questions that we thought can be useful. We had a pretty long conversation though and luckily we got the answers that helped us to focus on the main idea that we had: emotions.
And then, according to the interview we started producing imagery. The most part was shot in the SU, also we got slow motion shots in the studio and fire outside. All of those we decided to use as cutaways or sequences for titles.
To be honest every performance that we have shot has loads of different reactions and emotions. Even really funny ones that we really want to include.
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08:17
Since we have moved on to making a documentary about a magician, we had to split our positions once again. So I became a director. Direct...
Since we have moved on to making a documentary about a magician, we had to split our positions once again. So I became a director.
Directing was something I am aiming to specialise in. And as I ave never directed a documentary before I needed some research. Documentary directors are basically those, who create and ask questions and then narrate them during editing. Even though I had general idea about the personality of our subject, I still didn't really know what exactly he will tell us. So obviously before going straight into the interview I watched some of the documentaries about magicians and interviews with them.
This interview is mostly based on the personality. As Ronn Winter is a popular media person, viewers obviously would more like to know more about him, rather than the idea behind the industry and emotions that the performer may have during the performance. That was helpful in a sort of the way, but not all of the questions are really helpful. But what I liked about this particular interview is the setting. I always liked interviews that are taken in the studio. The only issue that I can see here is a weird lighting...
As I have never been a great fan of magic tricks and performances I also had to watch some more of them. Sasha Crespi - our subject, told us on our first meeting that he is not only a magician but he is also a mentalist. Not only did I watch a lot of different tricks, but also I watched different mentalists and their performances.
After that I kind of got the idea of how our final piece should look like.
Directing was something I am aiming to specialise in. And as I ave never directed a documentary before I needed some research. Documentary directors are basically those, who create and ask questions and then narrate them during editing. Even though I had general idea about the personality of our subject, I still didn't really know what exactly he will tell us. So obviously before going straight into the interview I watched some of the documentaries about magicians and interviews with them.
This interview is mostly based on the personality. As Ronn Winter is a popular media person, viewers obviously would more like to know more about him, rather than the idea behind the industry and emotions that the performer may have during the performance. That was helpful in a sort of the way, but not all of the questions are really helpful. But what I liked about this particular interview is the setting. I always liked interviews that are taken in the studio. The only issue that I can see here is a weird lighting...
A BBC's production. Observing documentary. One of the ways we want to produce our film: walking around, watching Sasha performing and people reacting on his tricks, capturing all the emotions. Although we are not a big production company and we won't be nail absolutely everything... We can try though. (4/12/2015: Interestingly Sasha then said that Derren Brown - man from the clip above - was one of the first influences).
As I have never been a great fan of magic tricks and performances I also had to watch some more of them. Sasha Crespi - our subject, told us on our first meeting that he is not only a magician but he is also a mentalist. Not only did I watch a lot of different tricks, but also I watched different mentalists and their performances.
After that I kind of got the idea of how our final piece should look like.
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07:56
There we go with the edit. As we had no idea who did what during the filming , it was hard to find some additional stuff. But I was lucky enough. As you can see on the first 2 screenshots, I used my midcoast and someone's over the shoulder shot to show the sync in the dance.
Also I used my close-up and extreme close-up to make viewers forget about the second dancer for a minute and concentrate their attention on the girl. Ans her beautiful face.
And I finished with mid shots and the dance is synchronised again.
When I started I had no idea at which point what exact shots to use. But after adding the sound I managed to apture the moment where the beat goes up in the middle, so I added all my close-ups there and that was basically it. Only thing that I need to mention in the end, the double exposure that I have in the beginning didn't have any particular meaning, I was just experimenting and decided to leave it.
That's my second project to be done. Doesn't have a lot of Me in it, but as I think can show my abilities and technical skills.
Editing. pt3
By Mary Grace 07:56 Image Factory DanceThere we go with the edit. As we had no idea who did what during the filming , it was hard to find some additional stuff. But I was luck...
There we go with the edit. As we had no idea who did what during the filming , it was hard to find some additional stuff. But I was lucky enough. As you can see on the first 2 screenshots, I used my midcoast and someone's over the shoulder shot to show the sync in the dance.
Also I used my close-up and extreme close-up to make viewers forget about the second dancer for a minute and concentrate their attention on the girl. Ans her beautiful face.
And I finished with mid shots and the dance is synchronised again.
When I started I had no idea at which point what exact shots to use. But after adding the sound I managed to apture the moment where the beat goes up in the middle, so I added all my close-ups there and that was basically it. Only thing that I need to mention in the end, the double exposure that I have in the beginning didn't have any particular meaning, I was just experimenting and decided to leave it.
That's my second project to be done. Doesn't have a lot of Me in it, but as I think can show my abilities and technical skills.
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07:34
Yes. This is my soundtrack for the last couple of weeks because I had to make myself inspired for the project. Now I will show some screenshots of the video itself and explain why this one is very important for me personally.
They have just one wide shot from one position, which is pretty similar to our conditions. The whole idea in general blows minds. Moreover only wide shots and mid shots were showing both dancers at the same time and their interactions. All the close-ups that the music video has were used to show the emotions of dancers/actors:
When it came to choosing the sound for my edit, I found the decision instantly. I have been listening to West One Music for a long time already, but didn't have any excuses to officially use their stuff in my works. This time I had to. As we are supposed to deal with copyrights, I contacted the artists before the actual edit. And LUCKILY I got the permission to use their stuff. Actually these guys are pretty awesome xD.
Yes. This is my soundtrack for the last couple of weeks because I had to make myself inspired for the project. Now I will show some sc...
Yes. This is my soundtrack for the last couple of weeks because I had to make myself inspired for the project. Now I will show some screenshots of the video itself and explain why this one is very important for me personally.
 |
| Wide shot example |
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| Midshot example |
They have just one wide shot from one position, which is pretty similar to our conditions. The whole idea in general blows minds. Moreover only wide shots and mid shots were showing both dancers at the same time and their interactions. All the close-ups that the music video has were used to show the emotions of dancers/actors:
Even though our dancer didn't express a lot of emotions connected with the dance, I decided to include couple of them, simply because there are couple of moment where the girl and the boy do completely different things.
When it came to choosing the sound for my edit, I found the decision instantly. I have been listening to West One Music for a long time already, but didn't have any excuses to officially use their stuff in my works. This time I had to. As we are supposed to deal with copyrights, I contacted the artists before the actual edit. And LUCKILY I got the permission to use their stuff. Actually these guys are pretty awesome xD.
After two weeks of collecting ideas and the sun in my mind, I finally got to the edit.
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06:55
I am really not sure how to start this one. It is hard to research dance videos because they all are different, even though there are some ...
I am really not sure how to start this one. It is hard to research dance videos because they all are different, even though there are some similar techniques among them. The edit that I have done is mostly based on my intuition, that on the actual research. And I think I got this intuition just because in 2014 I was watching loads of different once videos through the whole year. I will just leave couple of my favourite videos in this post and we will see where it goes.
The most obvious artist that inspired me to work on this video is Sia. Mainly because of the dance style. But her videos are the only ones that I really managed to analyse. More analyzation in the next post.
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13:33
But this is not everything that we came up to. We also finally splitted the roles. As the idea was mostly mine, guys suggested me as a director and scriptwriter. We also have an amazing DoP and composer, About producing... As we all will use our contacts and abilities, each of us will take over the producing role (this is also because none of us is good at producing, so we will just collaborate on this role.
Tutorial 10/11/15:
On the tutorial we decided to put the reflections idea away as it is too philosophical for a documentary. Suddenly came up with an idea to film a documentary about a magician. The meeting is still happening on the weekend though.
First ever idea. Why have it failed? When we just started working as a group we found an idea immediately and decided to stick with it ...
First ever idea. Why have it failed?
When we just started working as a group we found an idea immediately and decided to stick with it until the first group meeting. We wanted to tell more about poor homeless people, that you can easily find on streets in Aldershot. As we all were pretty inspired by the short film called "As I am", all three of as had a similar idea in our heads.
Our first proper group meeting was on the 9th of November. We started thinking about the plan of production and unfortunately realised that it is nearly impossible to set the exact dates with these people as they always change their places and they have no idea what's gonna happen with them in the short period of time. Moreover, to convince those people for a talk we have to visit them more frequently and make them trust us, as they are already victims of society and probably don't really believe every person they see on the streets. Having those struggles we decided to switch to something different. But first of all we needed to brainstorm the ideas.
How did we come up with a new idea?
So while brainstorming I remembered one draft for a video that I wrote couple of weeks ago. I was inspired by the reflections I saw, while waiting for a bus. I was thinking about mirrors, reflections and their power and mystery. I suggested this idea to my group mates and after discussing some details we decided to stop on this premise. As well as with the genre of documentary that we will use.
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| the draft idea |
But this is not everything that we came up to. We also finally splitted the roles. As the idea was mostly mine, guys suggested me as a director and scriptwriter. We also have an amazing DoP and composer, About producing... As we all will use our contacts and abilities, each of us will take over the producing role (this is also because none of us is good at producing, so we will just collaborate on this role.
What's the plan now?
Basically right now it is my responsibility to be fast as possible. We are meeting this weekend again to discuss the script that I should finish by that time and then create shot list.Tutorial 10/11/15:
On the tutorial we decided to put the reflections idea away as it is too philosophical for a documentary. Suddenly came up with an idea to film a documentary about a magician. The meeting is still happening on the weekend though.
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14:16
I hope this is the last one... Well, hang-on, I can't make photos of the photo mounting at this stage, but will do that tomorrow, as to...
I hope this is the last one... Well, hang-on, I can't make photos of the photo mounting at this stage, but will do that tomorrow, as tomorrow it the day-X.
Basically, when I got all photos of myself I had no idea where to start, cause all photos were close to my visualisation, but as I was not a photographer at this point the material was a bit different from expectations. I chose this one just bc I felt like I look at something mysterious xD.
Basically, when I got all photos of myself I had no idea where to start, cause all photos were close to my visualisation, but as I was not a photographer at this point the material was a bit different from expectations. I chose this one just bc I felt like I look at something mysterious xD.
Yeah, this picture is an example of how I started.
By the time I was working on the photo, this was final. And I felt happy about it. BUT... obviously that was not the end. After having some thinking I decided to get rid of the widescreen so that people will be able to concentrate more on the character.
I also added 2 symbols of paganism and witchcraft. One you will see strait away, but the second is kinda hidden. I liked it more, but after the tutorial with my tutor I realised that the lights don't look natural as before and I also kinda wasn't really fond of them and the leaves before. I also tried to make me and a cat more in the focus that everything on the background, so that people will see more of me, than the people on the background. After 2 hrs of working in photoshop, I got to this (I also fixed the lighting, that's what I noticed now):
Funny thing, after printing the colours became a bit less saturated which worked. We'll see how it's gonna come out in the end.
Oh yeah, these are the proof of the layering that I did. Don't know why I did these screenshots.
Oh yeah, these are the proof of the layering that I did. Don't know why I did these screenshots.
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07:53
I have one thing about inspirations. Everything I like or do, it's all about fantasy and fairy tails. I had just started manufacturing my self-portrait photography and now I need to create a definite idea in my head what to change a photo of myself more fantasy like. So now I'm trying to inspire myself by re-watching a lot of fantasy stuff and looking for similar photos that people did.
I found this pretty tutorial on Youtube. I have never used gradient mapping before. Stupidly. Will do that. Now.
Also, while editing, I do usually listen to folk-rock. And music videos do inspire me a lot, because they have the same kind of atmosphere and mood that I want to recreate. Especially with manufacturing the world around.
This group has more stuff that helps me think in the right way to create the mood of the world I'm creating in my self-portrait.
And the last, but definitely not least ids films. As I am into films a lot I have TOP-3 movies in fantasy genre, that I always rematch when I want to be productive and inspired.
1. Mists of Avalon - one of the most brilliantly written versions of King's Arthur legend. With earth magic, Goddess and paganism. Exactly what I need.
2. The Craft - the story about teenage witches that use dark sort of magic, but to be honest, for the inspiration that works really well.
3. Practical Magic - again the earth magic with more romantic kind of the story, about true love and mistakes that women can do, by falling in love with a different person.
I have one thing about inspirations. Everything I like or do, it's all about fantasy and fairy tails. I had just started manufacturin...
I found this pretty tutorial on Youtube. I have never used gradient mapping before. Stupidly. Will do that. Now.
Also, while editing, I do usually listen to folk-rock. And music videos do inspire me a lot, because they have the same kind of atmosphere and mood that I want to recreate. Especially with manufacturing the world around.
This group has more stuff that helps me think in the right way to create the mood of the world I'm creating in my self-portrait.
And the last, but definitely not least ids films. As I am into films a lot I have TOP-3 movies in fantasy genre, that I always rematch when I want to be productive and inspired.
1. Mists of Avalon - one of the most brilliantly written versions of King's Arthur legend. With earth magic, Goddess and paganism. Exactly what I need.
2. The Craft - the story about teenage witches that use dark sort of magic, but to be honest, for the inspiration that works really well.
3. Practical Magic - again the earth magic with more romantic kind of the story, about true love and mistakes that women can do, by falling in love with a different person.
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| The Mists of Avalon |
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| Practical Magic |
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| The Craft |
All in all, I have one week for creating the perfect image with a perfect imaginary world. I will definitely write more here about how exactly I do the manufacturing the image... After I will finally choose the original that will be changed in process.
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14:07
While I was editing some stuff from my last shoots I came up with another idea of showing the life of "special" people from their...
While I was editing some stuff from my last shoots I came up with another idea of showing the life of "special" people from their prospective. Ans by special I mean those who are different from us in terms of religious beliefs or any other. I personally have quite different religious beliefs and I always try to avoid this topic in big companies.
So my previous idea, combined with this idea can work really well. It will be fun to show up in a really witchy outfit in the middle of the break at the uni.
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08:36
What can the image tell you? Nearly everything. From the feelings that people experience after nights of no sleep. Eddie Esdale - Ins...
What can the image tell you? Nearly everything.
From the feelings that people experience after nights of no sleep.
to how insecure we are when we look in the mirror, staying in the room completely alone.
Or pictures can help us answer the main question: "Who am I?"
or "How much did I actually change?".
Photography can help us to remember those, who left us.
These images helped me to understand how to show my inner self. How to let people know who I am really by just taking a picture of myself. And not just a simple selfie. It needs to be something that will express my mood, opinions and possibly the views on life.
From the feelings that people experience after nights of no sleep.
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| Eddie Esdale - Insomnia |
to how insecure we are when we look in the mirror, staying in the room completely alone.
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| Nicki Upstairs - Narcissus |
Or pictures can help us answer the main question: "Who am I?"
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| Laura Huntley - Who am I? |
or "How much did I actually change?".
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| Betina La Plante - Then&Now |
Photography can help us to remember those, who left us.
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| Bunny Spice - Mother's Day |
And to be someone we'll never become!
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| Joel Robinson - X-men |
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08:20
First is fantasy. This genre follows me from my childhood and I have a slight feeling that I will include it in my every work. What's fantasy? Fantasy is always about magic and mythology. And I personally love stories about witches. I came across an I idea that wiccan witches and earth magic is something that I will be able to reproduce. I started looking into more stuff and these are the examples of what I found and what inspired me.
I surfed Google for hours until I finally got a concept.
My second topic covers one of the magical themes: Tarot Cards. There are basically a lot of different decks of Tarot cards and I personally know a lot about them. I looked through the entire Major Arcane that has a lot more personality in each card, than the rest cards. I looked through the different cards to find the one that will suit my personality.
So our assessment includes producing a self-portrait. But before starting the actual idea development I decided to look inside. To think ...
So our assessment includes producing a self-portrait. But before starting the actual idea development I decided to look inside. To think what's important to me. And obviously I found at least 2 topics that I want to cover.
First is fantasy. This genre follows me from my childhood and I have a slight feeling that I will include it in my every work. What's fantasy? Fantasy is always about magic and mythology. And I personally love stories about witches. I came across an I idea that wiccan witches and earth magic is something that I will be able to reproduce. I started looking into more stuff and these are the examples of what I found and what inspired me.
I surfed Google for hours until I finally got a concept.
My second topic covers one of the magical themes: Tarot Cards. There are basically a lot of different decks of Tarot cards and I personally know a lot about them. I looked through the entire Major Arcane that has a lot more personality in each card, than the rest cards. I looked through the different cards to find the one that will suit my personality.
So as you may notice my idea is pretty complicated. It's gonna consist of costume, props and a lot of photoshop. As I want to recreate a witch in the style of one of the tarot cards. But before making a mystical lady out of myself I had to do a little practice, so I did a photoshoot with my friend and that's what came out of that Idea.
This is definitely not the last post about this project. More coming up this week, when I'll start working on the picture of myself.
