Planning – Phase one
The Brief for the final assignment is here.
Indoors or Outside? Indoors would allow more control of the environment and lighting. Time would not be as much of a pressure indoors either so indoors is my preference.
Mood/Style? A period piece would require costumes. Maybe add in a murder mystery element to it. Or a psychological piece using dramatic hard lighting. I liked Gregory Crewdson’s staged scenes that have an element of intrigue and human angst. He produced work indoors and outside, some combined ie. inside looking out/ outside looking in.
Lighting? I owned a speedlight flash and an LED desk lamp but that was it. I definitely wanted to use artificial lighting as I had not used it for any of my assignment or coursework in EYV or CAN. I needed to learn more about lighting setups and kit. YouTube and Amazon will be my go to suppliers for this.
Actors? Yes, probably my wife. Maybe me. I had not used models before for any of my work. The only people I have taken are either passers by in the park or voters at polling stations. Only on a few occasions did I direct them and even then it was briefly to ask them to repeat a short walk and then I let them go on their way.
Story? I was comfortable for this to be directed by the choice of venue. Whatever my story I wanted the narrative to be communicated in a single image. All of my previous assignments used a series to convey a feeling and/or message so this was a new challenge. It would be completely staged and everything in the frame having a purpose.
Location/venue? Renting holiday cottage accommodation would be suitable for 3, 5 or 7 day rental depending on whether I was combining it with a family holiday. My initial idea was to find a small period folly or tower available through ‘The Landmark Trust’. I had stayed in a small tower in Kent a couple of years ago which would be ideal for an indoor or outdoor shoot. Other possibilities were quirky holiday venues such as barges or railway carriages which would offer an obvious theme. A beamed cottage would be ok but it would need a central feature to initiate an idea.
Planning – Phase two
Booking annual leave and finding a cottage available on those dates was the next step in creating an idea. All of my research was based on internet searches and estate agent style images. Prospect Tower in Kent was not available, damn!
Kent and Sussex were my initial search locations but timings meant that we would only be able to get to Suffolk (from Essex) due to family logistics. There are surprisingly a lot of holiday rentals in Suffolk, unfortunately not too many were available on my dates or didn’t have enough character to generate an idea for a story.
The short list was a couple of beamed cottages, a railway carriage and a barge. The theme for the latter two would be obvious although I could create an odd combination eg. operating theatre in a railway carriage, or a more obvious ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ theme. The cottages on my shortlist had features that I liked i.e. wide opening doors to outside, internal leaded light window on a narrow corridor, a manger and bridle. The cottages also had interesting flooring that would add character.
I decided the barge and railway carriage were too cramped and I hadn’t really had an idea that was gaining traction for either venue.
The cottage with the 2 mangers and horse paraphernalia was my choice. My wife used to work as a riding instructor and both her and my daughter have been riding regularly over the last few years. This meant I already had access to props and my wife, although a reluctant actress, would be more comfortable playing such a role.
The various beams and brick floor were the other stand out features. The size of the lounge offered a variety of options for setting up lights including a high sloping roof space along one side of the room. I needed to get a better idea of the room layout before deciding on booking the cottage but I felt it was a good choice with lots of options.
Martyn Rainbird 