Richard Avedon - American West

When I stumbled across Richard Avedon's series of images called American West it inspired me to think about how I want my portrait images to look and feel like. The way Avedon was able to catch the person's character and style by capturing them in their day to day outfit, and not dressed up. This is something I want to take on within my own work by being able to capture the characters within in the film and not the fake model side of them. I want there to be an understanding to the image, and not just a portrait shot of a man that looks like the actor from the film. I've got to research into certain props and locations to be able to make my pictures tell a story.

The series of images took for American West was all shot on location, but instead of using the location as a back drop he's used a white sheet to act as a studio. I don't intend to do this, I want the location and background visible, to show their surrounds to create more of a sense of character and where they come from.

Screen Shots

Heres a few screen shots that I hope to base some of my photos on. I want to shoot each main character with at least two/three different scenes.

Theres the motel scene, where Llewelyn hides the money up in the ventilation shaft, and also when Anton comes storming in with his shot gun, killing people. So I want to start looking at basic Motel/Hotel rooms for this.

Another location where I want to look into and hopefully plans some shoots for is the caravan where Llewelyn and his girlfriend lived. There's a couple of scenes that stick in my head, where both Anton and Mr Wells both sitting on the sofa drinking the same milk, staring at the blank TV set looking at their silhouette reflection at different times.

Hannah Starkey

A starting point for my research, I wanted to look into Hannah Starkey's work a little more. A well known photographer born in Belfast and lives in London. Nationally known for her portrait photographs. I decided I wanted to start researching her work mainly for the fact she like to isolate and pinpoint her subjects. Even though most of her portraits are with females looking depressed and or even with their back towards the camera, it's the way she controls the photo. The way she photographs her subject, not close like normal portraits, she leaves a lot of negative space for people to really get to understand the surroundings. She's done this purely for the fact that it makes her subjects feel more alone and depressing, whereas I want to use it for the fact i want people to see the surroundings for it to build up a message and an understanding of whats going on. I want to use this type of photography with-in my work purely for the fact my pictures will have a story and message to show.

No Country for Old Men

After finally picking a film I'm happy with and watching it over and over again I soon realised what i want to focus on within this project. I know landscapes are going to be forever popular within this film, so i wanted to stay clear of that. I want to focus more on the people and themselves, and maybe recreate or put the person in a familiar surroundings to the film.

Heres a poster for the film of the people I think I will focus on the most, the three main people within this film:

Josh Brolin (Llewelyn Moss), Javier Bardem (Anton Chigurh) and Tommy Lee Jones (Ed Tom Bell)

So we have Llewelyn, an out back living with his girlfriend who happens to stumble across a shoot out. Lightly coloured chequered shirt with sleeves rolled up tucked in to a pair of blue jeans large cowboy hat, tall pointy boots. Tall, slim athletic build with long dark straight hair with a dark mustache.

Anton, a tall dark figure with an longingful gaze in his eyes, no real care for people and his surroundings. Tall, well built, open eyed with long dark hair that slightly resembles a bowl mullet. Dark clothes, black jeans and black shirt, with dark jean jacket and tall pointy black boots.

And finally Mr Bell, a sheriff for the local police. A calm but precise person with many years of experience, hoping to retire soon. Beige coloured police shirt, watch on the left hand wrist, cowboy hat, dark brown trousers. Short in height, slightly balding short hair, gelled back, slightly over weight.

There is also the private detective called Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) who I might look into. Medium height, medium build, Light blue open collar shirt, big beige cowboy hat, grey suit, short balding hair.

Cinematographer

After watching the film 'No Country For Old Men' again, I decided I wanted to find out who does all their 'Cinematography' work. Going through all the credits I stumbled across a guy called 'Roger Deakins' who infact has done all of Coen Brothers cinematography work apart from 'Burn After Reading' where they employed 'Emmanuel Lubezki'. Roger Deakins was born 24th May 1949 in Torquay, Devon and attended Torquay Boys Grammer School. He later enrolled at Bath school of Art and Design where he studied Graphic Design but soon developed a huge love for still imagery. He then decided to have a change in study path and got transfered to the National Film and Television school in England. Not Long after Roger Deakins finished education he jumped straight into a job working as a cameraman and assisting in the production of documentaires for around seven years. His life is pretty much self explanatory from there on, still working in and around films mostly known for being the photography director.

Fargo

I'd seen this film before, but decided to watch it again to refresh my memory. I enjoyed the film the first time round, to the second time round I got more time to focus on the actual story, rather than all the random blank scenes. I liked all the open snowy landscapes and the isolation of the small town 'Fargo'. I personally feel that it would be far to hard to make a studio set out of this film purely for the snowy landscape, and I feel that the landscape is a big part of this film. Therefore I'm not going to be choosing this film as part of my project.

The Coen Brothers

Joel David Coen was born November 29, 1954 and Ethan Jesse Coen was born September 21, 1957 in St. Louis Park of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The brothers are famously known as the Coen Brothers for writing and directing films. Producing and directing films start at a young age when Joel saved money up from cutting neighbours lawns to purchase a Vivitar Super 8 camera. The brothers together starting remaking movies they saw on television with a childhood friend.

The Coen Brothers both graduated from St. Louis Park high School in 1973 and 1976 and went on to study and graduate at Bard College in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Joel then went on to study in the undergraduate film program at New York University where he spent four years of his life, whereas Ethan went on to study philosophy at Princeton University in 1979.

After the brothers completed all their studies, Joel worked as a production assistant on a mix of industrial films and music videos before the brothers got together in 1984 and wrote and directed 'Blood Simple'. After release the film gained a lot of acknowledgement and won awards for Joel's direction at both Sundance and Independent Spirit awards. They went on to be nominated for thirteen Academy Awards and won four, including: two Oscars for screen-writing, one for Best Director(s) and one for Best Picture.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

This was the second Coen Brothers film I decided to watch and a good one at last. A story based on the poem 'The Odyssey' by Homer set in south America in the 1930's. A whimsical story about 3 escaped convicts trying to get to the so called treasure that 'Everett' the hair product 'dapper dan' obssesed narcissiest (George Clooney) made up. Everett created a story about some treasure so he could get help from Pete and Delmar (John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson) to break out of jail. The story was made up so he could stop his wife from wedding another bloke.
Throughout the film they come across a series of problems and challenges they have to wiggle their way out of and try and make their way towards Everett wife and kids. On their travels they stumble across a black kid with a guitar and they all help him create a track to earn some quick dollar. Without them knowing the track becomes a big hit and in the end helps them from being taken down by the mayor devouring them from all their crimes.

The film got me thinking about a few possibilities for photo-shoot ideas and concepts but nothing that really stood out and made me want to crack on with anything. I liked the idea of 3brothers going through hard times together, and whilst not actually being blood brothers but brothers at heart and soul. The highs and lows you admit with each other, something that will always stay with you in memory.

No Country For Old Men

First film of the Coen Brothers production I decided to watch out of the list I have been given. A film I initially thought would be a good watch, and it was until the main man in the story dies. I enjoyed the suspense of the chase all the way through and thought there was going to be either a big shoot out or for there to be a twist at the end.
The film starts with a tall man in black being taking in by a police patrol on a highway. The tall man kills the cop by strangling him with his handcuffs. He escapes with a police car but not rushed or hurried but in a calm and careless sense. Another bloke who starts the film off by shooting deer in the outback stumbles across a crazed shootout, where everyone has shot each other. He looks in the back of a truck to find it full of drugs, and goes off to find ‘the last man standing’. He tracks him down to a guy dead under a tree with a case full of money. He takes the money and goes back to a trailer park where he lives. This all kicks the film of with a great suspense and suspicion and draws you in to want to watch more. For the most of the film this tall man in black is chasing down the guy with the money who is also being chased down by the Mexicans. Towards the end of the film the guy with the money gets randomly killed and shot, with no build up or suspense not even a long shoot out scene. One minute he’s alive, next scene he’s dead. For the rest of the film (30mins or so) the tall man in black goes to the wife’s address and tells her to flip a coin, she kindly denies. The next scene all you see is the tall man in black leave her address. Now the tall man in black is driving down a road and is involved in a car accident where he breaks his arm. He walks away calmly from the scene of the accident and then the film ends. Leaving it totally up in the air and leaving me totally baffled as to what the hell happened. I was disappointed and annoyed at the fact that they killed off the main actor, I was hopeing there would be some sort of twist for him dying but it never happened.
A disappointing ending to say the least, was annoyed at the fact nothing really summed up. The film ended with everything wide open, and was asking myself way too many questions. Where had the money and drugs gone? Who killed the main story guy? What happened to the wife? What happened to the killer? I wouldn’t recommend this film to anyone who needs an ending that finalises everything otherwise you’ll just get annoyed as I have.