URBAN LANDSCAPE

Urban Landscape is a type of photography category, it dilutes into human condition, urban machine and beyond reality, and my main focus will be on beyond reality. Urban Landscape is a distinct from “street photography” which looks at urban experience largely through a study of the people who live it, although the two genres may overlap. Urban landscape photographs often include people, but they are clearly situated and existing in the structure of the town or city. I think this photography concept will be very suitable to apply in our set design and cinematography, as we want to blend in our characters in the populated city in order to create unity in the utopia world. In beyond reality we use an abstraction form to interpretation of our urban environment, with the use of textures, space, form, colors, light and time. From this concept it inspires us an idea to capture a different perspective when looking at our city landscape. I want to use its minimalist aspect to create a dreamscape.

 

The urban landscape can be viewed both as a series of structures and edifices more or less organized by human action and as a panorama of social and cultural histories framing our present and inscribing our past as Mike Seaborne stated.

 

“… the conurbation becomes one huge archaeological site as the city reveals its inner self through a continuous process of urban renewal and revitalization in which the very innards of the landscape are exposed and delayered like a vast anatomical dissection” (Ron McCormick, 1998)

 

D.Miller, E. Parry et.al. 1998 ‘The City: Harbour of Humanity’, Photography’s Multiple Roles, pp.200-227. Viewed 30 March 2016
Crombie and G.Blainey, 1992 ‘Sites of the Imagination: Photographers View Melbourne and Its People’ Viewed 22 March 2016
Ron McCormick, 1998 ‘Archaeologies: Tracing History in the Urban Landscape’. Viewed 29 March 2016

Formalism

The aim of a formal analysis then is “not to explore photographic content but to describe physical and formal attributes of a photographic print that form the tools a photographer uses to define and interpret that content.” (Stephen Shore
Phaidon, 2008)

 

Stephen Shore Phaidon, 2008, The Nature of Photographs pp.12. viewed 10 March 2016

This is a collection of photos I took when I was sourcing outdoor locations. The places that I try to look for are heavily base with concrete texture, grey in colour and with wide open area. These places are important because they need to create a high society world with a dash of futuristic vibe.  I’ve chose concrete as it represents the solidity in this utopia world, the straight restrictions and limits that were set to human. As for the slums, they are mainly base with brick walls, laneway and open field, with rusty barns and trees. We want to create a non ideal place but yet it is a place where people are living freely. There are no rules and restrictions in this part of the world. that

Costume.
Basic, simple, plain, clean.
We’ve decided to use white as the fundamental colour throughout this film. A concept board below to show the style we are aiming for. The clothes have to be/ look comfortable, flexible and neat.

 

Gregory Crewdson has always been one of my favorite photographers. The first time I ever seen a photo from him was a few years ago, I was so trigger by the whole composition of the photo. The lighting, the character and the settings, everything that goes into that photo create a sense of mysterious and artificial feeling.

Reading Gregory Crewdson and Bradford Morrow Journal-Bomb, it dilutes me to a whole new perspective to his work. His work are often about creating a moment that’s frozen and mute. It is combative, violent yet serene, beautiful and ugly. Gregory states that his irrational need is to create a perfect world that meets up with some kind of failure. His work often captures a secret, they are creating a believable or credible world but also an unreal reality. I feel like theres a conflict between a dreamscape and reality, leading to interesting interpretation from the audience. The anxiety, fear and desire in the photo allow us all to relate at some point in our life.

 

Article title: Gregory Crewdson; Author: Gregory Crewdson and Bradford Morrow; Journal Title: Bomb

Cindy Sherman.
Post- modern turn in the photography history.
Self- referential, critically engaged and knowing quality.
Experimental primitive photographic techniques.
Staged images.
Concerns with artifice and the cultural construction and coding of image making.
Questioning the reality of the things it seemed to represent as matters of fact.

 

Inspiration: Photography by Wing Shya

All the members of my group tend to pay a lot more attentions on mood and composition for a short film. We each try to bring up topics, issues and stories and decide on one. We want to focus on a certain theme which is more abstract or surreal, something that has less conversations. A topic that we have been looking at is Overpopulation.

A video I found which is quite interesting relating to this topic. The shots of this short film are very powerful- busy city, over populated, pollutions. This is a film which is about the city architecture designs in todays China.

 

A brainstorm for the short film, Activity One.