[Still from Dead Snow, 2009, dir. Tommy Wirkola]
Well, sort of.
Throughout December I was working on a BBC4 drama, entitled An Innocent Abroad (nothing to do with Dead Snow pictured above), and this wonderful job consumed all of my time. Working with specific period props and dressing was invaluable experience, as well as tackling onscreen smoking (I have a new appreciation for the standby props team on Mad Men). The feature is set during WWII and follows P.G. Wodehouse - more information can be viewed here.
[Christmas, on the set of An Innocent Abroad, Belfast, 2012]
I had banked on working on my photography coming up to Christmas, and so this was unexpected. But a job is a job so it must be done, and it was a fantastic script/period so it was a pleasure to work on. However, as I was working out the logistics to my Offshore project, for the forthcoming O U T | T U O exhibition, and submerging myself nightly in photographic theory and Rathlin research, I managed to mentally juggle both: props by day and photography by night.
The role of 'standby props' involves taking plenty of pictures anyway, so I was never far from a camera (and we happened to be using plenty of vintage cameras too, for our wartime journalists). My images from the sets of An Innocent Abroad obviously cannot be shown, but I can show other photographs that I took during the filming process. With another possible group show coming up later in 2013, focusing on the spectacle of filmmaking, I was drawn to photographing what we consider normal on set, or as part of everyday, that isn't - giant balls of light, for example.
There are also images of beard trimmings, fancy coffees in fancy homes, ninja antics, manual car rocking, and flash bulbs. But I'll save those for another time.
-PM
No comments:
Post a Comment