SKETCHBOOK STORYBOARD
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BRIEF Make a narrative storyboard in any manner. It doesn’t have to be a traditional storyboard used for a motion picture but it can be in any form. It should be connected to the book chosen for the book intervention assignment.
RESEARCH & INSPIRATION The research and inspiration parts went very much hand in hand when I started the work on my storyboard. I tried to pick something interesting from what I found out about the book and the author when researching for the book intervention. But I did not want to choose the same kind of idea as I did for that project, which was very focused on the story of the book. So instead I chose to draw inspiration from the author. Looking for inspiration for the expression of my storyboard I early on slid towards photography. I’m a photographer and really like working with images so it felt natural to choose it as a medium. Photography itself inspires me because I can get really creative with it.
IDEAS As I stated before I went back to the research of the prior project and I also looked at the different ideas I had for that. Nothing was really suitable for my storyboard but it sparked something in me when I saw that I’d written something about the author’s mental illness. So with photography as my medium I decided I wanted to depicture mental illness in some way. Among other ideas I thought about taking pictures of my room and simulate how it would look like if a isolated psychopath lived there but that seemed a little to comprehensive. I also struggled a bit with getting the narrative in to the concept of depicting mental illness. I then figured I would make the storyboard a sequence of events trying to illustrate going from sane to insane. After taking portrait photographs of my flat mates and their moustaches (documenting Movember), I figured I could use the portrait style on my storyboard as well.
SECONDARY RESEARCH After I knew what I wanted to do I began reading a lot about famous psychopaths and looking at pictures of them. I found that most of them looked rather normal except they often had a peculiar smile on their faces that looked evil. In order to make my storyboard more interesting I decided my image sequence would end with me trying to look like the psychopaths in the pictures I found, going from normal looking.
Setting the light and exposure for the shots.
SKETCHES & PROCESS Here’s some images displaying how I took the pictures from the camera to the final result. Special thanks to Siri Eskilson who pushed the camera button and gave some valuable feedback on my expressions.
FINAL PIECE My final storyboard is a sequence of four pictures where I go from normal to nervous and jittery to obsessed, and on to a calm calculating full-fledged psychopath. I had a little photo shot where I took a lot of pictures just trying out different expressions for the different stages and it was during the photo shot I came up with the idea for the third one (where I get obsessed). I’ve decided to have the pictures in black and white to make them feel more timeless and more like old institutionalised documentary photographs. I’m very happy with the results and I think it looks very authentic.
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CONCLUSIONS I think the pictures look unpleasant and that the imitation of a psychopath turned out successful, at least of people’s reactions to judge. I really enjoyed working with this project and if I’d had more time I would have made similar series with different people. I think the idea could have greater impact with more examples of it. But then maybe it would have been more of a photo project rather than a storyboard. Last but not least I really feel that this kind of work is great for your creativity. I have a bunch of projects (especially photographic ones) that I’d like to do in the future and I’ve have a much better understanding for doing things that doesn’t necessarily have a distinct purpose, which I’ve been used to before.
ANTON LARSSON ADVANCED VISUAL CREATIVITY UWS 2013