Original Ideas... Recapping...

So i discarded quite a few of my ideas early on and these same ideas seem thave been snapped up by ther people in the class and in other examples i've seen. So I thought i might just recap on some of the ideas i discarded and reconsider my ideas. Some of them definitely need to be discarded, but i felt it was important to show what ideas i've come up with so far to show some sort of progression. These are the ideas i came up with that i haven't already spoken about.

One of the first ideas i had was of animals being attracted to a light source which would be late at night and in a woods. I thought the colour choice in this idea would be interesting because i could make it quite fantasy like with a lot of 'magical' colours, giving a great visual aesthetic. I had the idea of either using a frog on a rock surrounded by water, staring at the light source, or buterflies attracted to the light source, both would be surronded by a typical forest/wood environment with trees, plants and rocks. When i thought about this idea, i felt the idea of creating animals would be difficult, but butterflies wouldn't be too hard. But, looking back at the idea now, after Phil's 'conceptual hand grenade', I feel this idea is too sci fi and fantasy related, althoug it has an eerie feeing, it doesn't seem ordinary enough.


Another idea i had was of a hand or body part in a broken floor board, the rest of the room would be empty and there would be a window with a car either pulling up or away outside, depending on how you interpret it. It would also be late at light with the moonlight shining through the window and onto the hand. I thought the walls could be red with a crack coming up one of them, and the floor boards would be quite sctratched and marked. I really liked this idea to start of with because i felt the idea of the car was quite ambiguous, not knowing whether it was just parking or about to pull away. I felt the way it was frozen made the audience feel the character's despair, seeing the car in the window and waiting for something to happen, but it doesn't. Again though, after Phil's comments, i feel this is too obvious, it isn't ordinary and follows a 'horror film' cliche.

I also had an idea of some baths in a room where the light shines in through a window, again, it's at night. I had the idea that these could be filled with either soil and plants, whilst the ground is flooded or covered in soil. An alternative idea was that the bath was blood stained, but the room was flooded. The camera angle would only allow you to see one bath full on and the corner of another one. To me, this idea was quite eerie because you are wondering what has gone on or if anyone one is under the soil. A lot of questions could be asked in this image, but i feel that it is too horror-like and doesn't seem ordinary. This was the problem i was having, i was making the image to obvious and giving too much away.

Another idea i had, which other people seem to have gone for, was a child's rooom or living room where there was a teddy bear in the corner and toys which had been played with but were all over the floor. The idea of the bear alone seems quite uncanny, i always wonder whether they are able to see things, it's possibly those black eyes they usually have, something i'd associate with evil. In this scene, there would be a car either coming or going that we could see through the window, similar to the idea with the hand in the floor boards. To me, this scene could be perceived in two ways, a typical room where a child has not bothered to clean up its mess or someone has kidnapped the child and is about to drive off. I feel this idea is much more ordinary than my other ideas and not so full on with genre cliches. It also has some ambiguity in there and the sense of the bear seeing everything, for me, is uncanny. It's the idea that the bear might be able to tell you something, but it can't.

One of the other ideas i had came when i was round a friend's house, there was some sort of hair machine (maybe a big hair dryer) in the corner of the room, i couldn't help but keep staring at it, not only did it seem out of place in an ordinary living room, but it looked like it had a face with the way the buttons were positioned. I liked this idea of something being out of place because it can often seem quite strange or uncomfortable. For this scene, i pretty much copied the whole room because it was such an ordinary living room and this 'out of place' object seemed so eerie. In my idea though, i felt that it should be isolated in the corner to draw your attraction, so we don't see the whole living room, our focus is on the corner of the room. For me, this idea could still work, but i did find it a little bit boring. It didn't have that eerieness and uncanny feeling that some of the other ideas had, although i do feel this idea is a lot more ordinary than the others, which was what Phil was saying.

When i was looking out of my kitchen window to my lovely view of the industrial site across the river. I always expect to see people working there; there's usually cranes, forklifts, and a big boat that they load onto. However, when i look across the river and nothing is going on during the daytime, especially Sundays, it seems so empty and desolate, like something should be happening but it isn't. For me, that is eerieness of abandonment, which is why Alan and Phil have talked to me about these abandoned places. This gave me the idea of an abandoned industrial site, with cranes and machines in a desolate area. I pretty much discarded this idea straight away because i had already decided on my two favourite ideas, but after listening t Phil's comments, i feel that this idea was heading in the right direction, at the time i seemed to think the more obvious ones would be better.

My next idea, again, was discarded early because of my preferred choices but looking at the links and websites Phil gave me, it was going down the right path, following the abandoned idea. The scene was a theme park, in particular a carousel, which was desolate or abandoned. Thise follows the conversation that I had with Alan, talking about how we expect these places to be full of people, so when they're not, it seems a little unnerving. My idea was focused around the carousel, and i felt this would be hard to do, but for some reason, i didn't follow up on this idea and look at a theme park as a whole. I feel it's possible that i might end up going back to the theme park idea after looking at the sites Phil sent me, it definitely ticks all the right boxes.

Another idea i had was a chair in a mental institute, which looking at some of the photography from different websites, is a popular idea. I liked the way it was just a chair in a room, but when i think of mental institutes it reminds me of how they are portrayed in films, and my mind starts to wonder what has happened in this chair and room. Essentially, it's not what we see in this image, althought it is eerie, it's what we imagine happened. I still really like this idea, and since i've been looking at the abandoned buildings photography, i feel it's worth pursuing. It also seems that this image would possibly look better in black and white or monochromatic colours and the chair would be the focal point with a broken window in the background. I will definitely keep looking into different images for this one because i feel it could work well.

I also came up with the idea of either a petrol station at night, or an abandoned petrol station. It seems that Dan has gone with this idea, and Alan was saying, it's the movies that have made our minds think badly of these sorts of places. I suppose this is another cliche in a way, we often find abandoned and desolate petrol stations in films, but i still like this idea. I suppose i probably like because it's such a filmic shot. Although, i feel the abandoned idea would work better for somewhere like a theme park, swimming pool, or mental institue etc.

The last idea i had from my original thumbnails was a clock smashed on the floor because the sense of time and the way the scene was frozen, to me, feels quite eerie. Time doesn't stop it keeps in motion so something like this could be quite unnerving, It also makes you wonder what happended at that time and why is the clock smashed. in this scene i feel the focal point would be the clock, possible an old pocket watch, and the rest of the scene would be blurred or out of focus. I like this idea because i find the idea of frozen time quite unnerving, but it is a bit basic and simple.

When Phil chucked a 'conceptual hand grenade' my way, i thought i was struggling for ideas, when in actual fact, it seems i alreadyhad some decent ideas, i just chose the wrong ones to look into. Some of the ones i discarded seem to be better than my preferred choices. A lot of them seem to follow that idea of abandonment which i am now coming back round to after Phil and Alan's advice. it seems if i would have stuck with those ideas, i would have been on the right path to start off with.

Looking at these ideas, you can see how Gregory Crewdson had influenced them, but as Phil said, 'the strength of Crewdson's work is that he plays knowingly with genre - but without confirming or denying the various possibilities suggested.' Therefore, my ideas need to be more pared back to their essence and i need to try to make the ordinary work a little harder for me. This is why i have begun to look at abandoned buildings and sites thanks to the help of Phil and Alan. You expect or want something to be happening in these places, but they're so desolate, that they transform from an ordinary place to something quite eerie and unnerving.