Filmmaker
Artist
Photographer Theatre Designer
ABOUT ME
‘PARANOID’ is a short film I filmed, created, and directed completely solo. I had aimed to create an impactful piece, with minimal people/ dialogue, rather focusing on the music and subtle changes in facial expression. The film is an expression of the feeling of walking at night, constantly worried about what is around, wether it be something rational or something that would mean nothing at a different time. This was my first solo film and film at all!
I would consider myself amongst the intermediate level skilled in the film industry, but with a passion that runs deeper than words I can even use to describe. For this project I was incredibly excited, not only to take on such a big challenge, editing and directing the film myself, but also in attempting to tackle an issue I am sure a lot of other people can relate to. When trying to brainstorm ideas for this initial project, I wanted to draw in from what I saw in other short films, as well as horror series that used a style that I knew from the start I wanted to achieve in my own.
My first area of inspiration stemmed from ‘Swarm’, which to this day is one of my favourite new takes on the slasher/ horror genre of film, particularly in the cinematography. I especially liked the series focus on woman’s position in relationships and in the sex work industry that they managed to tie in with obsession, addiction, and mental health all in once. The series itself, as discussed by Filmmaker in an interview with Drew Daniels was a reset back to the ‘imperfect’ camera era around the 1970s where cinematographers didn’t have the same stability and HD quality that were able to achieve now with a dolly or gimbal.
What I loved about this choice to revisit a less clean and cut look, and where I made use of this in my own work, was in creating something that allowed the imperfections to aid in the feeling provoked in people watching. As something who experiences a feeling of paranoia and fear in public, even in the location I filmed in, that someone or something is out hiding with a malicious intent, or even that what is around me is more dangerous simply because it is night. Although this being my first attempt at creating something of this calibre, I am proud of what I managed to create and the interpretations that people can have from it. Hearing what feelings it elicit in other people though being only 2 minutes, feels incredibly powerful.
2024 PORTFOLIO
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2024 PORTFOLIO •
Lighting Showcase
I was afforded the opportunity earlier last year to participate in the year 13 and 12 showcases for the Music trainees. This showcase was for both producers, and then one for the Rewind project in which students produce covers of existing songs. My job, along with one teammate, was to use the brief provided by each group to create a set of light presets that would fade and include transitions for when the beat drops in the song. We did this during rehearsels so we were incredibly immersed in the process and I especially felt I learned alot about industry standard work. We used the software Daslight primarily and created the presets from scratch using colour combinations that fit the vibe of the song. In the 3 videos above, you will see presets I created, and then mixed live during the show. The show was incredibly well recived by an audience of over 300 people and run inside the school itself. My favourite moment of the showcase was seeing the hype in the audience whilst the lights would change, and the positive feedback I got afterwards, particularly on ‘Spit’ (middle video) as it had the most unique light set of the entire two shows. This was also my favourite to make in Daslight
Date: Nov 16th 2023 & 29th Nov 2023
Program: Daslight
Role: Light technition, designer
Sombre -
A photography project
Nearing the end of 2023, I was feeling incredibly reflective on the year, and on how I wanted to be moving onward into 2024. I had also had an idea for a while about a mixed media photography piece that reflected some of the thoughts I had only been able to conceptualise in my own brain, let alone in any form of art. A lot of my initial inspiration for ‘Sombre‘ and ultimately what made me actually begin the project was seeing people share online about how life had started to feel endless, the phrase used in particular being “Nothings New”. When entering this project I new I wanted to have 8 photos of things in my life that were consistent, but that were a thing of comfort that I could aways count on leading up to the new year. I particularly focused on pictures with a dull colour scheme, but with a cohesive look, often organised in a shape language that is pleasing to the eye, or a composition that was easy to add onto with digital drawings. During the project I had a lot of time to reflect on what meant the most in my life that I often did not take into account or even register. Things as simple as the corner of your room or a connection of houses and the skyline. I’d love to say I changed as a person following this project or that I felt more connected to the little things in life, but truly I would say I instead had to overcome an intense loneliness that I got when looking back at the final pictures. Since it was also a time of great stress in my life, school coming closer to an end, accepting new beginnings, and saying goodbye to old habits, I felt as though I didn’t have time to put into what each individual photo meant to me, instead looking at the emotion that went into it. I am happy with my editing and the general look/ storytelling of the pictures, especially when placed all together, I wish I had had more time to expand the project and possibly even showcase more media like traditional edits or gifs/ animations. Even though photography is probably the skill I have explored the least in my range of creative studies, and thus my weakest, I really do hope to continue to add to this in the future.
Date: October - December 2023
Role: Photographer, Designer, Editor
Camera: Canon EOS
OTHER RECENT PROJECTS
COLOUR & MOVIE STUDIES
I have been doing art since I was incredibly young, always particularly enthralled by animated movies and films that had a particularly unique artistic choice such as Scott Pilgrim or Lala Land. In the two studies I did above, my intent was to focus on recreating the colour, shape, forms and textures of the original still. In my digital painting, a still from Hereditary completed in Photoshop, I wanted to focus more on realism and using colour theory to make an almost completely photo like version of the original still. Meanwhile in the second piece, a still from As You Are done digitally in Procreate , I wanted to highlight the general form and shape of the character with minimal lines.
ELAM - MINI PROJECT 2
Within this mini project, I am honing in on my own specialism outside of games, as of entering year 13 my goal for university and onward made a switch from illustration/ animation, to theatre production to film. Thus my area of focus and subject of this project is to create a visual concept design for a production of either a musical or screenplay. I specifically want to focus on knowing the shape language and effect of certain pieces on stage. In order to do this, my research will includes looking at existing work from professional set designers in theatre as well as high end production movies and analyse what makes them such a high standard and so memorable to an audience. From this I used the key elements and skills of professionals and created my own concept design in 3D modelling that lighting and texture can then be added to.
ELAM Music Video - LIGHTING
This was actually an unexpected project, I was added on last minute due to a shortage of light tech assisters and so I stepped in. My main role was to get a feel for the music during a one shot rehearsal, and decide on what lighting would best fit the shot. Since this was a one take shot on stage, a spotlight was my first idea which the artist seemed to really like. This was a simplistic choice, but an impactful one, and to make it better, I added a fade that increased both the brightness, and diffusion as the music played. Overall I think the spotlight worked well with the scene and I enjoyed the practice of creating a lighting preset on the spot and learning from it. Doing more music videos in the future also be an amazing opportunity.
MOVIE POSTERS RE-IMAGINED
Something I have always loved to do is add my own personal twist to existing art as well as re-imagine existing art, particularly when it comes to film or theatre. I was initially inspired to redesign promotional posters from all types of media was after seeing the poster for ‘The Curious Incident Of the Dog in the Nighttime’ play adaptation. Not only was this book incredibly familiar to me and one of my favourites from younger reading taste, I thought the promotion was so simplistic and reminiscent of the original art that it was powerful and immediately made me feel an urge to create my own. Initially I did these sketches into old notebooks and post its but then moved on to digital which creates a final product a lot closer to the industry standard of promotional media and design. Although the art above are all one format, and quite honestly more closely related in appearance to Pinterest promotional work - which I do find myself enjoying - they are what I consider my own re-imaginings of posters for movies I love. [From left to right] ‘Bones and All’ , ‘Lady Bird’ , ‘The Shining’. The software I use to create this is procreate, as most of it is experimental I tend to use doodles/ unstructured lines and so using Photoshop or an Adobe suit product felt too professional, as I often feel i’m forced to be more formal and rigid in the layout. I enjoy the experimentation aspect of these and that I can have more fun with the layout. The thing I enjoyed most in the process of making these however was for ‘Lady Bird’ because I was able to take the original fault from the movie and use it as a reference for the font on the poster. The title itself is taken directly from a scene in which the main character writes her name which I felt was perfect and matched the style I wanted for the rest of it.
STORYBOARDS
A key part of the creative process is in the planning and pre production that assists the final product being better quality. Storyboards can be some of the best ways of starting this process which I often do in my own work. Above are some examples of my most detailed storyboards (as often they look more like a collection of random sketches) , but are actually all from projects that I did not end up following through with. I find they are always inspiring to look back on when I am brainstorming for new projects or even just trying to note down existing ideas I have for the future as it allows me to see if I have come up with a similar idea and how I would execute it differently. As is probably clear, the middle art on the bottom labelled ‘First Day’ is not a storyboard, rather it is the first frame that I thumbnails led before an animation project I wanted to start but ended up not. I often include this in my storyboard collection as it is something that inspires me to continue drawing frames of the animation even though I am no longer motivated to finish that project. One thing I think I could improve in my storyboarding is annotations, specifically of timing as this is often where I get confused later on particularly if I am making an art piece or film where timing is essential. I am happy however that I am able to not overthink my storyboards as I often tend to do this during the actual production process so its always good to look back and see how I can tone down or amp up the story based on the things I had already planned.
WORKS IN PROGRESS/ ABANDONED PROJECTS
ELAM ARCADE COMPITITION I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to design an arcade machine that would be represented in the school, but due the photoshops slow render speed and inability to cope with the file size of the design, I was unable to submit. The piece was a ‘The Last Of Us’ inspired piece that highlighted Ellie and the fungus all over the box.
CHARACTER SHEET - YAY animation comp Though I never got to finish the animation, I was content in the character sheet as it was something I hadnt done before. I was also on a huge time crunch and was mainly using procreate, which prior to the release of Procreate Dreams, was missing alot of animation componants. The result is sheet of a young girl starting her first day of school
ELAM FINAL SOLO PROJECT Y12 During the end of year 12 solo project, we were instructed to hone in on areas of our specialism that we weren’t used to doing to which I chose a completely rendered piece, including a background. I really enjoyed the process of creating the sketch seeing the piece slowly come together but in the end I didnt love the look of the background.
HAIR STUDIES - Rendering One of the many things I enjoy about 2D art is stylisation. This is something that comes with practice however, and so I decided to work on the way I draw hair using two different methods inspired by artists I loved online. The first, used backlight and blue light to show the depth in the hair, whilst the second uses more fluffy colour strokes to carry across the sections of hair.
THUMBNAILING PRACTICE This actually goes in hand with my Solo project and was meant to allow me to practice my quick thumnail sketches and then narrow these ideas downt to come up with one that I liked the composition of the most. I think that what I found most interesting about the process was my ability to be decisive and actually come to a choice of which would have the best product.
ENDLESS RUNNER - run cycle Once again, in this project I decided to choose a style without lineart as not only was it more efficient to create, but it also allowed me to create more movement away from rigid lines. The end result in game, though glitchy at times due to my lack of comprehensive coding skills, was smooth and appeared as though she was truly running, even changing speed at times.
ENDLESS RUNNER - End screen This was actually my first ever project and one that tested my ability to create an entire game that was in one style. I chose to do one without lineart,, instead simple forms and shapes that made up characters. I really loved the look of this end screen particulalry as it highlighted more of the story element of the simple game, a town where all the children are missing.
ENVIRONMENT DESIGN My second project at ELAM was a 3D platformer, of which I needed to create an environment that the game was set in. Since I had not dabbled in this yet, let alone creating a decaying and destroyed design, I wanted to really focus on the ambience and lighting. Since the piece is moody I used more blues and purples for the items in the room, but brought in anger in the red.
MOVIE ANALYSIS
CURE - Kyoshi Kurosawa
Cure is a 1997 Japanese Psychological horror written and directed by Kyoshi Kurosawa. I personally think that it is one of the best horrors to take an interesting diversion from the norm, and evoke fear out of the ‘ordinary’. Cure follows the story of a detective, Kenichi Takabe, a police detective living with his wife who is portrayed as a flight risk type, and holds many of the characteristics expressive of an unstable mental state. She often relies on the assistance of Takabe throughout the film and the relationship overall I would argue is incredibly codependent. Takabe is seen investigating a series of unexplained, out of the ordinary murders which we come to realise are all done through the use of hypnosis to manipulate its victims into killing themselves, or others. What is most interesting however is how the movie refrains from the typical horror narrative, and thus the viewer feels in a state of trance as the seemingly ordinary cinematography and composition shows such violent scenes. From the very start it is easy to be shocked by how non-horror the movie feels and as you progress to become more disturbing you are misled as the tone remains the same.
The biggest boundary I found was broken was the boundary between realism and surrealism, or normality vs obscurity. The movie shows neither auditory or visual jumpscares, retains smooth, unbroken shots - often kills are done in one take - and lacks any form of exaggerated soundtrack that is found in many conventional horrors, and in fact often rely on. The movie somehow remains completely normal whilst containing dark and at times, completely shocking themes. Cure resorts to using normally long and uncut takes with immersive real world sounds that cause great anxiety to the watcher. As well as this the movie chooses to present typically ‘taboo’ subjects such as Takabe’s wife’s battle with mental health and eventual suicide, making Cure incredibly influential for the time - 1997, whilst yes leading further from stereotypical horror movie attributes, did not tend to cover topics such as mental health in a respectful or understanding way).
One scene that had me on the edge of my seat was the hallucination experienced by Takabe linking him to the theme of hypnosis and trance states. Takabe is returning to his home after another unsuccessful attempt at figuring out any information on the atypical murders, leaving him both tired and frustrated. He is within his car and looks out the window where there is a sudden cut to a flashback of scenes shown previously. This is one of the few times throughout the movie where there are faster cuts used to show a twist or change in the tone. As well as this there is a use of audio cues such as a train passing that is shown nowhere in shot, however as Takabe moves, you see the faint lights and bell of a railway crossing in the back. This creates a duality and significance in cues that occur later in the movie. Flashing lights are used in other points along Takabe which heightens this sense of hypnosis as sounds are often used on the person in trance to either get them into or out of a state of hypnosis. This is followed by Takabe making it home in which, (spoiler!), his wife is dead, something that is a turning point within the plot, and yet the set up of the scene has no indication that this would be upcoming. There is also a sudden disruption of the audio here making it so his screams are accompanied by silence. This powerful scene completely breaks away from the death scenes in horror history and creates a lingering shock that is abruptly stopped when we see this was all imagined in Takabe’s head.
COMISSIONS
Beginning 2023 I knew I wanted to start taking on projects outside of the scheduled course specific briefs. At the time I was also a lot less certain on what my future career looked like as my enjoyment and skill in a multitude of areas made it difficult for me to narrow it down to just one. Thus, I opened up commissions within my school allowing students who needed art done wether for their own project or sometimes a brand/ logo for their personal work.
As I progressed, and got more and more work, I feel I developed a brand of my own, allowing students to give me unorthodox ideas and even moved from just 2D art to animation, and posters too. It reached a point around September where even teachers were sending students to me for my work and I felt an incredibly sense of pride knowing that my art was being appreciated and used by people for their own branding.
One of my first commissions was for Tom, who’s work is shown above. This piece was particularly important as it was for his EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) which covers a serious topic of the Holocaust. I wanted the art to fit his exact brief and so ensured that I made notes during our first discussions of what he wanted the final product to be. For the outcome of this commission the two goals were to have the cover as well as 3 page backgrounds for him to put his actual work on top of. I was successful in this outcome and felt that I was not only able to create this whilst remaining respectful to the theme but also something that meant his EPQ would stand out.
Another commission I felt incredibly impressed with the result of was with Maya who wanted me to create some branding as she is an upcoming artist currently studying music at my school. She requested I make three separate designs each with varying theme and incorporating her title “Saasil on earth”.
When it comes to approaching branded commissions my technique is slightly different as I am to create something that can be easily re-used on different pieces of media whilst still sticking with the theme or motif of the persons brand. Maya wanted her brand to surround the idea of her as an alien on earth, the sun and earth featuring prominently.
Another key component of making a brand commission is to ask the person for what style they want, most often using a reference of an existing logo or artist. Though Maya did not have one specific in mind I made sure to go through every stage of the creation process so she could directly inform me of what did not work with the design, for example the colour palette or font or composition.
I feel the outcome looks professional, and just as I set out, she can place each design in a variety of places and they will still work and be visible. The first design being a small avatar type logo of her character and the other two more reminiscent of professional artist branding you may see on an album or merch.
Maya liked this work so much she actually continued to commissions me following these results and I ended up making a music visualiser for her (seen in showreel).
