Cindy Sherman | Film Stills

In my tutorial with Ellen Nolan I mentioned that for one of my photography pieces I would very much like to create film still style images, from this it was clear that the work of Cindy Sherman was very relevant to what I want to create.

Cindy Sherman's work titled 'Untitled film stills' 1977-1980 very much takes the approach of looking at how women are depicted in films on TV and in magazines in a way of looking at how women can be stereotyped. She has said in her work she doesn't see herself she she's a character that she has portrayed usually from famous films. I very much like this work she created I feel it depicts women in a way they are portrayed in films, despite these all being staged and purposeful created to look like film stills they are extremely convincing, if you were to show these images to someone who didn't know this work of hers or her herself for that matter I don't think they would be able to tell that these are not in fact actual film stills.

I have/will be taking inspiration from this work in the way that I want to create not only a film on this particular unit but I would like to create my own 'film still' images without actually creating a film for my digital piece, these images are very cinematic despite not actually being taken with a filming camera which I feel is incredibly well done and despite being very deceiving. The images in this series are in black and white which is what I would like my work to be shot in as I feel it fits in with the theme of film noir which I would like to carry through all of this work I think the lack of colour in the images gives a deeper sense of mystery particularly if the story goes down a darker route with atmosphere. Not only this but it gives verisimilitude in the sense that in the 1940's images would have been in black and white as colour was only just being attempted at this time. I feel the authenticity of this is important so I would like to experiment with this in black and white film despite this not being my strongest area, however if I feel this was not successful in any way then I will be carrying this shoot out in digital and attempt to create a series of images of this style.

Image source one: http://tristonrobinson.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/cindy-shermans-untitled-film-stills-and-postmodernism/ 

Image source two: http://imageobjecttext.com/2012/01/19/in-the-kitchen-with-cindy/