Film and Media Production
Hello, my name is Matt and i am currently studying Film and Media production at the Brit School. After completing KS4 with a distinction i decided i wanted to stay on until 2023 and continue to expand my knowledge of film and various other things such as radio, blogging, visual effects and more!
- Previous work -
Photography
I didn't start taking photos until 2018 when i bought my first camera to start making films, and although i do enjoy making films i just fell in love with photography and taking photos and studying different artists. Some of my favourite photographers include Willem Verbeeck, William Eggleston and David Hoffman. However some artists, who although may not specialise in photography but have still influenced my photography, are Keaton Henson (musician, illustrator), Jean-michael Basquiat (artist), Hanya Yanigahara (Author, journalist), Hozier (musician) and Charles Bukowski (poet).
Too illustrate (pardon the pun) my infatuation with photography i have deconstructed my two favourite shoots and talk you through how I arrived at the final images...
Kindly now
One of the shoots i picked was one inspired by the album work of Keaton Hensons album 'Kindly now'. It's an inspiration selection of music that i think perfectly captures the idea of the troubled artist. For this shoot i had to think extremely about how i wanted to capture these images. I had lots of options so I thought wisely. But this also meant spending lots of time looking at the original album work (on the right.)
Planning shoots is usually one of the most taxing times in the journey as you want to capture what you invision but sometimes you can run away with that idea and forget that actual logistics exist such as time, money, people, space etc.
After plenty of consideration i knew exactly how i wanted to take the photos and how i would do it. I had had a bunch of acrylric paints that i hadnt used and instead of throwing them away i used the to cover a models hands. When picking the model i knew i wanted it to be someone who i'd known for a while and had good chemistry with. There were several options but i eventually decided to ask someone called Roy (another Brit school student who is in music, we had worked together a few times prior to this event so i wasnt working with a stranger, and i knew he was open to whatever, although i felt i was taking the mick to ask him to smoke so i skipped that one) and one saturday him, me and someone who i had asked to help me, with paints and lighting had all went to Camden town.
We went to an alley way around the corner from all the stores where there was a large white wall, and the day was sunny enough to cause a healthy amount of light but just enough cloud to soften it. Everything was perfect. I took most of the photos on the DSLR and a couple of my 35mm film camera (becuase why not?) and that put an end to the days shooting.
I transfered everything over to my computer and after a few hours of concentrated editing on Adobe Lightroom i was finally happy with the images.
A Little Life
For my second shoot, this is one I had to take a lot more seriously due to the complicated nature of it. My favourite novel is called 'A Little Life' by Hanya Yanagihara and follows the lives of four friends in New York City from college through to middle age. It focuses particularly on Jude, a lawyer with a mysterious past, ambiguous ethnicity, and unexplained health issues. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, he also habitually self-harms. The rest of the group includes Malcolm, a struggling architect from a wealthy biracial family who still lives at home; JB, a painter of Haitian descent; and Willem, an aspiring actor with whom Jude is closest because both are orphans. There's a multitude of reasons why i wanted to do a shoot inspired by the book (and the captivating cover by Peter Hujar) but i think the main reason why is simply because I felt for the protagonist. Jude St Francis lived a childhood and kept it in the dark his entire life. He deserved a full life that he was so convinced that he wasn't worthy of.
To capture extent of how deeply effecting this book can be i needed to think about how i would approach it. I started by looking more at Peter Hujars work and got a good understanding of what i needed to do.
I called Roy as i knew he'd be the perfect person for the job. He fit the body type of jude and had a skeletal muscular figure that was aesthetically perfect for the shoot, but most of all i trusted him and he trusted me. This shoot was only going to work if there was trust.
I booked out some studio time (about an hour was all i needed) luckily i had had photography the lesson before meaning i could spend some time setting it up and not have to worry about wasting time setting the space. He came in and I made sure the room was entirely empty and the studio space was closed off. We sat for a moment I spoke to him about the shoot, made sure he was feeling okay and well (as the shoot would involve him being shirtless) and when i knew for sure he was okay we began shooting. The entire shoot only took half an hour which was good. We finished up rather quickly. I made another check to make sure he was alright and saw that he ate lunch and drank some water. I tidied up and exported everything onto my laptop so I could edit them the next day. I wanted some time to mull over and consider the images before editing - here are the final images.
Podcast
THE CHATTERBOX PODCAST
As an extracurricular project, a friend of mine and I started a podcast called 'The Chatterbox Podcast'. It is a bi-weekly podcast hosted by Me and my friend Nia where we talk about whatever we feel like. We often have guests on to tell us their stories and anecdotes. This can be found on Spotify.
Over the last year, we have interviewed various guests such as tiktokers Lumpytoast and God Of Stars, Brentford football player and actor Thomas Johansson, comedian Milton Jones and Youtuber and Comedian Max Fosh.
