Fashion

To begin with my fashion shoot we where given the title of Toxic Beauty to begin our brief.
For me the idea of Toxic Beauty very much spoke about the nature of the city, particularly in that I was writing my dissertation based on works of Cyberpunk fiction, such as Blade Runner or Neuromancer, in the mise en scene of the narrative is that of the seedy over built and dense future city, often the Dystopian city.

I was mesmerised by the scenes of Blade Runner as a child when I first watched the film, and as it has been such a strong influence on my style, I decided to go for a sci-fi cyberpunk esque shoot, to depict the wonders, and intrigue of the city and of future possibilities, but also the by products, the smoke the lack of purpose, the self questioning of what is real?

Blade Runner Concept Art by Syd Mead

Dark City Concept art

Moebius

Blade Runner: Screen Shots

Sticking with the visuals of Blade Runner, I wanted a narrative that reflected the notion of the city of the future, and a character that lives immersed within this city and at one with it's motion.

A few quotes from Neuromancer, by William Gibson, stuck in my head for this shoot:

"Biz here was a constant subliminal hum, and death the accepted punishment for laziness, carelessness, lack of grace, the failure to heed the demands of an intricate protocol".

"Chiba City is a place where violence is so commonplace that people no longer even do a double take at the sight of it."

Typical protagonists of Cyberpunk fiction are loners, recluses, the lost and the damned anti-heroes. Generally they are in control and exude a sense of deep confidence and knowledge of their city, they appear as a veteran residents almost. I wanted this sense of recluse and isolation in my narrative, in that my model would be entirely alone in this city, yet they are a veteran of the city.

I began early testing self modeling to try and get the lighting I desired for the shoot, I wanted to mimic the style of lighting from Blade Runner, focusing on on spot lights and flares mixed with dark high contrast lighting and smoke, to give a mysterious and slightly toxic feel to the shots and using projection on the back drop to give the illusion of the city or a deeper more detailed space than a simple studio.
The final lighting however would have to be adapted as I was advised that the model and the clothign was far too dark for a fashion piece.

I went to Tumblr and the web to try to find inspiration for the garments. I wanted a slightly grungey and asian feel for the garments, as there is a very asian / Tokyo feel to many near future sci-fi's as tehir style and cities are very much a generation ahead of many other western capitals, and their cultures are very technology focused.

I noticed from a very early stage that finding good stylists willing to commit themselves to the project was a difficult task. I attended meetings with fashion students and swapped details but ultimately I noticed very little contact or genuine enthusiasm very quickly, so I decided to self style the project unless I heard back from any fashion students with some concrete commitment.
I found a full outfit custom made by Fashion student Letitia Berthier as part of her pre-collection that fitted perfectly with my concept:

The outift fits perfectly as it's very futuresque but using contemporary inspirations, however I wanted more than one outfit for the shoot and particularly a darker outfit to counterbalance the slightly more utopian colours of the above outfit.

I sourced several items of clothing from fashion retailers to create my secondary outfit that has a slightly more future private eye feel to it.

The coat is a black overcoat from Zara's 2013 autumn collection, the top is a baggy grey / khaki blend that is hooded and loose fitted from H&M's 2008 autumn selection, the trousers are mens All Saints 2013 fitted black trousers, and the boots are from Next's 2010 winter collection.

For my sequence and the narrative I wanted to show the individual as strong, yet contemplative and conflicted, The images would alternate between a bright and colourful wonder of the city, then a darker moodier feeling to show the duality of the cities toxic beauty. I also wanted to include a location shot or two to show the actual city instead of exclusively studio work, and I also wanted to include a cityscape shot and to homage Blade Runner by recreating the famous shot where the city is reflected in a persons eye, these shots would help break up the fashion of the series and build the narrative.

I took these shots of a casino in china town in London to use as projection shots, as copyright would prevent me using actual footage from Blade Runner like I used for my test shots. I wanted the dazzle and the neons to  show wonders of the city, which the casino provides, it also has a duplicitous nature in that it is a city source of entertainment yet there is much toxicity and problems associated with gambling.

A main problem I realised from a very early stage was that shooting with a model on location in London would be very difficult. This is where working with a client came in handy, as they where from a more experienced point of view and could advise me on things like the copyright for Blade Runner and also on the issues I may come across in trying to coordinate a large scale shoot in London, for instance council permissions, transport and logistics and of course the risk the of the general public.

For these reasons I decided to utilise my own post production capabilities and shot in London on my own to get cityscapes and then I shot on location close to UCA Rochester with my model so that equipment and transport would not be and issue especially as my chosen model lived locally.
My model was a friend of mine who lived locally that had quite strong facial features such as cheekbones and jaw line, he was however very slim and fitted the clothes perfectly, but his slim physique worked as I wanted to avoid muscular physiques and the notions of a strong heroic protagonist.

I mixed studio shots with location shots around university and then cut out backgrounds in post production, to create my sci-fi esque city of the future.
I found that due a lack of budget or larger scale team coordination for ideal location shoots and so forth, I had to utilise far more of my post production capabilities than usual, however the overall quality of the images worked fine. I thoroughly enjoyed working with a client, particularly for a fashion project as it enabled far more insight into the industry and there was a good level of flexibility between commercial requirement and artistic license, it also felt satisfying to pitch an idea to a client that turned out good and to have them approve of your direction and give you the go ahead to shoot.