Evaluation

After planning, shooting and editing I finally completed my re-creation of Mia Wallace’s overdose film still. Here is my Final Edit. Below it is the original film still.

Looking at the Mis-en-Scene in my re-creation, all aspects have clearly been thought through and planned. Not everything is exact, but it has clearly been taken into consideration when recreating the film still.

Lighting:

For my lighting, I used two strobes lights, the key light on the right side above the subject and then the second light on the left side in a slightly lower position with lower power than the key light so it still creates the shadows on the left side of the face. This type of lighting is called Key and Fill as shown in this image.

Originally I had planned to use the Key with far away softbox with a reflector, which I used in my practice shoot but this created shadows on the subjects face which were too dark. So I changed this to use two lights resulting in more similar lighting to the film still. I feel like this worked well in creating the correct lighting as in the film still. As in my image, I have a well lit right-hand side face and soft shadows on the left side, similarly to the original. However, comparing the two images, the source of lighting is coming from overhead lights, such as ceiling lighting. I can tell this by looking at the shadow beneath the nose and where the lights are in the eyes, both demonstrating light is coming directly from above. Anyhow, re-creating that kind of lighting in the studio would be rather difficult.

One part that I did not notice until editing my image was how the hair blends into the black in the background because the hair is not lit properly. In hindsight, I should’ve added a third light (hair light) that would slightly higher than the head coming down that would light the hair, separating it from the background.

Hair and Makeup:

For my final shoot, I did Lauren’s hair and makeup. I studied the original image closely to make sure I got as close to the same makeup look as I could. I believe the makeup I did was quite effective, the blood and the eye make up are very similar to the original and help to emphasise the Mis-en-Scene. One aspect that did not go how I hoped it would go was the hair. To re-create Mia’s look, I used a black wig on the subject. Unfortunately, I didn’t make sure that the hair was in the correct place when shooting leaving my subject with an unfinished look because the fringe was not in the right place.

Whilst the colour of the wig may have been a bit dark, this gave it an effective hairstyle emphasising the mis-en-scéne. During the shoot, I did not pay enough attention to where the hair was on the right-hand side of the face resulting in the hair being too far over and the shape of the face being slightly more rounded. The skin tones are pretty close, as I tried to get the look as close as possible, however, either in pre-production or production (i.e. makeup) I could have created a paler complexion.

Setting:

In the film, this scene is shot in the living room of Mia’s Wallace’s high-end 80s house. The most effective way of recreating the setting in this scene was to use a studio, instead of trying to find a place that looks the same as it was way more effective to use a studio. In the backdrop of the original film still, there is a white wall and a window which was black as the scene was shot at night, as this backdrop was out of focus meaning there was less detail to the setting needed. To recreate the setting, I used a blackboard and a whiteboard in the background to make it look like a window at night and a white wall. I thought this was quite effective as it only took something so simple to create the desired look.

Action:

It took some time to get the position of the subject correct with similar facial expression, I captured various photos while asking the subject to change a little bit each time, e.g. head little bit left, chin up, mouth with more open, eyes looking more up more to the right/left to create the desired look, whilst comparing my images to the original when shooting.

Overall:

In conclusion, I believe it was quite effective. I feel like I have learnt a fair amount and I was to do it again I would change a few things. For example, I would add one light for the hair so it would be lighter and stand out from the background. In addition, I would make sure, when shooting, everything in the desired place or have an assistant to help with details like the hair and makeup as I concentrated on the shot and the model. One of the aspects I believe was most effective in this recreation was the angle of the shot, as I feel like I captured this well considering it is quite a challenging angle.