Thinking Visually

Last weekend I found a collection of the long lost screenshots from the 1946 production of Empire State.

Of course, by that, I mean, that I took photos meant to look like they were from a 1946 movie of a new novel that hasn’t been released yet. The photos are for an anthology called Worldbuilder which seeks to expand on the world of novels using other writers, illustrators and artists to build on an existing world.

What I wanted to do was to make the 1946 movie of Empire State in screenshots. To prepare, I watched lot of movies from the 1940’s, went location scouting, planning out a shot list, collecting my best models, and setting aside a nine hour day to drive five models all over the city.

Behind the scenes during the Empire State shoot

This also meant that I had to see things like a filmmaker, to think visually about each shot.  Now I am far more sympathetic to  the changes a filmmaker might make to an original story to make a stronger film. As a photographer, I am not transcribing the images of the book so much as as translating them into my own language.

Photos from this shoot will be available in the Worldbuilder anthology for Empire State. Makeup and hair for this shoot was done by Bunny Greene.

Previously:

Noir Test Shoot

Finding the Empire State: Location Scouting

Model Selection for Empire State