A Crime In The Dead Of Night

Here are the final images that I have chosen to use for my circular narrative sequence, I chose to re shoot the image that I was given of the Exit sign, mostly because it didn't really fit within my sequence due to the type of exit sign that I have within my image, and also because I wanted to make the sequence more of my own from start to finish!

As I am not making my sequence into a video, this is how I would want them to be displayed,

quite simply in a row along a wall, taking you on a journey from image to image until you complete the full circle at the end!

Design layout ideas...

I have been thinking about different ways that I could display my work as I am not making my photographs into a video, here are some of the different ways i have come up with shown in a few quick sketches I have done,

A Crime In The Dead of Night - shoot.

So the other night I went out an took some more photographs for my circular narrative piece.

I changed the location from the one used in the last shoot, to somewhere a lot darker and sinister, so it looked like someone has innocently parked their car in a quiet area, unknowing that someone would take full advantage of how quiet the area is and proceed in stealing their car.

I took quite a lot of images exploring each stage of the narrative, to ensure that I was able to get some good quality images that were suitable and were able to get across exactly what I was thinking when I set up the scene as I need the viewer to be able to see my intentions, without and explanation.

Images - Contact Sheets.

Here are five contact sheets showing the photographs that I took during this shoot,

Tonights shoot....

so tonight I am going out to re shoot everything, I have changed the location to somewhere that is darker and a bit more shifty, creating a stronger link with what is going to be going on within my images as it is a robbery, and having it take place somewhere quieter and darker with it being less noticeable will make the whole thing make more sense.

Hopefully I will get some good photographs from this shoot, some being what I can use for my final sequence.

thoughts....

I have been thinking about different way i could make my narrative seem a little more interesting, in respect to the things i mentioned in the previous post.

I have re thought the stages of the sequence, by adding in a few new ideas i feel that it will become stronger in respect to showing a full circular narrative, helping the audience to make more sense of it and making it easier for them to understand it.

I did a really quick sketch of each stage of the sequence which i have scanned in and shown here;

Explaining the different stages of the sequence a little bit, basically the sequence will start with the exit sign, the next frame will be of the person who has stolen car number 1 walking away from the car towards the multi-storey car park' exit. The next frame will be a view of them walking out the car park on the the road and out into the open, unnoticed by anyone for the crime that has been committed. With the next frame following on from that being a close up of the persons face, looking rather pleased with them self and happy to be walking away and ready for round 2. This will lead on the an image of the person walking towards another car in the area, having looked around to find what looks easily accessible, with the next fame being of the actually breaking into the car, when they will then get in and drive away down the road having successfully gained access and started the engine. The next frame will be of the second car being taken into a multi-storey car park, the same one as before as it is like his little place of hiding these cars for the day, until he eventually gets caught. The frame after that will be of him them dumping and walking away from car number 2 towards the exit like at the start of the sequence and then it links back round to the exit sign, completing the circular narrative.


Having received permission to go ahead and photograph in a multi-storey car park I am going to go out and shoot the whole sequence this weekend, I am hopeful that I am able to get some good photographs that show exactly what I am thinking in me head.

Today we had a feedback session, from this I got that I need to revise my idea a little bit and figure out what works best, experimenting with point of view, the amount of zoom used to capture the image, the lighting, people, other surroundings.

Now that I have permission to photograph on a specific multi-storey car park I know that I can go ahead and complete my sequence, but as well as this sequence i want to try a different approach at the same time, following a different type of narrative.

An idea for this is to change the concept and create a sequence showing a prank, such as one person parking their car in a specific place and then their mate going and moving it to another space/area within the car park, playing a prank on them, but one that worries and panics the car owner.

I have quite a bit to think about so over a day or so i'm going to brainstorm and come up with new ideas of places and areas that I can shoot as well as what I want these images to look like.

Initial images

Last night I went our and took some of the initial images for my narrative sequence, at this point I have only captured initial images for the first half of my narrative, which are shown here

Contact sheet:

Chosen images,

I want to get some feedback on these images first to see if they are working well enough to be part of this sequence before I go and capture the second half of the sequence. I already know some of the images don't work as good as others, such as the close ups in the car as they went blurry as it was hard to focus due to the light, so I either need to go back and re shoot them trying to mess with the focus so its clear or just scrap that idea completely and re think the order of the sequence. Also a couple of the images are very similar as I have not yet decided which ones work best.

I still really want to pursue the idea of creating a circular narrative sequence with a crime theme, I definitely think I am going to stick with the idea of someone breaking into a car and taking it for a joy ride and then dumping it in a multi-storey car park. Mainly because it's something different for me and I think it could create an impact and its not something people would expect to see.

I have done a few little sketches showing a basic outline of what each photograph of this sequence would be based around which is here:

I am not necessarily going to go by that sketched sequence I might add or change a few of the scenes within the sequence, depending on what works and looks the best.

I feel that this sequence could also help and be aimed at people who own cars, to raise car crime awareness and to help people ensure that there cars are secure.

Here are some images based around car crime

A few days ago whilst I was researching the work of Gregory Crewsdon I came across some of his photographs that were a little bit deeper;

 

These two images caught my eye a little bit more that his other images, mainly due to the fact that I had some ideas running around my head to do with car crime for my circular narrative. These photographs helped inspire me a little bit and pushed me into deciding to develop on my initial idea and produce a circular narrative with the theme of car crime. 

Letizia Battaglia

I came across some photographs by Letizia Battaglia, which to be honest I found quite gruesome and disturbing;

There is an obvious theme of crime within these photographs and I believe she is best known for her work on the mafia. These photographs just really struck me, having never seen them before I was instantly drawn in and wanted to know the story behind each of the photographs.

Circular Narrative Assignment

So for one of the assignments within this module we have to produce a sequence of images that have a circular narrative, like I have mentioned a few post previous to this one.

I actually found it quite difficult to come up with a good idea for a circular narrative in which the first and last image' were of an exit sign like the one below, so to start with I produced a mind map and jotted down all the different things I could think about that had a connection with an exit sign.

 

From this mind map and also some research into photographers such as Gregory Crewsdon I was able to decide more on the direction I wanted to go in. Here is an outline of the idea that I have and what I am going to develop my sequence on;

Circular Narrative Proposal

Working title: A crime in the dead of night.

For this assignment I have to produce a sequence of photographs that have a circular narrative. Having been given an image of an exit sign that I have to use as both the beginning and last photograph in the sequence. I want to produce something different from anything I have attempted before. Having thought outside of the box I came up with an idea that I would really like to develop.

I thought about the different place that you find exit signs and the main place that stuck with me was in multi-storey car parks. So I went with that and developed an idea that would tie in with a multi-storey car park.

The idea that I have is of a car robbery, capturing different stages of the robbery from the point where the car is being broken into, to being driven away and then dumped in a multi-storey car park where the person who has stolen the car then makes a run for it, towards the exit of the car park, where the story then ends. Making the full circle back to the exit sign that I started the sequence with. I want to title this sequence 'A crime in the dead of night'.

The sequence will start with the exit sign, instead of the sequence then carrying straight on it will jump back in time to a while before - kind of like what happens in films such as 500 days of summer and Inception. The second image will be of a person breaking into a car, it will then go from that image on to them getting into the car and then taking off on a joy ride down the quite dead road. I will then go on to capture an image of the car entering a multi-storey car park where it will be dumped. The second to last image will be of the person who has stolen the car dumping the car and leaving it, making a break for it towards the car parks exit, where I will then focus in on the exit sign, linking the whole sequence together creating a circular narrative.

The target audience that I am thinking about is people who own cars and drive, making them think a little bit about car crime and the happenings.

500 Day of Summer

Circular narrative -  The film opens with the two main characters, being Summer and Tom sat on a bench over looking the city. This scene is the same scene that is shown at the en of the film, so the story loops back round full circle within 95 minutes, ending at the same point it started.

The film starts on day 488, then goes back to day 1, by the time the film ends  it loops back round to day 488, where the film started.

The film jumps from day to day throughout but I noticed that the days didn't go in order, they sometimes jumped like 200 days and then went back nearly the same amount in the next scene, there was no consistency. I noticed that it tended to jump from happy to sad quite often though.

The story tells us of how the two of them met, the happiness and the heartbreak that happens. I really like the way the film is put together. It has kept me interested and drawn in every time I have watched it. The way it jumps days keeps you interested and you want to know what has happened previously (as it has jumped a certain amount of days) to see how they have come to the point you are seeing. Its like seeing the future before the past or present.

Inception

Inception has a circular narrative where the first scene in the film starts the story off - being a dream and then by the end of the film you see the same scene again where it is again a dream only this time its more explanatory.

After watching inception I was just as confused as I was at the beginning, the film is so so deep with loads of different layers. It's a dream within a dream within a dream, and I was never really 100% sure what was happening and it something was in fact reality or just a dream.


Maroon 5 - Payphone music video

The music video for pay phone by maroon 5 has a circular narrative, the video starts with the lead singer and main character in the video (Adam Levine) stood in a payphone in the middle of no where, a story is then told about how he got to that payphone and the events that took place to bring him there, the video then goes full circle and ends at that same payphone where the video started.

Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind

This film has a pretty strange concept. Its constantly jumping from present day to the past, it actually confused me a little bit at some points as I was too sure what time period I was watching, but at the end of the film everything came together and made complete sense. This film has a circular narrative and it starts at the same point we wind up at seeing at the end of the film.