MS Shadow Play

My artistic inspiration for my final piece is 'Shadow Play' made by Hans-Peter Feldmann. Shadow Play used all sorts of objects and placed them on rotating platforms, whilst shining a light on them from below. This created a series of moving shadows on the wall behind. I found that this was a really interesting technique and that it could be used in other ways, to perhaps tell a story, or something else.

Shadow Play

By using this as the base of my ideas, I decided to make a short film using shadows. The plan for the film was to make a short animation based off using shadows as objects. My other idea was to make a series of moving shadows, similar to that of Shadow Play, however with the mundane theme, rather than seemingly random objects.

I decided on using the first idea, as I felt that it was the most adaptable and that I could make a large amount of ideas springing off this one. To start I created a shadow effect in photoshop.

Although the spot doesn't look as shadow like on the blog as it does in photoshop, it was still the start.
My next step was decide how I wanted to develop the idea. From past experience I have found that working with ideas of surrealism in sublimity, created powerful pieces. From this my next step was to create a mind map with the various ideas I had.

I decided on including body parts into the shadow, a common application of surrealism. I decided to add hands first, in hope of creating a somewhat creepy effect.

My next step was to add some body parts to the shadow, to add the idea of surrealism. I took the picture  of my hands reaching out, and cut them from the picture and placed them onto the shadow.

Again the Blog version does not look quite as effective as the version in the program. I decided on make the hands reach out, like their about to grab you. I thought this was effective as it added a fear factor to the piece, giving the viewers a greater attachment to the piece through the fear.

I decided to next play around with the hands to make it seem more surreal.

This version made use of a layer effect called "Hard Light". This gave the hands a dirty and dying look.    I felt that this looked good, and also linked back to the previous piece made with the idea of dead coming back to life, based off catacombs. What I like about this piece is how the hands look more natural among the shadow. It looks like they actually came from within the shadows rather than them standing out.

Although I found this version interesting and good, I came up with an idea for an animation using this as the base for it.

To start I again used the shadow background, however this time I used a hand sign rather than the reach. I decided to use my hands to make a box shape, I felt that with the planned idea it could be the most effective way of showing. I again used the hard light layer effect to blend the hands into the shadow.

For the next stage I moved away from the hands for a while and had an idea of adding an additional part. I decided on adding an eye, a common addition to surreal pieces, and add that into the square.

I started by taking a picture of someones eye.

From here I needed to add the eye to the shadow, without losing the eye shape. 

After adding the eye to the shadow, I played around with the 'Burn' tool in photoshop. I hadn't used this tool before so I didn't know what sort of effect it had, I presumed that Burning it would make it closer to black (being burnt). After testing it I found my theory correct and found that it really worked for blending the eye into the shadow, making it work really well. I also increased the size of the hands again, to make it fit better.

To make it more interesting I decided to create a .gif of the eye opening. I took pictures of the eyes in open, closed and half-closed positions and brought them into photoshop.

Closed Eye

Half-Opened Eye

With the three stages of the .gif made, I next had to use photoshop to create the .gif. I had never created a .gif using photoshop before so I wasn't too sure of how it would turn out. I decided to go ahead with it anyway.

Creating the .gif

Unfortunately the shadow effect was completely ruined with the .gif, however I still find the blinking of the eye somewhat interesting. This meant I needed to find a way to present the piece, in a format which doesn't destroy the shadow effect. To do this I decided to create a full animation based on surrealism.