Los Abrazos Rotos

Today I finally watched 'Broken Embraces'. A film directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring the amazingly beautiful Penélope Cruz.

I saw a poster for the film at my local museum a couple of months ago, the movie poster itself was very striking, and simple. The image, which I love, doesn't necessarily give much away about the film, although the image plays with main colour of teh film The image looks almost Andy Warhol-esque, it really is stunning and shows the prodominant colour of the film, intense red. Anyway, so I bought the DVD instead and after watching it I really do wish I could have seen it at the cinema.

The film, visually was stunning. Penelope always looked incredible. Her character: a mistress to a man with a huge obsession is a woman with attitude, but one who is inlove and is caught in a jealous and aggressive relationship with a highly wealthy, well known business man. The film was very inspiring, I love looking at films for inspiration for photoshoots and styling ideas. With this film, as with many, I love how the costume designer, Sonia Grande, really used the characters' clothing as a tool to the scene. The art director too, Víctor Molero, has amazing visual talent.

My favourite part of the film has to be when Penelope is sat in hair and make-up just before shooting the film, preparing for her role and the team are playing around with hair ideas and almost making Penelope look like a replica of Audrey Hepburn: it's amazing how much a wig and change of make-up can really evoke a character. The lighting in the film really enhanced the clothing and the lucious colours: it reminded me almost of Juergen Teller's imagery, with his clean and clear sharp white light fashion photography. Another visual I noticed was the art directors choice of showing certain details but highlighting them more prominently, for instance when Mateo (the film director in the film) is filming his film and the camera highlights her surroundings, to really build up a character, I really like this and like applying it to the photoshoots I do. Whilst watching the film I just couldn't help but link the visual of the film to an older post of mine, where I looked at Robert Doisneau:Plam Springs 1960 collection, the colours and the fashion choices sent me write back to those images.

I loved the film visually and the plot of the film too, I just wish I could speak Spanish so I didn't have to read the credits and then I would be able to just devoir the visuals of the film.

Make-up looks

When looking for make up looks for our photo shoot we wanted to have has a focus the headpieces and the jewellery more so than the make up, although referring back to the 'Above' magazine photo shoot, the model had an almost tribal like make up and yet her look seemed quite natural which we wanted to recreate, so the headpiece would become the focus. Myself and Marie wanted to attempt the make up to add a more natural feel to the shoot, we thought it may have looked odd the models make up being perfect and yet our theme was perfect imperfections-in terms of nature and the four elements: when is nature perfect?

The Topshop unique catwalk show, for A/W 2010 was a must as a reference when thinking about natural make up and our theme. During the shoot, when we were applying make up to our model, we had printed Topshop catwalk make up ideas off for us for reference. Both myself and Marie attempted with the make up and hair. Marie plaited Lucy’s hair as we had seen something from the catwalk and thought that the plaited hair look gave the concept that little extra something and I tried doing some artwork/painting onto Lucy’s forehead to create a tribal look.

'Avant toi'

I was flicking through some magazines the other day thinking about ideas for our photoshoot whether that be with styling, make up, hair, anything really just something to inspire and I came across the advert ‘avant toi’ a company promoting cashmere products and the female model especially in the advert had an interesting look.

Her hair was white and resembled a nest which looked quite cool and her pale skin and fair eyebrows and hair added an almost unnatural natural look. This is something we should think about in terms of make up for our photo shoot.

Four Naturals

I was thinking about our shoot, and trying to generate some ideas that could be involved in the shoot: the other day I came across some images of a fashion shoot that was based under water, the model was photographed while under water, and this got me thinking about the four elements, when considering our initial product, the 'Matchbox' – earth/air/fire/water. At the minute I haven't a solid idea as to how to incorporate these elements, if we all want this, in the shoot but It's something I will think about.

We could bring the elements in the photoshoot through the styling or the make-up looks perhaps or the lighting used in the images.