I was selected as a runner-up for the
HARMAN UK Student Competition 2015 ‘Saturday Night at the Movies’. Yipeeeee!
We were encouraged by our University tutor to enter the competition with either a darkroom print or a digital print. I entered three digital prints.
For my competition entry I considered and reviewed five movies:
- Rumble Fish – Frances Ford Coppola
- The Man with the Golden Arm – Otto Preminger
- The Motorcycle Diaries – Walter Salles
- North by Northwest – Alfred Hitchcock
- Employee of the Month – Greg Coolidge
To determine if any of the movies offered potential scenes for my idea for the competition I quickly reviewed each movie scene by scene. This enabled me to discard The Motorcycle Diaries and Employee of the Month without wasting too much time. I then watched Rumble Fish in detail twice and photographed the paused monitor screen with my Nikon Coolpix when I observed a potential competition image. I repeated this activity with The Man with the Golden Arm and North by Northwest.
My objective was to identify scenes that offered the opportunity to recreate each scene with the locations and props that were readily available to me and where practical take some investigatory location shots with my Nikon Coolpix, also to seek any permissions that may be necessary and consider what props may be needed. The bus stop location shoot went well for Rumble Fish but I was disappointed at how difficult it was to find a Billiard/Snooker table. The bus location was at Coleg Sir Gar and relied on gaining the cooperation of a young male student, but the incessant rain made this idea impractical so Rumble Fish was discarded.
From the two remaining movies The Man with the Golden Arm and North by Northwest I identified two scenes from each that looked like interesting possibilities.
My final entry shots were two from the The Man with the Golden Arm and one from North by Northwest. The winning shot was taken in the Surf Café in Burry Port with the cooperation of the manager and a customer. I lent my model my cap to at least attempt for him to look like Frank Sinatra.
During my investigatory research I identified scenes from North by Northwest and Rumble Fish that I plan to recreate for my own interest when I have the opportunity and suitable weather.