Final Images and Evaluation

EVALUATION

This was an interesting project which really pulled me out of my comfort zone. Because of this, there were lots of problems that I had to overcome and a lot of ideas that I had to re-think, however I am happy with my final images and feel that the project, although difficult  helped me better understand my skill set, strengths and what I need to do to better my other projects in the future.

Most of the problems that I encountered were solved with re-shooting  This has taught me that I need to do even more tests in the future to ensure my idea is completely solid in my mind before shooting properly. Most of all i feel that this project has helped me with my hair skills. Hair used to be my weakness but this project forced me to dive into it, as it centres around hair a lot. The fact that I had to re-shoot Miss Havisham did not bother me because by doing this I ended up with images that I am a hundred times happier with. Model choice was also a lot better on my second shoot, so this project has also shown me the importance of having a good model.

Re-shooting Miss Havisham

I had done so much work on the research of Miss Havisham's hair, but when I reviewed the photos I realised that the photos did not show this off. So I decided to re-shoot. I kept the make-up the same but this time made the hair bigger and higher so that it would be more visible from a face-on view  I also removed the veil that I used in the first shoot as this was covering the hair too much. I am so much happier with the outcome of the second shoot.

FIRST SHOOT: Hair is hidden, not visible and I also was not happy that it used showed off the skills I had learnt throughout the project.

SHOOT TWO: I used more of the techniques used in class and made it look messy and slept on and made it bigger so that it could be seen from all angles. I am a lot happier with this second shoot, which is the one I will be using as my final images.

Miss Havisham Face Chart

 I have applied the skin conditions I previously posted about to my face chart. I plan to keep the make-up minimal, focusing on the contouring of the cheeks and eye sockets and using latex to create dry chapped skin.

The main thing that I want to keep in mind while applying the make-up is that Miss Havisham was once beautiful, and that under the maddened exterior there is a once beautiful woman.

Lack of Sunlight - Primary Research and Application

I wanted to discover that way that the lack of sunlight in Miss Havisham's living conditions would effect her skin and hair. To begin this, I started thinking about my own skin and how it changes through winter, as this was the best way to compare the two.

The main points I found were:

• Dry hands, maybe chapped on fingertips
• Dry patches of skin around mouth and between eyebrows
• Dry, cracked lips
• Skin looking dull

I will apply these to my Miss Havisham, using latex to cause a dry skin effect and different powders and Fullers Earth to dull the skin.

I will also use powders and supra colour to apply tiny thread veins and liver spots.

TEST SHOTS:

Miss Havisham's Hair

Using the knowledge that I have gained from previous hair tests and research on Victorian hair styling I created some of my own tests.

I want the hair to look as though it had been done for her wedding but slept on and is now unkempt and unruly, but there is still a mild sense of style that she kept incase her lost love decided to come back.

Evaluation: The curls should be more ringlet-like and the bun more distressed but I will apply this when i next do the design.

Further thoughts on Miss Havisham

I want to center my design around the quote:

"But you're not dead, Miss."

"Am I not?"

Words that describe Miss Havisham in my mind after concidering this quote:

• Hunched and frail from years of sitting
• Scary to a little boy
• Appears old though stress and torment, but is actually younger than she appears.
• Inner Torment/torture
• Deflated
• Nearly Etheral, floaty, in her own world
• Haunted

Charles Green

Harry Furniss.

I plan for my image to depict these key words. These images are some of my favourites of Miss Havisham as they deny the myth of her being very old and instead show her as a younger woman who has been prematurely aged by depression and lack of sunlight.

http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/ge/havisham.html

Last modified 17 January 2012

Character Styling

I wanted a cheap and cost efficient way to style Estella and miss Havisham so I thought rather than hire out full costumes that probably wont be seen in the shoot anyway, I would go to a fabric shop and buy some material that would I could then shape into a vale or the top of a dress etc.

I bought:

Lace, to be used as a vale or sash around the top of clothing to create the illusion of a wedding dress. (I know that lace is appropriate because Dickens describes that Miss Havisham is wearing it in the novel)
I bought off-white lace so it looked a bit more used and less fresh, I plan to destress it further with Fullers Earth.

A pink satin material to create the top of Estella's dress. I chose Satin because it was an expensive material in the Victorian era so it is likely that Estella would have worn it, and I chose the colour pink because I wanted to emphasise the fact that she is shill relatively young in my design.

I really wanted to encorperate the wedding flowers that Dickens describes being in Miss Havisham's hair. Yellow tulips have been said to symbolise hopeless love. I thought this was very fitting for Miss Havisham.

Anon. 2013. Tulip Flower Meaning [online] [viewed 17/02/2013] Available from: http://tulipflower.net/tulip-flower-meaning

Anon. 1997 - 2013. Wedding Style - A Victorian Event. In: The Knot [online] [viewed 17/02/2013] Available from: http://wedding.theknot.com/wedding-themes/choosing-wedding-themes/articles/a-victorian-wedding-event.aspx

Further Estella Hair Testing in Studio Time

The research I did into Victorian Hair styles allowed me to get a greater idea of the sort of style I wanted to create for Estella, and the sort of age range that would've perhaps worn that style at the time.

I have taken the research that I have compiled and drawn this hair template sketch to show the hair that I am going to create.

I took this idea to the studio and came up with this:

Evaluation: The curls on top are hard if the model has long hair so I may change this bit to long ringlets, which i tested originally and photos are shown here.

How Work Experience Helped

Over the last week I have been assisting with the make-up for a theatre production of Beauty and the Beast at the Bournemouth Pavillion. This involved me doing a lot of ageing make-up, from light to extreme, and this got me thinking of how I can apply this to Miss Havisham. The experience helped me understand the structure of an ageing face which is very important for this project as I want Miss Havisham look like a woman who is aged prematurely, rather than just being old and decrepit and this helped me understand how I can apply makeup to show the difference between the two.

Hair Dilemas

Having discovered during my trial tests that I was having problems with hair I decided to look at some Victorian hair styles and came across some hair tutorials from 1871 for both children and adults. This has come in really handy in the process of deciding whether to portray Estella as a child or young adult.

These drawings have also helped me understand the deference between child and adult styles of that era, which will help me understand my design a lot better.

Victorian Nonsense. 2013. Victorian Hairstyles and Tutorial [online] [viewed 14th Feb 2013] Available From: http://www.victoriannonsense.com/2010_12_01_archive.html

Estella Hair and Make-up Tests

Today I began my initial tests for the hair and make-up design that I have done for Estella.

I wanted to do two looks - a young fresh faced version of Estella and then add some bruising to create a look for her when she was being beaten.

 

Test number 1: Young Estella.

I am happy with:
Her complexion. I think I applied a good base and although the picture quality was bad, we did test using proper equipment and lighting and the base appeared almost flawless and fresh on film.

Lightly filled eyebrows worked well as did the light blush applied to the cheeks and the pale rose lip colour I used as a stain. 

What I am not happy with:

Hair. The hair needs a lot of work as I was away when we did this in class, however the test shots have allowed me to discover this and I will book studio time and borrow notes off of a classmate in order to improve.

Bruising: This is not the best bruise work I have ever applied HOWEVER I got to experiment with the placement of the bruise and have discovered that bruising along the temple is very effective. I also plan to bruise along the collar bone and will probably lighten the bruise on the eye somewhat.

Estella Face Chart

This is the initial face chart I have done for Estella (ages 14ish). The key elements of the face chart include:

Light blush on apple of cheeks for a youthful appearance

Very light contouring

Pale pink lip tint

Light shaping of eyebrows

Ringlets surrounding face

Very pale eye-shadow to open eyes, possibly clear mascara

Image Composition and first impressions of Estella

When reading the description in the book of Estella the main ideas that stuck with me were:

"Pretty brown hair"

"Beautiful and self-possessed"

Queen-like attitude

My initial idea is to show Estella at the time of her meeting pip. So although she may be secretly a broken woman, my initial photo and design of her will show her harshness and strength, which is how Pip originally sees her.

IMAGE COMPOSITION

I plan to use a combination of camera angles and the models posing to get across an air of haughtiness.

I have got ideas of the poses and camera angles from some of Caroline Saulnier's images, purely because her models always have an air of attitude and strength. Obviously the make-up and styling will be completely different but I think it will be interesting to combine the contemporary poses and angles of Saulnier with  Victorian styling. 

She also always uses strong females, which has given me inspiration as this is something that Estella aspires to be.

Some "digital tear outs" of how I want the image to be composed:

Women in the 1800s

During the 1860s poor people were meant to look poor, and women's dress was more elaborate than men's. During the 1840s, woman's dress was sloping shoulders, childlike ringlets and poke bonnets  During the 1860s the dress became bolder. The invention of chemical dyes made women clothing more colourful, and fabrics were dyed garish colours, which would've been seen as unladylike before the Crimean war (1852)

This is the time that Great Expectations was set.

The research i have done so far has helped me gain a wider knowledge of not only what women looked like at the time that the book was written, but also what was expected of women. What was considered a "good" woman and what was considered a "bad" woman, which i think will help a lot in understanding the positions of both Miss Havisham and Estella.

E. Wilson, L.Taylor. 1989.Through the Looking Glass, A History of Dress from 1860 to the Present Day.Woodlands, London. BBC Books

http://www.onlinecostumeball.com/GermanBook/Hats/hats11.jpg

Victorian Woman - 1860s

I wanted to find out about Victorian woman in the early 1860s, which is when Great Expectations was written, so I could find out about real woman from that time period and not just Miss Havisham and Estella as they appear in the book.

The Role of Femininity

Femininity was seen as a middle class status symbol, and women who rejected this or had any sort of sexual realm were seen as "fallen women"

"A woman could make or break the social standing and future of her entire family by failing to understand or interpret correctly the rules of social etiquette."

 Punch Magazine became a vehicle for middle class men to show their fear and loathing of strong minded women through cartoons, usually depicting ugly moustached women wearing trousers.

The above is a cartoon from Punch Magazine - it shows and "accomplished young lady" sipping tea and looking pretty, while a lady in the background with a sword and helmet (obviously a symbol of the feminists) is blurred in the background looking ashamed,

How can I incorporate this knowledge into my designs?

Estella and Miss Havisham are like opposite ends of the coin - Estella, although hard faced, on the outside is feminine and beautiful - just what would've fitted into society perfectly at this time. Miss Havisham on the other hand is the opposite. She has let herself go and wears the same garment and does not keep up with things that woman should involve themselves in.

"It would be unheard of for a wealthy married woman to wear the same clothes all day."

Finding this out enhances the taboo of Miss Harvisham.This quote epitomises her - she is wealthy, and so close to being married. Where regular woman would have day dresses and tea dresses and dinner dresses and walking dresses, she stays in her wedding dress.

I found this photo of a victorian woman in Through the Looking Glass, and it reminded me so strongly of Miss Havisham - the hunched back of someone who had been sitting too long, the curled wrist of someone that had been waiting too long, the slightly frazzled hair and the bright eyes of someone who perhaps is slightly worse for wear mentally.

E. Wilson, L.Taylor. 1989.Through the Looking Glass, A History of Dress from 1860 to the Present Day.Woodlands, London. BBC Books
Punch Ltd. 2013. An Accomplished Young Lady. 1842.Viewed 03/02/2013. Available from http://punch.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Victorian-Era-Cartoons/G0000czGdMEOaVXY/I0000PjbYTyUx.Xg

Miss Havisham - Initial Feelings

For this brief it is important to not to just create another copycat image of Helena Bonham Carter or Martita Hunt. I was concerned that if I jumped into this project by first looking at various versions of Miss Havisham, then I would subconsciously base my ideas on them. To avoid this I purchased the book first before looking at any images of Miss Havisham, so that my first exposure to Miss Havisham's appearance would be the same as Pip's, and any conclusions I drew about her appearance would be entirely mine, based on the original description in the book.

Above is a loose drawing I have done to get down my initial ideas of Miss Havisham's appearance, based on the description below:

"She was dressed in rich materials — satins, and lace, and silks — all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on — the other was on the table near her hand — her veil was half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a prayer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass.

It was not in the first moments that I saw all these things, though I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But, I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its luster, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly wax-work at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement. Now wax-work and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I could." 

-Dickens, Charles.1861. Great Expectations. United Kingdom, Champman & Hall