ODE TO PAINTINGS

I made an experimental film called Ode to Paintings. With the duration of 6:46 minutes, it consists of three reproductions of classical paintings, the main focus being the shiny silk taffeta and textiles as it is represented in a fashion film. 
 
The project, Ode to Painting, has the intention of recreating renaissance, late renaissance and baroque painting with a modern touch. The main motive that I wanted to do this project is to pay tribute to the arts I encounter at museums and galleries in the United Kingdom such as National Gallery, Scottish National Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, The Wallace Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate Britain, among others. These places have always inspired me to write scripts, gave ideas on how to shoot an image, how to get more creative, basically motivated me to shoot a film. Hence why the title fits so perfectly to the experimental film. I also wanted to test it out my capacity of shooting a fashion film and regarding this, I am happy with the final result, which is a very rare thing for me to say. 
 
The main motivation of the project is to focus on textiles and fabrics, leaving the background itself in second place, because the first thing that catches my attention in paintings is the shiny fabrics reflecting in the lights and the character portrayed. The last thing I notice is the background. Therefore I went to the Broadwick Silks, a specialised store to buy the fabrics. This place is well-known for selling fabrics for costume design for the film industry, especially for period dramas. My goal was to find the shiniest silk fabric, such as silk taffeta, that could reflect very nicely in the lights. I went to this store with Marina Lazzarotto, a fashion designer, to help me out choosing the best one. She is the art director and costume designer for the project. In the store, we tested the fabrics under different lights on a camera to make sure they would respond well to the lights in the studio.