Inspiration

For the lanscape shots I was quite heavily inspired by the photography of Fay Godwin. She is probably my favourite lanscape photographer and while most of her work is in black and white the composition and feel of her lanscapes are partly what I was aiming for in some of the shots.

Here are some comparisons. Obviously Fay Godwin's compositions and images are much more impressive and beautiful, but I think the inspiration is somewhat clear:

Fay Godwin: Heppenstall, backlit, Yorkshire

Solitude

Fay Godwin: Flooded Tree, Derwentwater

Solitude

Fay Godwin: Clump in Hollow, Summerhouse Hill

Solitude

Fay Godwin: Meall Mor, Glencoe

Solitude

Fay Godwin: Welsh Water Authority bulldowzing Bronze-age tracks, Snowdonia National Park

Solitude

I think Fay Godwin's landscape work gets across the same ideas of vastness of the land and the loneliness inherent within that. There are no animals or people in any of these photos and there is a very quiet, subdued feeling about them. The water is completely still with the flooded tree and the skies always seem like they would be moving incredibly slowly if you could see them moving.

I like this stillness and vastness and tried to incorporate it a little into the film. Hard to do when the image itself can move, but I think we were successful with the slow moving clouds and tiny pieces of movement in the foreground occasionally. There is a sense of stillness and with that loneliness in my opinion.

Other inspiration for the landscape shots includes the opening shots to No Country for Old Men which are some of my favourites.

They convey the vastness of this type of landscape better than our film or Fay Godwin's work and they also convey that same stillness.

And inspiration for the more frenetic scenes and especially the handheld shots was Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. The shot of Lewis being chased by the camera is fairly similar in style to the monster point of view shots that move through the forest in Evil Dead.