Ron Mueck

There are many artists that use realism in their work and create sculptures that look like human beings, except they have the strange lifeless look to them that can create the feeling of the uncanny for some people. London-based sculptor Ron Mueck, formerly a model maker and puppeteer for children's television and films, has been creating fine art sculptures since 1996. Using resin, fiberglass, silicone, and many other materials, Mueck constructs hyperrealistic likenesses of human beings, while playing with scale. The detailed sculptures are captivating when viewed up close, as they may be many times larger or smaller than expected. Here is some of his work: 

                                                                (Mask II)

(Boy)

(Women With Shopping)

Pig Head Proposal

Set deep in a mysterious dark forest lies an abandoned wooden shack which feels horribly claustrophobic and cramped. The shack has 3 visible walls covered in sticks and unusual objects such as bloody handprints, animal heads and items that seem disturbing to the average person. The shack is dark but has a somewhat warm glow to it. There is a large open window along the main wall and just below is a seat covered in mis matched fabrics. The view outside of the window is bleak and leaves fall softly past the window. We pan around the room as if we are confused by the bizarre items within the shack. Suddenly a figure appears and begins to crawl through the window. The figure appears human at first, until we see the figures head. A pig head attached to a human body. We track in. The pighead comes towards us as if he will jump out of the screen. We are confused as the pighead appears human but not human enough. He sits on the fabric covered seat. Suddenly he starts to dance as if he’s in a trance like state. Back and forth. Tracking in and out. The movements are uncanny and very unusual and uncomfortable to watch. It’s as if we are seeing 2 of the same character adding to our confusion and uncanny effects. Suddenly the character starts a fire and again we see the unusual items in the shack and begin to question what is reality. Pighead looks directly at us.We cut to black.

Props

After coming up a new idea at the end of this weeks session, Carrie, Hannah and myself had a think about the sort of props we need from either the storage cupboard or things we need to buy after our group meeting on Friday. So far we have came up with these props:

Decorating walls:

• white wallpaper
• either used teabags or brown water colour to create a distressed look on the wallpaper
• sticks and twigs to fill the majority of the walls
• Red paint to splat on the wall or create hand marks

Interior:

• fake candles and/or lanterns
• old blankets
• small logs
• clocks
• taxidermy rabbit 

Exterior:

• Leaves

Final Idea

After seeing the size of the set in this weeks session, myself, Carrie and Hannah decided that our idea of using a tent and shadows could be a difficult task as we don't think we would be able to fit a tent, or create one big enough, that would fit in the set. We still liked the idea of have a set that looked like you were outside and use green screen to get the visuals of stars. Instead we have came up with the idea to create the set as if it's the inside of a wooden shack out in the woods. The 3 boards will be covered in sticks of wood, and we're going to use one of the boards that has the window cut out of it so we can have the stars in the background and use a fan to blow some leaves around. The action will be really simple as we just want a dark figure to climb through the window and sit in the corner of the shack. To make this look weird and unnatural we're going to reverse the footage, so the person will start off sitting in the corner and then climb out of the shack. For the props inside the set we want to keep it quite dimly lit and have fake candles around for more of a fiery glow than white light. Lots of blanket will be spread around and there are some small logs of wood in the prop storage room which we will also put in the corner. I have found some images that could be possibly used for our mood board as they fit the general theme of what we are thinking of achieving. 

What is 'The Uncanny'?

The theme we have to use for our film is the Uncanny, which is a term that describes an instance where something is both familiar and foreign which results in a feeling of discomfort, and was studied by Sigmund Freud in his essay 'Das Unheimliche'. Freud believed that the things we find the most terrifying appear that way because they once seemed familiar, he described his theory as such, 'This class is frightening things would then constitute the uncanny; and it must be a matter of indifference whether what is uncanny was itself originally frightening or whether it carried some other affect... for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something that is familiar and old fashioned in the mind and which has become alienated from it through process of repression' 

(http://students.english.ilstu.edu/rrjohns/hypertext/repurposing/uncanny.html)

What is being said is that when something we are familiar with undergoes change and takes a different form from it's original meaning or context, we become afraid or wary of it. Freud was not the first person to discuss this theory of the uncanny as his essay was a response to Ernest Jentsch account on the subject. However both Jentsch and Freud relate to E.T.A Hoffman's short story 'The Sandman' as an example of the uncanny. Ernest Jentsch, in his 1906 essay 'On the Psychology of the Uncanny'  defines the uncanny as "intellectual uncertainty". Whereas Freud see's the uncanny as something that lies in the realm of the frightening and evokes both fear and dread, and though the term isn't clearly definable as it relies on a persons personal experience, Freud outlined several circumstances that would be considered uncanny. These are; animism, magic, sorcery, the omnipotence of thought, unintended repetition, the double or Doppelganger, the castration complex and instantaneous wish - fulfillment. 

(https://whitecubediaries.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/the-uncanny-where-psychology-meets-art/)

Rough ideas

For this project I am working with Carrie Marples, Hannah Grencis, Ryan Wroe, Terry Silver and Billy Jackson. We came up with the idea that we didn't want to have to use any actors for this module because of the very tight time frame we have to film the 2 minute piece in, and this would be quite difficult to find an actor who would definitely be free in the 2 hour slot we have to film in. This helped us come up with the idea of using puppets and shadows. At first we thought of just using the puppet doing some actions while his shadow could be doing something completely different. But to make it simpler for us considering the time scale, we have ended up with the idea to just use shadows. The basic idea is to have the set build like an outdoor area, with a tent in the middle. With the sheet used as the tent we will have the shadows moving around by the use of puppets (which won't be on screen). We haven't thought too much about the other elements that need to be included yet which are, wallpaper and green screen, however we will be having a group meeting at some point this week to further develop the idea.

I have looked for some images using shadows on tents or sheets that are used in a more dark and creepy way and I found some good examples of the sort of things we'll want our film to look like in the photos above. 

Mood boards

To help with building a set and finding the correct props and materials, it's best to create a mood board as part of the planning stage. We had a brief introduction to photo shop as a few of us had never used photo shop before. It took a while to get the hang of, however I will be doing my own research on photo shop and looking at tutorials to make sure I know what I'm doing when it comes to creating my mood board. I think for my individual proposal a lot of materials would be needed as it's almost two different settings, as at first the bedroom is a normal teenage bedroom, but in her nightmare it changes into a darker and abandoned looking room. These are the sort of images I will be including in my mood board: