Gormley & Composition

If you ever feel stuck in a compositional rut, turn to a sculptor for help. I've found that there's something about people who think in terms of 3D space having a real knack for composition, and you can see it even in their small scale sketches and designs for their sculptures.

I've recently taken 'Body and Light', a book of drawings by sculptor Anthony Gormley, out of the library and it's full of these gorgeous, loose ink drawings that are really helping me think of the compositions of my moving image work. I've been viewing these images as though they were screenshots from a film, and imagining the immediate before and after movement that led to that particular drawing.
Activities like this help me to step away from my usual flat, straightforward scenes, and think more in terms of a 3D space, a moving camera and pacing/composition time-wise. In moving image work composition is more than just how you display a single image, it's also about the film environment the image is in; contrasts between sweeping panoramas and close-ups, fast-paced movement and energy against stillness...