Studio Shoot Initial Photos and Idea

We were given these photos to serve as a source of inspiration for our idea, and we spent a lot of time drawing different aspects from each of them that we liked before we narrowed it down to final one that we decided to use.

'Blind Twins' Jane Evelyn Atwood

This piece we really liked because of the duality of it. The relationship between the two women is that of twins, and they seem to be taking some kind of comfort from one another and the contact they're sharing. Their costumes also seem to be mirroring each others.

'Kind and Queen' 1970 Diane Arbus

We found this one the least inspirational, although we liked the framing and both the subjects have an interesting vibe - they're both wearing clothes consistent with royalty on top of normal every day outfits which is an interesting contrast.

Untitled' 1962 by Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Most of all on this on we enjoyed the lighting of the photo. We thought it was really clever, and the way one child, older than the other one is looking into the room while the other hides in a dark corner, could be representative of the mind. Like an older version of yourself looking back at your childishness of previous years. But from this one we mostly drew the idea of using windows and doors as more dynamic ways of creating light.

'Untitled' 1997 by Hannah Starkey 

This was the image we chose as our main source of inspiration. We loved the woman's interaction with her reflection. We also found it really interesting how you view most of her environment through the mirror. There is a weird sort of connection between the woman and her reflection, like she's gazing through some kind of window, as if they're two separate people.

We used this photo as our primary source whilst stilling drawing on different aspects of the others. We thought about using 'identity' as our main theme, and wanted to incorporate mirrors into our film. We briefly thought about looking into mental health but that's quite an overdone theme (although still important) and we decided to look at it a bit differently. Of course, mirrors are often scene as vain or narcissistic and as a sign of obsession with physical appearance but we wanted to stay away from that, as it is a bit of an overused cliché.

From the other images we used as reference for our lighting ideas, as they used quite dramatic lighting and the misé en scene in the framing was also something that we wanted to incorporate into our piece.

With our idea of identity, we began to look into the idea of animal instincts, and the sort of base urges that most people suppress. Using Freud's psychological theory of the Id, Ego and Superego, we began to explore this idea.

The Superego is the higher level of our minds, and is based on morals and judgements, and our sense of right and wrong. The ego is the middle level where you recognise more primal urges and find civilised ways to achieve them - such as the need to eat, drink, reproduce, or respond to situations with violence. The Id is the level of our mind that represents the most basic part of our personality and thinks only of what we need and that we need it now. It is more primal and is purely thinking of survival, and functions on instinct. 

We had already decided we wanted to use mirrors in our piece, but the idea of the Id, Ego and Superego led to the notion of us using the reflection as a sort of alter-ego. Which is to say that we came up with the plan of having someone looking into a mirror and seeing the Id looking back at them. Like there is an alternate version of themselves inside the mirror being reflected back. We decided it would overcomplicate matters if we tried to incorporate all three parts of the Id, Ego and Superego, and narrowed it down to just the opposite two, and developed it from there.