Influences: Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam, director of Twelve Monkeys, Time Bandits and Brazil, has a very unique take on Art direction and Cinematography. Twelve Monkeys, a film inspired to a great degree by the Cabinet of Dr Caligari, uses its cinematography in a very interesting way. Particularly in the scenes in the mental asylum, the shots used are often very cantered, creating a somewhat nightmarish feel that is so deliberate that it distracts the audience from Brad Pitts manic rambling.

This all serves to create a very jarring effect on the viewer in these scenes, emphasising just how out of place Bruce Willis character is in the past that he has been transported to. Camera placement is also used to great effect by Gilliam. For example, in the first shot shown, Bruce Willis Character and Brad Pitts appear vastly different in size. This is achieved by placing the camera very close to Willis and zooming all the way out. Doing this gives a further distorted feel to the image, a technique which is used again here, in this shot from brazil.

In this shot the babes head appears disproportionately large in comparison to the background. Although the baby is admittedly much closer, having the camera very close to the baby accentuates this difference to the point that it starts to feel unnatural and uncomfortable.

   These types of camera techniques would be very useful in our film as we want to create a similarly nightmarish feel from the shots of the perfect man in particular, in order to make it seem like he is trapped in a world he hates.

Another interesting visual aspect of Gilliams work is his attention to detail in art direction. This is most prevalent in three of his films that he calls the "Trilogy of Imagination." They are Time Bandits, Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. All of these have Gilliams signature art direction style present and cranked up to eleven with different results. In Time Bandits, the unique home made feel about everything helps keep it all seeming like an adventure that the child has dreamed up himself, particularly the fact that one of the time Bandits wears a colander as a helmet.

Perhaps most relevant to us is the use of art direction in brazil. The sets, props and costumes are meticulously designed in such a way as to make them often clutter the set to such a degree that the characters seem penned into a corner of the frame. In this example below, the claustrophobia is accentuated by the blocking and camera placement, driving the claustrophobia to an extreme level. This would be a very useful technique to emulate in our film as it would contribute to the nightmarish tone we want to create. 

In Baron Munchausen the art direction is often used to reminisce old fashioned effects from films such as Jason and the Argonauts and the 7th Voyage of Sinbad, as well as old fashioned theatre sets such as those present in the beginning of the film, reflecting the idea that the film itself is all a play being put on by (Supposedly) Munchausen. This was done through the use of very low key effects, almost as low key as Gilliams animations for Monty Python.