The iconography is deliberately simplistic and fascist in nature, appealing to ideals of ascension and superiority through submission to The Department. The perverted Platonicism of the triangle cuts through the stupifying effects of the stream and speaks directly to the individual’s will to power, as an externalisation of their alienation from themeslves: the higher functions which have been systematically excised, or at leaste numbed into catatonia, by the barrage of basal imagery. There is a clear homage to A Clockwork Orange here, however this protocol does not seek to reform the criminal, but destroy the angels in all of us and leave nothing but droogs.

We thought by not showing actual pornography, just twerking and other explicit videos from youtube we’d be able to avoid being censored, aparrently not though: https://youtu.be/QInRmgQmmug

DHVPH - Lighting

Technical

We shot DHVPH on an old DSLR (Canon 70d) and really pushed that poor little sensor as far as it could go. The shoot was generally fairly low light, which is far from ideal, and we found that if we pushed the ISO beyond 400 the noise was unacceptable, so, we got our fasteest lense, a 2.8, cranked down the shutter speed to 30 and really took our time lighting everything. The final render still has quite a bit of noise in some shots, but we decided to embrace this, out of necessity really, though we did end up reshooting an entire sequence after a disasterous experiment with the CLOG picture profile.

These images are photos, rather than grabs from the footage, so are generally brighter but they do demonstarate to a dregree the stages we went through when lighting a shot.

Thematic

We used gels (read cellophane) to colour our LED panels red and blue. Initially I think this was just because it looked cool but we very quickly started associating the competing themes in the piece with these colours, and the white emanating from the fridge. As the power dynamic shifted we bagan to play with light to subtly reinforce this changing landscape. For the final couch sequence we played with the idea of having them switch seats, but it as too obvious and Power Human would never have accepted it. So, we swapped the lighting to have him bathed in blue and Dog Human in red, reversing the original association. I’m not sure that this albeit not so subtle change is read consciously but feel it does contribute to a sense of a shift in the relationship between the characters.

Set Dressing: COVER IT in BLOOD

Set dressing has become one of our favourite endevours. Like many things we do, creating the environment for us to perform in, for the characters to live in, we got stuck in without questions. Consistently, and thankfully, we find ourselves to be in a synchronized flow of exploration: discovering what is and isn’t the ‘thing’ we are trying to create.

Whether it be a disco ball on the back of a trolly, a specific pile of trash in the corner, placing a coat rack to occupy dead space, chucking a prop foot in some spot barely visible to the camera, which parts of the walls are bare and which aren’t, what books are on show, what type of couch do these characters rest on, ect. every minor detail plays a part and nothing in our daily environment is fobbed off! Utilizing a collection of found and sought after items, being resourceful is key.

Self Help Set Dressing

For the finale of Pantheon we needed to creat the main charachters' lounge room in a much more fleshed out way than just havving them siting on the couch. To illustrate their contempt for the limitations of the human condition, a wall of inspirational posters was created.

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