One of the first things that occurred to me when I began making films was the obvious, yet to me unexpected, need to rotate your way of thinking by 90 degrees.
I had always shot my photos in a portrait orientation and found it quite hard to adapt to the widescreen view of cinema and so began to think about shooting short scenes as photographs. This lead eventually to these images you see here; each one a series of between fifty and a hundred photos, running to a scripted animation to allow for a seamless transition and the occasional surprise.
They are inspired by the Victorian Mutoscope machines, the name of which I have adopted here, which relied on their user turning a handle to rotate a wheel of photographs that would provide the illusion of movement.
It is with this flickerbook style that these living portraits are brought to life. Or something approximating life, anyway.
You can read more about the creation and genesis of the images with this article.
