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Alex Prager's Compulsion
Photographer Alex Prager, the award-winning, MoMA-exhibited, W-featured, Hitchcockian mastermind is continuing her foray into the world of film with her latest project: Compulsion.
Released on 6/13/2013
Credits
Starring: | Alex Prager |
Transcript
00:01
(upbeat music)
00:11
When I did my first short film, Despair,
00:13
I came up with that idea because so many people
00:17
at my exhibition of the series The Big Valley,
00:21
a lot of people at the show were coming up to me asking me
00:25
what had happened just before I took the picture,
00:27
or what had happened to the character
00:29
in the photo just after.
00:30
I though it would be fun to kind of
00:32
play around with that idea.
00:34
(frantic music)
00:37
(church bells)
00:46
Which La Petite Mort feels like a longer narrative
00:49
it feels like it's a lot more dynamic.
00:52
And, just has more layers in the storyline.
00:56
With moving images, it was kind of a surprise to even
01:00
enter into that medium because I just always
01:03
thought of myself as a photographer.
01:05
When I did Despair, approaching it as a still image
01:09
that moved a little bit, I was kind of surprised
01:12
at the reaction that I got from the audience.
01:16
It was a really effective way for me to communicate
01:19
in the same style that I was always communicating
01:22
as a photographer.
01:23
(Upside Down by Charlie Wadhams)
01:27
I was looking for somebody for La Petite Mort
01:30
with really expressive eyes and really soft features
01:34
that looked european.
01:37
That was the idea that I had in mind when I was
01:38
writing that story.
01:40
And then, as we were just starting to think about who
01:43
we should cast, Judith actually sent me an email,
01:46
and I looked at her images and her films,
01:50
and she was perfect.
01:51
It was almost like we wrote the script for her.
01:57
(orchestral music)
02:05
When I'm starting a series I don't really have a theme.
02:08
Really what my theme is, is whatever I'm
02:10
going through in my life, and what I've experienced
02:13
in that period of time.
02:14
I've always been interested in the lower
02:17
spectrum of emotions, because those are the hardest to
02:21
confront and the most painful to deal with.
02:25
(Upside Down by Charlie Wadhams)
02:31
With Polyester, The Big Valley, and Week-End,
02:35
the way that I talk about taking a step back was really
02:39
to figure out a lighter way to approach these
02:41
really heavy subjects.
02:43
But with this new series I figured out how to do it
02:46
in a way that, hopefully, people will want to really
02:49
engage and interact with it.
02:51
(Upside Down by Charlie Wadhams)