Operation Ophelia: II

The more I work on this series, the more frustrated I get.  Looking at the classical artworks depicting death, everything is still beautiful.  There is never any reality to it!  These paintings and works of art just skate right past the fear of it all: the only concentrate on the beauty and sadness.  They simply romanticize the idea of death.  Thats not really what it is.  Death is terrifying.  Death can take you at any moment, without warning.  My hope is that I can romanticize this ending that will befall us all, but still strike the note of fear that should go with it:  We will all die, and it won't all be beautiful. 

Model: Gretchen Radtke

MUA: Alicia Marie

Costume: Yours truly 

Operation Ophelia: II

Outtake

Behind the scenes

While the first entry in this series is rather open ended, it 

should be clear that this woman is a victim of murder.  

  

Gretchen wanted to know how to get into her role, so we created a back story.

A serial killer had been stalking the town for months now.  Newspapers and broadcasts had been repeating the same message over and over: do not go out alone.  Gretchen had failed to heed these warnings, and to notice the pattern that had begun to emerge of the victims.  They all looked alike, and they all looked like her.  Tall, long haired brunettes with large brown eyes.  All were well to do, and all taken at night.  Gretchen would only be out for a few minutes-she just had to walk to her car to meet up with her fiance at the dinner party they were attending together.  What could happen in the time it took her to walk across the parking structure from her apartment to her car?  Unfortunately for her, the killer had had his eye on her for weeks, and had just been waiting for the right time to strike.

The dress was bought from St. Vinnies, and I did all the blood splatter ahead of time.  I stood outside my apartment with the dress hung over the fence, and used a spoon to splatter fake blood all across the dress; I was rather surprised when campus safety showed up, and walked right past without saying a word. 

The location was terribly buggy, and I felt terrible for Gretchen having to lie there 

without moving.  We doused ourselves in bug spray, and they still found us. 

Over all the shoot was a total success, (even though the children that walked by weren't scared in the least.)  It was a lot of fun and everyone who helped was amazing to work with.  I am so blessed to have such amazing people to work with, and who believe in me and this series.