The Close-Up: A History

precis: Building on their Public Knowledge Grant from the Mellon Foundation, Joel Burges (University of Rochester) and Allison Cooper (Bowdoin) will present a history of the close-up in narrative film and television from 1950 to the present. Grounded in 170 films and television episodes from across that period, they will explore how the close-up across both mediums reveals an often-hidden history of their entanglement. They will examine films such as Sunset Boulevard, Cruising, and Call Me by Your Name, and series such as The Beulah Show, Starsky & Hutch, Homicide: Life on the Street, War and Remembrance, Queen Sugar, and My Brilliant Friend. In so doing, they will show not only the versatility of the close-up across film and television but also how that technique mediates race and sexuality in US culture across this period. (Prof. Allison Cooper, Prof. Joel Burges)

Final poster design

brainstorming

design: The close-up is concerned with the face and the detail. I cut out fragments from the provided close-ups (from Cruising, Starksy & Hutch, and The Beulah Show) to form a face. If I had access to a printer and studio I would’ve printed out the images and cuts physically to preserve the tactile quality. The eyes and nose are scaled to the human face when printed on a letter-sized page. I decided on the title typeface because it mimics viewing print up close, so pixelated; information is set in monotype to model a film script.

on bulletin boards around campus