Cem/methods

Edited Versions

Bu Nası Vaka?

“Bu Nası Vaka” is a music video that can be found on YouTube, with a length of 3 minutes, shot at Turkey’s west coast, beautiful city of İzmir. Its genre is rap, showing us the ghetto life in a neighborhood that is considered pretty dangerous. It consists of shots of what you can see in a ghetto, shady characters looking for trouble, kids playing on the unsafe-looking streets, the feeling of a close community, a life surrounded by violence; and that reflects on the screen in faces of people that look both used to and tired of it. Nevertheless, it is always something real that is shown on the screen, so in that sense the images have a documentary like style, not that fictive, with some effects integrated with the image as well.

One day a friend came up to me and asked, “Are you okay with going to İzmir this weekend and shooting that rap music video we were talking about?” I said yes, and me (as DOP) and him (as the Director) and another friend of ours (as the Producer) got in the car and went straight to İzmir, all we had was my camera, two lenses, and a crane we got from my cousin. The next two days passed basically running around the ghetto, shooting any material that seemed ghetto: dogs, guns, shady men, cars that drift and so on. It was an organic process as we were walking down the street and if we saw a car that would look neat, we just asked them and they probably said yes.

For me, it was like a contribution that I made to Turkish Rap, which is a genre that I listen half the time I’m listening to something. It is also a genre with growing popularity. It was not a job that would pay; it would probably cost us some time and money, but the main motivation was that this work would lead the way to other works that are related, it would be something that showed my interest and my abilities when I was doing more work that would pay off well.

Dreamers’ Creatures

Dreamers’ Creatures is a photobook printed on paper, consisting of eighteen pages and eight photographs (excluding the front and back cover) of animals that go along with the an abstract poem I wrote, consisting of eight lines, that has a melancholic mood. Some of the images of the animals are retouched, like a green llama on blue grass, or a pink spider, while some of them do look retouched but are actually not. The images and the poetry goes hand to hand in terms of colors, there is always one image that covers more than a page and a verse of the poem on a black background with the color palette of the adjacent image.

I first wrote different lines for every image, influenced by the feeling that I got from the image, later on took it at hand as a whole, and it acquired a language of its own. The photos of the animals that are used are taken on a journey in South America. I shot them with my old and trusty camera, that doesn’t give a perfect image but rather a stained one, but it was still okay as I could take it around without thinking anything would happen. I played with the colors in terms of hue.

Dreamers’ Creatures is a self-motivated project, which consists of the images that I had taken over the past years that I have not published in any medium and that needed to be out there in some sort. I grew an intimate relationship with them; they all became something more than a photograph, more of a feeling. As poetry for me is also a real intimate and emotional art form that I can only write in my alone time, the longing feeling I got from the these hidden images was the main reason of this works existence.

Üçüncü Birleşik Zaman

Üçüncü Birleşik Zaman is a short film that has a story beginning with a girl entering in his boyfriend’s house. It has duration of 6 minutes, divided into three different stories with different timelines of the same setting and the same characters. Each story ends with a cigarette lit up. The colors are with low saturation, maybe uncanny. The main idea about the work is that it has a repetitive structure. So what we see on the screen is usually same with what we have seen before, with slight differences. In terms of sound we only have diegetic sound.

It was shot with a small group of people, me as the script writer and the director, that I co edited with my director of photography, shot in a friend’s house that corresponded my needs, my girlfriend on sound. The camera was an URSA, and there were only two redheads for the lighting. Scenes that do not give us that much of a clue about the characters were shot first and as they got used the character, more complex ones that gave about some info about them were shot later on.

It was my graduation project that for some time I had been thinking on, I wanted to do a short movie with a broken timeline, that would make the audience feel uncanny about the thing they are watching. The dialogue has this purpose of making the audience think of the story in a sense that turns out to be something else at the end. I believe it is a way of interacting with the audience.

Unedited Versions

Bu Nası Vaka?

What?

“Bu Nası Vaka” is a music video that can be found on YouTube, with a length of 3 minutes, shot at Turkey’s west coast, beautiful city of İzmir. Its genre is rap, showing us the ghetto life in a neighborhood that is considered pretty dangerous. It consists of shots of what you can see in a ghetto, shady characters looking for trouble, kids playing on the unsafe-looking streets, the feeling of a close community, a life surrounded by violence; and that reflects on the screen in faces of people that look both used to and tired of it. Nevertheless, it is always something real that is shown on the screen, so in that sense the images have a documentary like style, not that fictive, with some effects integrated with the image as well.

How?

One day a friend came up to me and asked me, “Are you okay with going to İzmir this weekend and shooting that rap music video we were talking about?” I said yes, and me (as the Director of Photography) and him (as the Director) and another friend of ours (as the Producer) got in the car and went straight to İzmir, all we had was my camera, two lenses, and a crane we got from my cousin. The next two days passed basically running around the ghetto, shooting any material that seemed ghetto: dogs, guns, shady men, cars that drift and so on. It was an organic process as we were walking down the street and if we saw a car that would look neat, we just went an ask them and they probably say yes.

Why?

For me, it was like a contribution that I made to Turkish Rap, which is a genre that I listen half the time I’m listening to something. It is also a genre with growing popularity. It was not a job that would pay; it would probably cost us some time and money, but the main motivation was that this work would lead the way to other works that are related, it would be something that showed my interest and my abilities when I was doing more work that would pay off well.

Dreamers’ Creatures

What?

Dreamers’ Creatures is a photobook printed on paper, consisting of eighteen pages and eight photographs (excluding the front and back cover) of animals that go along with the a little poem consisting of eight lines. Some of the images of the animals are retouched, mostly by playing of a hue, like a green llama on blue grass, or a pink spider, while some of them do look retouched but are actually not. The images and the poetry goes hand to hand in terms of colors, there is always one image that covers more than a page and a verse of the poem on a black background with the color palette of the adjacent image.

How?

The photos of the animals that are used are taken on a journey in South America, mostly Argentina and some of them in Brazil. I shot them with my old and trusty camera, that did not gave a perfect image, mostly deformed image, but it was still okay as I could take it around without thinking anything would happen. After some time that they were shot, I started to play with the images, as some of them already had beautiful colors, some of them I liked even better when I changed them. I first wrote different lines for every image, influenced by the feeling that I got from the image, later on took it at hand as a whole, and it acquired a language of its own.

Why?

Dreamers’ Creatures is a self-motivated project, which consists of the images that I had taken over the past years that I have not published in any medium and that needed to be out there in some sort. I grew an intimate relationship with them; they all became something more than a photograph, more of a feeling. As poetry for me is also a real intimate and emotional art form that I can only write in my alone time, I meshed two of these forms together to create something that did not have certain narrative story but more like a burst of emotions.

Üçüncü Birleşik Zaman

What?

Üçüncü Birleşik Zaman is a short film that has a story beginning with a girl entering in her boyfriend’s house. It has duration of 6 minutes, divided into three different stories with different timelines of the same setting and the same characters. Each story ends with a cigarette lit up. The image we have on the screen has faded colors, with an uncanny feeling. We delve into the close ups of characters while they talk, but the main idea about the work is that it has a repetitive structure. So what we see on the screen is usually same with what we have seen before, with slight differences. The dialogue also gives away the intention of the movie for the audience to comprehend what they might be watching. In terms of sound we only have diegetic sound.

How?

It was shot with a small group of people, me as the script writer and the director, that I co edited with my director of photography, shot in a friend’s house that corresponded my needs, with two actors and my girlfriend on the sound. Scenes that do not give us that much of a clue about the characters were shot first and as they got used the character, more complex ones that gave about some info about them were shot later on. The girl enters his boyfriend’s apartment, preparing some coffee for herself, and at some point she lights up a cigarette and that is when we jump to the other story in another timeline.

Why?

It was my graduation project that for some time I had been thinking on, I wanted to do a short movie with a broken timeline, that would make the audience feel uncanny about the thing they are watching. The dialogue has this purpose of making the audience think of the story in a sense that turns out to be something else at the end. The main idea about it was to prepare the audience for something, then give them something else, interacting with the audience in some sense.