As an initial experiment with MacGuffins, I wanted to immerse myself in the time when Hitchcock made the MacGuffin famous. Used with a mixture of "humour, suspense and revelation" (Digou) Hitchcock managed to perfect the use of a MacGuffin in his film making, and these specialist objects appeared in 25 of his films.
I looked at Cecil Beaton and other 1930s/40s Hollywood photographers to settle on a style for a quick test recreating a photograph in the style of Hitchcock's era. My first two experiments are pictured below. The possible MacGuffins are the "diamond bracelet" on the left and the "silver earring" on the right.
After taking these two pictures, I wanted to create a more modern image to bring the MacGuffin back into the 21st century. I also wanted to bring more focus onto the MacGuffin. as I think the objects in the images above fade into the rest of the image and don't hold much focus. The result was the image below:
This image is not necessarily modern, but looks more timeless, with no harsh indicators of what era it is from. More focus is brought onto the lipstick, which is the MacGuffin in this scenario.
*For these initial tests, I have yet to test ideas about the relationship between the MacGuffin and narrative. I intend to experiment with these ideas soon. For now, I am labelling objects as a MacGuffin and seeing how I can fit them into a context of different eras.*
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