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You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat – Jaws (Standard) Mark Davies

‘You’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat’ is my interpretation of Speilberg’s classic horror film’ Jaws’. I wanted to approach it in a completely different way, embracing the ‘two sides to every story’ viewpoint. The piece is portrait to allow me to create depth in the ocean and to run inline with the classic movie poster. It is a completely different perspective to what I have done before, as you look up towards the surface. The boat is based on the ‘ORCA’ from the film, I even looked at the original plan drawings of the model to gauge proportions and shape.

So what we have is a classic scene that is relating to the narrative where the boat is on the hunt for Jaws, with yellow barrels of explosives cast overboard. Trails of blood mix with water from their attempts to lure the shark in. Here is where I take it to a different place, through the use of beautiful lighting, colour and detail I have made the bottom of the boat (the target) beautiful and intriguing to the shark, is it just intrigued and only able to communicate with its mouth?

A diesel spill runs downwards through the water creating another source of confusion and attraction to the shark. There is a rusted oil drum plummeting through the water just in front of the shark that has a subtle leak of toxics that escape and leave their mark.

So at this point is it purely intrigue that lures it to the surface and to the source? There then resides a darker layer as you notice the shadowed shark circling the boat from undeeath.

A subtle trail of blood infiltrates the water close by, suggesting something has been bitten or worse out of view. If you then look at the trail of diesel, there are a number of skeletal fish that swim amongst the toxic trail, killed by the shark, or killed by the real source of evil in the water? What is the actual stain on nature?

This angle then opens up the question that exists where people strongly believe that sharks are misunderstood and antagonised by human actions, possibly for ones own benefit where lies and scaremongering exist. When you look at it from this angle then the items in the water such as the barrels etc aren’t to lure off the shark but are a representation of mans’ wrong doing.