The Out of Place project serves as a mental mirage and visual allegory for feeling out of your environment.
Nina was the director, producer, and production designer for the short experimental film, creating the concept and driving the success of the film every step of the way - including crew building, location scouting, establishing the visual language with my DP, assisting mask creation, leading the flow and execution of production, and monitoring post.
The Installation
Designed to be an enchantment piece, I wanted to create an environment for the viewer to enter and feel displaced in, to be drawn in by the beauty of the environment and the creatures before them and left feeling perplexed by the frozen forms, a common response to being watched, no matter what the duration.
Oftentimes when you are placed in an environment that is unknown to you, or feel you do not belong in, you feel like everyone is watching you, the need to concave, put your head down, remain in a position of stillness; for this project I wanted to create a personification of that experience by taking a creature (various fox breeds, representing different human races, as this is a universal trait) and placing it in an environment unknown to them (the beach, a temporary residence for some breeds of foxes but never a permanent one, as the environment does not meet their needs).
I decided to showcase the creature solely on the face, closest to the mind, the mentality, via a complex mask design that was fabricated with hand dyed feathers (which was inspired by our selected environment, the beach). It's only in the mind where they don't fit in, which lead to the decision of the costuming colors, textures, and fibers mirroring the sandy terrain, distressed over the anxiety of the mind.
Making the masks
Making the costumes
The Credits
Our Cast
Red Fox ............................................... Matt Higgins
Fennec Fox ......................................... Lexy Paul
Silver Fox ........................................... Damian James
Grey Fox ............................................. Alaina Minchello
Arctic Fox ........................................... Mary Stevens
Tibetian Fox ........................................ Joseph Lee
Our Crew
Executive Producer ..................................... Nina Di Salvo
Producer/Locations Coordinator ............... Cameron Kashtan
Director of Photography .............................. Matt Nelson
1st AC ........................................................... Joe Elfanbaum
2nd AC ......................................................... Michael DeMauro
Grip .............................................................. Justin Schmidt
1st AD/Script Supervisor ............................. Ayaka Furkawa
Editor ........................................................... Jayden Jackson
Elisabeth Pritchett
Location Sound ............................................ Savannah Kloden
Production Designer/Art Director................ Nina Di Salvo
Head Mask Designer .................................... Michael Vidal
Mask Caster .................................................. Cody
Feather Fabricators ...................................... Michael Vidal
Cody
Ashe Fury
Sculptors ...................................................... Alissa Drake
Quinn Thompson
Feather Dyer ................................................ Nina Di Salvo
Costume Designers ..................................... Nina Di Salvo
Marquois Jardod
Taylor Lily
Sydney Thompson
On-Set Costumer ........................................ Sydney Thompson
Hair/Makeup Artist .................................... Nina Di Salvo
On-Set Photographers ............................... Ashton Dodd
Michael Schalk
Michael Vidal
On-Set Videographer ................................. Michael Vidal