Thomas Duke
Thomas Duke is 'only' 20 years old but already has a large cinephile history behind his back. Of course: he is not a filmmaker, critic, screenwriter or actor.
In September 2017, he decided to join what moves him so much: movies and photography . How? He took to the streets of London with the idea of photographing the places of the scenes that he likes the most from his favorite movies (and with a peculiarity: he carried the printed stills).
Your first scenes of him? those of sky fall, Sherlock Homes, Atonement Y Edge of Tomorrow . Thus, his Instagram was born, Stepping Through Film and with it, our definitive follow.
Thomas is a Brit who love cinema above all things . A Film and Television student in the English capital, he tells Traveler.es that he remembers how, when he was only five years old, he used to watch and review classics like Mary Poppins either Chitty Chitty Bang Bang : "Ten years later, cinema was still the only thing on my mind. Over time, I wanted to create a concept to show my affinity for the big screen in some way... so i started shooting my camera ".
But dear Thomas, what was before, the love for the cinema or for the trip ? " The movies; always the movies . Thanks to them I could avoid any problem and relax for a few hours. Although I have always liked to explore and travel so this project is very attractive for me."
Traveling looking for scenes is another way of traveling . One that, with the proliferation of audiovisual channels in streaming, is increasingly popular (not in vain, in Traveler we have echoed several initiatives for series and movie routes).
Thomas warns that thanks to the incessant search for him, he has reached destinations that he would never imagine: "it is amazing to find hidden resources of nature Y isolated areas where only a few have been able to reach".
But... how do we sieve? What determines following in the footsteps of one character and not another? "I only visit those places and locations that mean something to me on a personal level . This hobby, to call it in some way, would lose all meaning if it began to fill with photographs empty of meaning and themes that I would not want to write about. I need to have a goal and a message to convey to recreate that particular movie."
An example of how he makes this selection could be his recent series on the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse , in which he decided cut out the silhouettes of the characters instead of showing the entire rectangular photograph . "It would be impossible to show the specific places of the film since it is animated cinema, but I wanted to do it because I love this film, its message, its style and the staging."
In all this throng of premieres, which one does a movie buff like Thomas stay with? He tells us about The Edge of Tomorrow , of Harry Potter ("I will never get tired of recreating his scenes since they are part of my childhood"), from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ... Also the entire trilogy of The Three Flavors Cornetto , directed by Edgar Wright "these movies were my introduction to comedy."
HOW TO FIND THE PERFECT TIME AND PLACE FOR THE PHOTO
The process is simple, but tiring: get to the scene, search with the camera for the perfect shot, take out the silhouette or the frame of the film and try to square everything. "I usually have to move several times to the right, to the left, further forward, back... but usually, I end up getting what I want."
To get to the right moment in the movie, Thomas may end up staying in place between half an hour and three hours "in the same position" . That is love for cinema. "I want the photo to be as perfect as possible - for a reason I spend my time and money on it-; sometimes it's tiring and irritating but the places can be so beautiful, that I dedicate time to rest, take a walk, enjoy the sunset... and then continue, always continue, until I find the perfect timing".
THE GREAT ABSENT FUTURE PRESENT?
If we travel through Thomas's Instagram, we will start thinking "something is missing here". The great city of cinema, that city that from seeing it so much on the big screen seems that we live in it... it is not yet in this Stepping Through Film : New York.
"I would also like to recreate pixar movies, which is another of my pending tasks; I have many ideas to do it but I keep looking for a way to create photographs with some of them that, being animation, are more difficult for me. I would also like to travel to Peru, Los Angeles, Jordan, the Namibian desert, Berlin... and Spain! Knight and Day was rolled in Seville And it's one of the movies I'd like to try."
Thomas has many countries and cities to go (and movies to watch), but he doesn't lose focus and will continue looking for scenes to make us travel the world frame in hand.