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“The Princess & The Knight” is a short film I made during my Art Foundation Course for my Final Major Project.
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It takes inspiration from the art trend Princess x Knight, which uses the song “Golden Brown” by The Stranglers and a short-form content style to explore themes of love, romance, and social divide in a short 3-4 static shot format.
My short film acts as an expansion to this 30 second implied narrative by giving the audience more context, and a deeper look into the characters. Without any dialogue, my focus for the film was visual, environmental storytelling. While my goal was to evoke an fantastical aesthetic, I also wanted to evoke an atmospheric, emotional reaction in my viewer, to emphasise my take on the story.
The narrative follows a Princess and Knight mutually pining over the other, romanticising the ideals of what they want to see. However, as the Princess runs from her arranged marriage and the Knight returns from a battle wounded, the Princess acts as a saviour to the Knight. Finally together they hope things can be as they imagined, but soon realise that the truth is very different. They see that the person they loved never existed, and realise mutually that they cannot be together, not necessarily due to society or “evil” arranged marriages, but simply because the love they help was built on imaginations and fantasies. They return to their respective lives, mourning that which was never to be.
I wanted my film to give an alternative perspective on the classic trend, and subvert viewer expectations. I wanted to portray a more neutral, non-Eurocentric outlook on arranged marriages, not using it as a villain in my story, while not villainising either of the characters either: subverting the stereotypes without changing the outcomes.
As a part of making the film I also created the Knight’s armour pieces, and the Princess’ cloak, which you can see here: