Cindy Sherman's stills: the character comes first

Cindy Sherman's early Untitled Film Stills are black and white pictures of herself in invented roles, made from 1977 to 1980. Each one looks like a frame from a film that does not exist. The character is not a named star. She is a type, and a few chosen things build her: clothes, hair, room, light and pose. That is the habit this lesson wants.

What the series is doing

Nothing in the frame is spare decoration. If the coat, the room and the direction of the eyes do not agree on one person, the picture falls apart. Take the discipline and leave the subject. You do not dress up as her. You decide the idea first, then let every element prove it.

Three frames, in words

The old museum page for the series no longer opens, and you do not need it. These three are practice frames in that form, written so you can do the naming here.

• The kerb. A woman in a city coat stands at a kerb and looks down the street, out of the frame. The coat and the kerb say she is leaving. The look says she expects someone who has not arrived.
• The kitchen. A woman in a plain dress sits at a table, face turned toward a window. The dress and the table say a day at home. The window says she is waiting, not working.
• The tight room. A woman in a dark wig and a bright dress faces the camera in a small room. The wig and the dress say a part she put on. The tight room says the part has nowhere to go.

How to look

For each frame, name one element (clothing, room, light or pose) and the character it helps to build. Any element you cannot link to a character is the weakest thing in that frame. In the third, a bright dress that only wants to be pretty, with no job in the role, would be the cut.

What not to copy

Not her face, not her wigs, not a film-still preset. Copy the order: one character, then only the things that prove it. A lightbulb over a head, a lonely room with nothing changed, a prop that does no job: those fail the test, because a stranger cannot name the idea.

In the school this is Fine Art A1, A Sentence Before the Picture. You write three lines before you shoot: the prediction, the props and their jobs, and the word a stranger should say.