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Oh, Johnny! | Portfolio of the Audio and Visual Arts Dpt.

Oh, Johnny!

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Views: 1501
Audio Guide
Listen as if you are standing just outside the dressing room. The act of applying lipstick, the careful adjustment of a costume, the quiet of a mirror becoming a stage all form a private ritual of preparation that also reads as performance. The camera stays intimate to let textures and expressions speak. Notice how light sculpts the face and how a single earring or a piece of sequined fabric can act as a statement. The film does not pronounce a lesson. It offers moments where fashion, performance and community meet, revealing how identity is made in small, deliberate acts.

Oh, Johnny! is a short documentary portrait of John, known as Vinylios, that explores his fascination with fashion and his connection to drag performance. The film was produced as an undergraduate project in 2020-2021 by Christofora Maria Ntoutsou in collaboration with Vinylios and supervised by Chalkou Maria as part of the History, Theory and Practice of Documentary course.

The work favors intimate framing and a portrait approach. Images like the one before you capture the ritual of applying makeup in front of a mirror, the subtle interplay of cool ambient light with warm skin tones, and the tactile presence of sequined garments and bold jewelry. The camera privileges proximity and a shallow depth of field to isolate gestures, textures and glances, transforming private preparations into performative moments. Naturalistic lighting and patient editing allow the viewer to witness small acts of transformation without theatrical exaggeration.

Technically, the film draws on documentary portrait techniques: observational shooting, close-up detail, and a sound design that balances diegetic room sounds with moments of musical accent. The editing rhythm respects the time of becoming, letting makeup, costume and conversation accumulate meaning. Rather than telling, the film shows, inviting audiences to read identity through appearance, movement and staging.

Thematically the film engages with ideas of gender performance, self-fashioning, and the communal space of the stage. Fashion appears as language and armour, drag as both ritual and a site of visibility. In a compact form the documentary captures how personal aesthetics interact with collective practices and how dressing can be an act of storytelling.

Christofora Maria Ntoutsou, Vinylios



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