Get Your Creative Juices Flowing with the Boring Room Challenge

Every photographer and filmmaker will likely one day find they have some kind of creative block, and breaking through this can be a total nightmare. One of the best ways to do this is to force yourself to be creative in a really dull, plain situation. In this challenge by Brandon Li, a boring hotel room becomes the setting for a dramatic film sequence.

There aren’t any crazy props, no more than 1 actor… just close frames and clips full of drama and suspense. It’s not even good acting that makes the film, but instead it’s the filming techniques and direction that create the short story.

Li wears a camera mounted onto his chest, offering a behind-the-scenes view as he talks through his thought process.

Watching the ‘director’s cut’ of the short film highlighted one interesting thing: a cold white balance is used to create suspense, rather than the warm tones of the hotel room that are shown in the other view.

It just goes to show, it’s not what you shoot, but how you shoot it — a lesson that can apply to both photographers and filmmakers alike.