Title: FAST FORWARD

Subtitle: Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood

About the book:

“Fast Forward” is a powerful look at Los Angeles youth culture and its influence on the rest of our society. From the affluent children of the Westside to the graffiti gangs and party crews of East LA, young Angelenos reckon with an overwhelming barrage of advertising and entertainment images emphasizing money, possessions, and eternal youth. This collection of 79 color photographs, accompanied by interviews with the children and their parents, reveals the realities of growing up fast in a culture that is at once irresistible and unforgiving. A compelling precursor to Greenfield’s widely praised “Girl Culture,” “Fast Forward” is a telling document of the direction in which today’s ultra image-conscious culture is pointed.

It also documents the experience of growing up in Los Angeles, and the ways children are influenced by the values of Hollywood. The quest for “fame,” the preoccupation with trends, the culture of materialism, and the obsession with image that characterizes Hollywood is reflected in the everyday lives and rituals of L.A. youth. A recurring theme in the project is the fleeting quality of youth. As one teenager says, “You grow up really fast when you grow up here. L.A. is so fast-moving, and kids really mature at a young age. Everyone is in a rush to be old, to be going to the clubs, going out… It’s not cool to be a kid.”

Who?

The photographer who created this book is Lauren Greenfield, an american artist, documentary photographer and documentary film maker, who has published four photographic monographs, directed four documentary features, produced four travelling exhibitions, and published in magazines throughout the world.

Lauren made this book as a result of her being interested into how kids in Los Angles seem to grow up quicker under the influence of Hollywood, and how they are affected by the culture of materialism and the cult of image.

Single Image Analysis:

The photo that really launched Lauren’s career was called Mijanou and friends from Beverly Hills High School on Senior Beach Day. A picture taken in 1993 in Santa Monica, California, as part of her project Fast Forward: Growing Up in the Shadow of Hollywood.

Greenfield came to make this picture circuitously through an internship at National Geographic, which was the professional experience to which Lauren’s career is also indebted. In the process of making this photograph and the project for which it became the iconic image, Greenfield explains how she found her voice as a photographer.

The photograph of Mijanou ended up being the cover of the book and was published and exhibited internationally. Mijanou wasn’t rich, but she lived in a world where her friends were. She explained to Greenfield about the pressures of her world and how it was hard when you could not keep up, but she also recognized that her beauty allowed her entrée into the popular clique.

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book such as:

Book in hand: how does it feel? Smell, sniff the paper.

In hand the book feel rigid, it smells like plain plastic with no real scent to it other than that other than plastic and plain card/paper.

Paper and ink: use of different paper/ textures/ colour or B&W or both.

The books opens with a card page and then is followed by glossy plastic pages with the images and text on until the final page. which is again, card.

Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3 / number of pages.

The book is landscape and is around an A4 size however is not exactly A4 and is probably a custom size. There area 127 pages.

Binding, soft/hard cover. image wrap/dust jacket. saddle stitch/swiss binding/ Japanese stab-binding/ leperello

The book is a hard cover with a dust jacket and uses saddle stitching.

Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing.

The title is very direct about what the project Is focusing on, it dictates exactly what the projects main theme Is without giving too much away. The choice to have ‘Fast Forward’ in large text is a smart idea because it makes the book seem more youthful and erratic, similar to life lives of the teenagers she isn’t photographing which is one of the main themes Greenfield is exploring in the book.

Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told?

The story is as described above about how Greenfield documents the life of teenagers growing up in Hollywood and how its faster and more full-on than other areas of the world. Therefore Lauren presents quite a fast paced approach to looking into all of the youths she is studying, quickly moving from one to another in order to keep up this fast paced theme.

Design and layout: image size on pages/ single page, double-spread/ images/ grid, fold- outs/ inserts.

Most of the images follow the theme of 1 page, 1 image, however throughout the book there are interludes where text is positioned on the side of a page and an image will take up about 2/3 of a double page spread. The normal image size would take up most of the page, leaving a small border around the edges which is usually white. There are no grids, fold outs or inserts.

Editing and sequencing: selection of images/ juxtaposition of photographs/ editing process.

The sequencing of images follows quite a logical pattern of putting images created in the same shoots or trying to present the same principles together on single pages one after another with slight variations here and there.

Images and text: are they linked? Introduction/ essay/ statement by artists or others.  Use of captions (if any.)

The book has a preface written by the photographer Lauren Greenfield and a quote next to an image on the 11th page before the main part of the book begins. Then throughout the book for the majority of images there are small bits of text either dictating the event, situation, people and ages. Then as she pics out singular images to talk about she uses 1/3 of a double page spread to write text and the other 2/3 for the image.