The inspiration for this shoot came from a perhaps unexpected place, namely the tagline  on a box of 'Knex' Titanfall figurines I purchased for display in my bedroom. 'Knex' is a construction toy brand aimed at children, much like Lego but with a slightly different construction system. 'Titanfall' is an extremely violent first-person shooter video game by Respawn entertainment, in which players can choose between murdering each other on foot, or murdering each other from inside the cockpit of a giant robot. Needless to say, I was slightly surprised these things were mixed together at all.

 

However, what really stood out to me was the tagline on the boxes when they arrived:

 

'Knex: Building the worlds kids love!'

 

I found the idea of Titanfall's violent, bloody world being a world loved by children darkly humourous, and decided a shoot based on this would make a good addition to my project. I set about re-creating some of the game's more violent 'execution' and 'termination' moves, as well as a few other common moments from the game, using the Knex toys, employing strawberry jam where gore was necessary. I feel this shoot successfully combined the darkness and horror of some of the kills in the game with the innocence of a child's playset to create an eerie wake-up call for anyone blindly buying these toys for their children. I feel it speaks volumes that LEGO turns down licenses if their basis is too violent; hence Respawn had to turn to the largely-forgotten smaller brand Knex to produce these toys.

 

Maybe that explains why the things kept falling over so often during the shoot.