Development of our studio shoot

Rebecca 2020 The pose here is very similar to the child´s in Meatyards photo

We had a call on Tuesday to talk about our ideas and progress in our ideas. Lots of people had written additional stuff onto the google doc.

We had a call with Rosie on the 12th of November, Thursday.

I met Flora and Rodrigo on Thursday too, to discuss our meeting with Rosie and to clarify some ideas.

Some things we discussed on Tuesday:

    We went through the script Ellie and Victoria had begun to write. It was very cool and exciting, but they had mainly just the beginning. It wasn´t fleshed out yet

    We talked about what the set would look like

    We talked a lot about lighting and we couldn't really reach an agreement. I write more about this later on. 

    We agreed that the camera crew couldn't do much, until we had a proper idea of the story. We kind of need a shot list to be able to plan everything, even just the most important shots would be great. With this I could also start with the story board, but until then all we can do is some research. 

On Tuesday we went through some of the things we had on the google doc. We also went though it with Rosie on Thursday. Here's some of the photos people used as examples to show the colouring we were thinking of:

I also thought of Jordan Cronenweth´s work on Blade runner: https://film-grab.com/2010/06/23/blade-runner/ I really like the framing, and I think the gloomy colours would be perfect for our film. I think we have all imagined light falling on our actor on one side of him, while the other stays dark. I think it would also be really cool to have rays of lights, like in the first blade runner photo below. I really like the way it looks, and I weirdly associate it with a thriller feel.

These images are sort of what I based the colours on my first drawings, because its also what I imagined our film to look like. However, some people started to talk on Tuesday, about having the lights set as red and blue to represent the two sides of the brain like on the image above. We would have the outside be blue, and the inside mostly lit up red. The blue light would then be coming from the window. However, this idea is still unclear to me, and I´m not sure if it would work perfectly for our idea, or how hard it would be to realise.

We hadn´t really agreed on it, but we talked about it on Thursday with Rosie and she really seemed to like the idea.

We do need to decide on one though because having all types of lighting we have talked about would be way too much. Apparently the art department is very set on having the hanging lightbulbs which is fine by me as I really like the look of that. On top of this we might have smaller lights scattered around, possibly some candles and table lights. I think we all agree that we like this idea, but mixed with the red and blue it would be too much. Rodrigo likes the red and blue but also wants to keep the lightbulbs, as long as they are white. I´m not sure about this.

So we are essentially stuck between the two looks, the one the photos show above and the red and blue shown below.

Kaitlan used Suspiria as an example:

My initial drawings

We talked about starting the movie from the "outside". We´re not entirely sure what it will look like yet, but I know I´m not the only who imagined it as the upside down from stranger things. As you can see the first drawings I used more of a green/yellow hue.

We would then introduce the character. He would be looking through the window into the room, his mind. He would hear a sound (a memory? a part of him?) which is why he decides to enter the room. He wants to follow the sound to find the object that's making it.

We talked about this on Tuesday and we agreed that there wouldn´t be a door on the set. We would simply have the camera stay still while he disappears from the window, and then walks back into the frame, now on the inside of the room. This would also leave it more open to interpretation, as in how did he get in? If its his mind, we don't need a literal door, he simply goes in.

I began thinking about these scenes of our character looking for something, whilst touching all the objects around the room. I quite like the visual of a wondering hand and so I began to think of how they are represented in film. They’re surprisingly prevalent in the films of Christopher Nolan: 

https://nofilmschool.com/2015/12/christopher-nolan-use-hands-helps-you-think-detective

I think we could have some really nice looking shots of the characters wandering hand. We could also try to show his frustration growing, by how he handles the things he´s looking through.

I drew this when people started talking about having the red and blue lighting instead of the low moody one. We talked about having the room split into the two sides of the brain and to show this through the colour. In this scene he gets frustrated and possible flips the table, maybe breaks things. Here I had the colour split in the middle of his face, to show the two sides of his brain. I´m not really sure about this however. I think it is too literal. We want the audience to have hints that the set is his mind, we don't want it to be too obvious. I certainly don't think we should be building a brain as the set. Again hints would be cool, but there definitely needs to be space for interpretation. 

I´m also not sure if visually it works with our story. We want the feel to be more gloomy, not colourful. I do like the look of red and blue in Suspiria, I just think it might be a bit much for us to attempt. I think to get the colours to look right on the actor, the set and everything in it might be difficult. 

The drawing below is me trying to visualize mixing both of the lightings. We could still have the gloomy aesthetic just with added red and blue highlights. I think I like this more than the full red and blue, but I´m still afraid that its too much.

This drawing is one I did on Thursday whilst talking to Rodrigo and Flora. He seemed to be convinced that the red and blue would work fine also with the lightbulbs. I was trying to draw that. He said he wouldn't want the colours to be too strong, just a dark red and dark blue with the white light. He liked the idea of the two of them mixing in the middle to create a purple. It does look cool, again, I´m just not sure how doable it is in the time we have. Rodrigo also mentioned that the set would sort of be built in two halves to represent the two sides of the brain. On one the blue logical, mathematical and calculating side, on the other the red passionate, emotional and artistic side. We would show this trough the props. Folders, envelopes, and a calculator on a desk next to the (possibly 2d, painted) bookshelf, guitars, vinyls, cds, and painting material on the other side. I added some of these elements onto my sketch.

Rebecca as insipration

This Friday I watched the film Rebecca (2020, dir Ben Wheatley, dop. Laurie Rose.) (I loved the book by Daphne du Maurier and so had high hopes for it. It luckily didn´t disappoint me. Hitchcok had also made an adaptation of the book, but it was very different, much more Hollywood) I realised that this is actually quite a good film to look into for our shoot. It´s a thriller and has some experimental scenes to it (nightmare scenes, the pressure the main character feels, being driven insane). I will have a closer 

look at how the intensity is built in some of the scenes. (This does also remind me of Suspiria, it has a similar, almost quiet, intensity and excitement to it). There was also both moody lighting and red and blue lighting which was interesting to see. I will attach some photos again, to get a visual idea of where our shoot could go. 

Ben Wheatley interview

Rebecca trailer

Hitchcock´s 1940 adaptation of Rebecca

cold lighting, also with candles and a mirror

Warm lighting

Bright blue lighting in a nightmarish scene

This is sort of how I imagined the lighting, soft and with yellow table lamps. I love how the colours and shadows mix on her face.

Waking up from a nightmare, blue light outside

I was thinking of our characters memories and how we want to add photos into the set. Also reminds me of when we initially talked about using black and white.

Hands looking through old things, in this case the nightgown of the dead Rebecca

The red and the blue