Linked Films

Crimson Peak (2015)
In the aftermath of a family tragedy, an aspiring author is torn between love for her childhood friend and the temptation of a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, she is swept away to a house that breathes, bleeds - and remembers.
Production Company: Legendary Pictures
Distributed: Universal Studios

Sugarcoated

The style of Crimson Peak is very dark and gloomy with rich interior designs and ghostly figures. It fits to the distopian idea and colour code in our project as well as the setting having red walls with wooden furniture and oil paintings. However, the colour theme is an opposition to the real interior of the room as well as to the theme in Crimson Peak.  With the narrative the house is very important and is the main aspect to Crimson Peak. This also includes SugarCoated, the house is alive and incorporates within the main theme and characters.

Under the Skin (2013)

A mysterious woman seduces lonely men in the evening hours in Scotland. Events lead her to begin a process of self-discovery.

Distributed: Studio Canal
Production Company: Film 4

SugarCoated

Under the Skin has many meaningful scenes with a rather confusing narrative, the alienated scenes are very much like Sugarcoated. The whole idea is representing inner beauty that is 'under the skin', which is a link to the idea of Sugarcoated, the distopian society wrapped around an appealing utopia look.

The lighting for 'Under the Skin' and 'Sugarcoated' is very direct in position within main aspects of the framing surrounding by darkness. They also share the fluorescent blue tones as well as lack of colour in some shots.

Making

Filming Process

DAY 1

These are a few experimental shots that I took to test the lighting, flash and angle. I had also edited the shots in fluorescent colours to see how they looked in the filter.

I then began choosing which angles I wanted the camera to be in following my digital storyboard. Using the tripod, we began to shoot experimenting with moving the lighting around to create all kinds of shadowing and shadow movement as it really worked with the whole theme. Many shots of Helena were taken and new ideas began pouring out and becoming a success. There were pieces that we followed from the storyboard but were not quite possible as shots were a lot more shaky in mid air without a tripod in comparison to stills. I tried to stick with research and the idea of old horror of how shots would be taken to create an uncomfortable edge. So there were many close ups including character close ups. There were also shots I wanted to create that made the characters seem vulnerable and crowded by the detailed elements within the room. The room was set up to look grand and excessive. There are many symbolised details of historical silhouettes and authentic 2nd hand pieces. They mise en scene is very much like Crimson Peak (2015) with the rich colours of detail looking a little gothic. There is also a sense of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland theme in there with the range of measurements between the characters and props.

I think this shooting was successful with establishing exactly what we wanted, however there are things to improve and change such as the set up of the table. We plan to include more paint and glitter to the table. I also would like to set a more range of shot types.

DAY 2

This round was more successful as we had a more specific idea and previous experience to what we wanted. The props were bought and set up more to what we had envisioned, shots were then taken by free hand across the table. When Martha was being shot we added more close ups and involvement into the props matching to the characteristics of her character being more dominant than the others. 

The lighting was by Georgia facing the light on Martha making the background the darker subject to the frame. This created a switch in dominance as the character grows from its surroundings. As if blending into the scenery theme.

This time I produced more shots of the table filled mess. Georgia and I had decided to move the shadowing round during filming. This make a further contrast as there is

DAY 3

The cellar scenes were a little difficult to angle as the tripod wasn't such a good size. However, the filming was successful and easier, shadows were used again and made a great job of creating the mood.

Editing

We began by choosing the shots we liked and wanted to use. There were many deleted and not used and many that were severely cut due to the footage not looking exactly the same as we thought they would be. A rough order was then placed to an idea of where footage would be. Then the warp stabilizer over took and saved many pieces of footage.

The colour tones were then set using the red, blue and green tones set to 80, 60 and 150. Specific footage was then chosen to be black and white followed by my storyboard.

Each shot was then changed in speed and reverse and put into an order. However, the order was always changed around each time as we edited because viewing the piece hundreds of times can be hard to then settle on one idea.

Olivia and Martha decided on some sound that we agreed on that further changed the order to our opening to sync in more.