Poor Things Behind the Scenes — How Yorgos Lanthimos Made His Craziest Film Yet

[Music] since his Beginnings in the Greek weird wave yorgos Lanos has been shocking audiences with poor things Lanos takes his Brash and distinctive style to a new level I must go punch that baby how did Lanos and his team build his most audacious film yet I don't know exactly that is the experiment this is how they shot it poor things before we begin our journey don't forget to subscribe to Studio binder and enable notifications to stay up to date on all our film making videos we'll be using Studio binder short list to look at some of the technical choices the filmmakers made from shot to shot we will be spoiling elements of poor things now time for our lesson a poor things is based on the 1992 satirical novel of the same name by Alistair gray the film follows the adventures of a woman who has been resurrected with the brain of her own unborn child fate had brought me a dead body and a live infant it was obvious it was take the infant's brain out and put it in the full-grown woman reanimate her and watch the film saw Lanos working with his biggest budget yet $35 million they need money everyone does but more money didn't dilute loss' style it only heightened it pulling from visual Inspirations like Francis Ford cop's Dracula and refusing to use storyboards or shot lists lano's freewheeling hyper stylization is on Full display throughout poor things this sty ization would not have been possible without unconventional cinematography the cinematography of poor things is immediately striking Lanos and Director of Photography Robbie Ryan conducted extensive equipment tests to pull off the Unique Look it's all very interesting they decided to shoot primarily on a 35mm AR STD with occasional use of an Aram LT as a backup they also used a Vista vision camera from the 1950s known for its 1661 widescreen format but it was only used for Bella's reanimation sequence because it was too loud for dialogue scenes while using the Vista vision camera the camera Department accidentally let the battery get too low which caused the frame rate to drop when played back at 24 frames per second Bella's eyes snap open like a doll and effect Lanos and Ryan liked the team shot on Kodak Vision 3 500t 5219 film stock for most of the color sequences though Lisbon was shot using Kodak ector Chrome 100d 5294 stock this is a color reversal positive film stock creating a much more saturated and contrasty image for the black and white footage the crew used Eastman XX 5222 stock for lenses Lanos had high expectations Ryan explains the process for poor things me and Yus tested an awful lot of lenses we had one day where we tested over 50 lenses I think 40 or 50 lenses and like loads of of different kind of varieties of Optics they eventually narrowed their lenses down to three types portrait wide and zoom for portrait lenses Ryan and Lanos went with 58 and 85 mm lomography pets Falls which have a distinct spiraling Focus falloff near the edge of the frame they were set to their widest apertures with the 58 mm at t2. one and the 85 mm at d2.3 for the wide-angle lenses they used an 8 mm Oppenheimer nikor lens as well as a 10 mm t2. Airy Zeiss Ultra Prime but the most abrasive wide-angle lens was the 4 mm optec Super cine because it is made for 6 16 mm cameras it created an extreme vignette these wide-angle lenses allowed for Freer camera movement bumps that occurred when the dolly was off tracks weren't registered just a butcher's tray for a Sunday lunch Lanos also wanted a zoom lens that could go from 10 to 180 mm but such a lens didn't exist he settled for a 16. 5 to 110 mm Aries I master zoom and included multiple zooms throughout the film lanthimos and Ryan's lighting helped ground the stylized camera equipment choices the director wanted to have the light feel natural and realistic often choosing to place lights outside windows on set Ryan explains that he and Lanos would attempt to light each world as if it was a normal location she's going over the side oh marvelous I never imagine being murdered how dramatic well she seems happy to die I'm sorry for getting in your way lighting placement also took camera movement into account Lanos often wanted to be able to move at a full 360° so Ryan would have to both hide lights and rely heavily on practicals Lisbon required particularly extensive rigs to keep Lights Out of Sight Gaffers hung 24 24K and 26 12K Dino lights high enough to stay out of the camera's line of sight while also using quarter Wendy lights for Street Scenes as well as bouncing aimax 18 K with half CS off walls for black and white scenes Ryan wanted the lighting to be be more contrasty so he removed diffusion from most lights Bella not safe with you I think you are absolutely not the stylized aesthetic of poor things was also bolstered by its incredibly detailed production design nearly all of poor things was filmed on sound stages as lanyos explains I felt we would have to build a world which resembled her way of viewing things that meant that we would have to build it in a studio even the exteriors and create this tweaked reality that was based on familiar things in a familiar period but an alternate universe these stages were located at Orga and cter studios in Hungary and the biggest stage was 64,0 310 Square ft the creation of the sets was overseen by production designers Shona Heath and James price because it was such an extensive Endeavor price and Heath utilized VR on Unreal Engine to walk Lanos and Ryan through sets before they were built as Ryan explains the program allowed us to view their designs in real time and make changes as needed once yorgos approved the design it became the template for the physical sets madam Heath and price wanted each City Bella visited to have its own unique visual palette Heath elaborates we started with a painting for each City to give us a feeling Lisbon was sort of Dusty and magical and a bit candy sweet while Paris was sort of cold and beautiful like a dear painting the sets were built to feel as real as possible nearly everything was to scale and used accurate building materials because the camera would be moving around with an ultra wide angle lens sets needed to be as complete as possible really say more Heath and price did however make accommodations for sound since the studios were so echoey delighted many sets were soundproofed with a mixture of Timber and concrete CGI was also utilized when necessary if the camera captured areas where the set ended visual effects artists would extend the scenery in post the cruise ship meanwhile was placed in a 197x 33 ft LED virtual production volume the team displayed animated water and bright Sky plates to make the lighting on the boat feel realistic virtual production supervisor Adrien Weber also notes the the main reason they decided to shoot with virtual production and not green screen was that the ship had lots of glass and other reflective surfaces they knew an LED volume would give them an excellent visual starting point they could extend out with additional effects as needed the rich production design was paired with equally stunning costumes and makeup B's dangerous to go out without me I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence the makeup and costumes of poor things combine forward-thinking modern Aesthetics with familiar Victorian touchstones hair and makeup artist nardia Stacy used character backgrounds to inform her process for Bella Stacy noted she doesn't have any societal restraint she wouldn't know that women tie their hair up and she shouldn't have it loose like that Stacy was instructed from the beginning that wigs were to be avoided so she instead uses extensions to elongate emerstone hair which at some points in the film got up to 42 in I seek employment at your musty smelling establishment of good time fornication a woman plotting her course to Freedom how lul Lanos and Stacy decided to avoid putting any makeup on Emma Stone for nearly the entire movie except for when Bella is working in the brothel for these scenes Stacy explained it's done kind of naively everything's done with very basic materials Godwin however required a much more Hands-On approach Stacy took a picture of Willam defoe's face and cut it up reassembling it to get a general idea of how she wanted it to look let us find a body she then worked with prosthetic designer Mark kulier who made 3D scans and moles of deo's face he then sculptured the necessary pieces with the help of concept artists the final Prosthetics took 3 hours to apply each day costume designer Holly wton meanwhile created eye popping outfits Lanos describes his and woodington's approach to costuming this was not going to be a very traditional period film so we could work with layers of garments that we would never normally see in films wadington explains how she wanted to highlight Bella's childish nature through her costumes just looking at my own kids and also observing how children often are half dress I've seen this before I had my own children and you get them dressed in the morning and very quickly they shed their clothes or they end up with like bits missing and often it's the from the waist down that's missing yes wadington avoided ever putting women in restrictive corsets instead emulating Victorian fashion through massive sleeves she notes that big sleeves felt quite empowering and were like lungs full of breath and air that ignited and reanimated Bella I also wish to dash his body form cadav into the sea in an act of gender subversion wadington put Duncan in more restrictive costuming as Mark Ruffalo explains I had thigh pads I had Cal pads I had a Cod I had a corset I had the high collar it makes him a bit of a rooster at the risk of being IM modest you've just been th for the very best it's probably no other man will ever bring you to the raptures I have I feel bad for you taken all together the costumes and makeup departments helped Define the characters and themes that made poor things click she is a being of free will poor things is unlike most other films it sees Lanos pushing his style to its furthest extremes with Innovative approaches to cinematography production design and costumes and makeup poor things doesn't happen without planning Godwin has told me your plan get started on your own satire with Studio binder screenwriting and storyboard software that's all for now see you next time I'm rested let just go again again unfortunately even I have my limits men cannot keep coming back for more it is a physiological problem a weakness in men well perhaps so

Channel: StudioBinder

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Id: U1_SkNjWJTE

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 11 2024