The 'lomo' look

Since our meeting last Tuesday regarding the stills shoot, a lot of discussion has been had regarding the overall look of the film so we can all head in the right direction. I will come right out and say that this is not something I particularly focus on as a director or that stands out to me, I see the composition, the action, the emotion with the characters and how the narrative is strung together so the story can engage an audience so when it comes down to a colour palette or setting an overall visual style, to be honest I’m clueless.

But this was precisely what was needed. Due to the very visual and partly surreal nature of the film, all departments really needed an image or images that they could look at and focus their direction towards so everything pulled together. I googled images, colours, associated emotions but wasn’t really getting very far and starting to worry that I was holding everyone back.

Luckily, our production designer Bianca Turner is not only a damn talented lady, but very proactive and went and sourced a number of images she felt would work based on what I had said at the meeting, which was that I wanted to emphasise these surreal characters in their normal environment and that whilst the central colours would be vibrant, we were still telling a bittersweet narrative. At the meeting itself, she showed me some photos on her Iphone that had very saturated colours, vignettes with heavily tinted colours and blown out highlights. They were indeed striking images but needed to see a few more before being convinced.

She emailed me a few days ago with a colour palette (above) and both sample images of this look (which I was reliably informed was the ‘lomo’ look in reference to the Russian camera where the style was first developed) and how a normal image can be manipulated to look more so.

The cinematographer (who is a photographer also) Azul Serra then sent me some more images he had taken and treated in this way. One of these photographs (left) was the closest I have seen to how I would like the film to be, vibrant detail yet with a high contrast and an element of darkness to it.

Whilst I still feel some parts of the look may make it too stylised and we have to be careful that it doesn’t suffocate the narrative by distracting from it, I think this is definitely the base of how we want to go with the look, to create something distinctive and visually appealing which will engage our audience further.

I am also thankful to have dedicated members of the team who are really putting so much into the project. I have said from the off that this is not ‘my’ film, but a collaborative effort and this goes to show why and how much influence the other departments have in this film. Not just Azul and Bianca, but also costume designer Katerina Diplas experience and knowledge is giving this film so much more than if I just stood at the top dictating everything, and is breathing fresh life into it with each new idea.

I am looking forward to learning more about the lomo look and what ideas we will play with to create a stunning short film, starting with the photographs on July 7th.