8 minute read
JASPER WOLF NSC•BODIES BODIES BODIES
EMBRACE THE DARKNESS
By Darek Kuźma
Dutch actress and director Halina Reijn’s quirky psychological thriller, Bodies Bodies Bodies, sent cinematographer Jasper Wolf NSC on a creative journey into darkness.
Just as the title promises, there is a handful of corpses in Reijn’s English-language directorial debut about a bunch of rich twenty-somethings who try to survive the night in a stupendous, isolated mansion during a particularly nasty hurricane. Yet the film is more about creating a platform to play with the viewers’ pre-determined ideas and expectations, than just discovering the killer(s) identity or second-guessing who will die next. Right from the get-go we are thrown in an environment brimming with passive-aggressive toxicity and seriously moronic behaviour, before the mansion plunges into blackout and we are beckoned to enjoy the ride.
The idea of a spoiled kids’ party gone wrong is nothing new, but here it gets a refreshing treatment as Reijn and Wolf turn their unlikable, unreliable characters loose in a wicked version of Agatha Christie’s murder mystery. Seven individuals fight for their lives and sanity whilst the viewers’ have a somewhat perverse sense of fun watching their chaotic attempts to have some semblance of order.
“After reading the script that A24 sent to Halina, we became quickly and increasingly excited about an ensemble drama with high-paced dialogue, set during a blackout and offering a lot of potential and visual opportunities. I knew from previous collaborations that Halina would make this movie her own,” recalls Wolf.
That she did, rewriting the script with Sarah De Lappe and approaching the shoot as if it was a theatre play, involving everyone beyond how they would work on a film set.
“What’s great in working with Halina is that she’s always encouraging and looking for creative ways to heighten the experience, and to add depth and meaning to what will be on the screen,” marvels the cinematographer.
“During our early meetings with the producers and the department heads we presented various ideas, like turning the characters into mobile light sources bringing light, colour and shape to different rooms. It was an exciting process during which we found the right way to shoot Bodies Bodies Bodies.”
As most of the film revolves around the characters’ yelling their heads off and moving through the mansion’s dark corners, occasionally illuminated by infernally red emergency lights or the owners’ other kooky ideas, picking the right location was of utmost importance.
“We were fortunate to find a house in upstate New York that looked like one of the eclectic ‘McMansions’ that we were after, yet still was somehow grounded in reality. With some tweaks to make room for our Astera Titan and Helios Tubes and some ARRI SkyPanels, plus building-in some fixtures in walls, we turned it into our mansion,” claims Wolf. “It’s a contained location, a microcosm of sorts, and I wanted to be able to shoot around freely and move from room-to-room, and limit the lights hidden outside of the shot for a more authentic experience.”
Wolf decided to put his trust in ARRI Alexa Mini LF with Panavision Primo lenses.
“Shooting 35mm would have been great for the skin tones and textures that I was after, but I felt confident that the Alexa LF Mini was the best choice considering the low light levels and the need to shoot extensive, long and high-paced scenes with lots of dialogue. It’s pretty dark, I wanted to have sharp eyes and sharp details to
I wanted to be able to move from room-to-room and limit the lights outside of the shot for a more authentic experience
bring the audience as close as possible to the characters with less of a super wide-angle feel,” he explains.
“The Primos were brilliant for this – the darkness, the flares, the contrast. For more impressionistic parts I also had Panavision Ultra Speed lenses, in a range of focal lengths between 25 and 50mm. The whole package worked brilliantly, especially with the Asteras and SkyPanels LEDs and all of their RGB possibilities, plus big HMIs we used to bring more punch with shooting the rain.”
Having such a location at their disposal made the five-week shooting period, from March to May 2021, definitely easier. Still, because of the inherent darkness, Wolf says “it was crazy to cover everything we needed in only 26 days. I prepared as best as I could. Based on my moodboards, I developed a LUT with colourist Damien Van Der Cruyssen at Harbor, but it was tough regardless.
“Much of the challenge was about finding ways to film without exhausting the cast, so we tented the house to shoot day-for-night and added all of the rain and hurricane effects on the windows during post. Having the actors work in such a way heightened the plot’s increasingly surreal feel.”
Everything goes as planned as our ignoble seven prepare for a weekend of earthly delights. Until, that is, they decide to play the games of bluff and nasty wit, and begin to viciously roast and gaslight one another. Just then the first body appears. An accident, to be sure?
“Whilst the kids get increasingly paranoid and cruel to one another, we wanted them to stay plausible so that the audience would want to follow them,” says Wolf, who uses mostly still photographers’ work as his references. “I considered Nan Goldin for how she makes you feel a part of any culture or subculture she depicts, and Bill Henson for how he works with low light levels or creates his art out of highlighting skin tones.”
The cinematographer cites many other references he and Reijn used to soak-up ideas and distinct moods akin to what they wanted achieve in Bodies Bodies Bodies.
“The Staircase (2004-18, dir. Jean-Xavier De Lestrade) documentary series was something we discussed when setting boundaries about how bloody we could go when one character falls down the stairs. We considered Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966, DP Haskell Wexler ASC) to master the depiction of this hallucinatory state some of our characters get into at a certain point. I also found a great photographer who shot in this insanely-designed nuclear basement somewhere in the desert. It had a basketball court that is similar to the one in which one of the murders takes place in our film, but which we had to bring to the right exposure to match one of the most eccentric props I’ve ever worked with,” he laughs.
“One of the ideas we stuck to was that the film is a lot about representation, how the characters present themselves. In this day-and-age of new media people are at ease with making selfies and filming one another – and most of these are frontal lit,” offers Wolf.
“I felt frontal lighting would be emotionally right for the story, especially as they have flashlights, headlights, phones or colourful light necklaces, filling the rooms, each having its own colour identity, with vibrant contrasts. Each of these sources interacts differently with different rooms and with one another, creating a beautiful spectrum of skin tones that paint the characters in curious ways.”
Even though the characters’ actions get increasingly frenetic with time, many of the moves and reactions were discreetly choreographed.
“The actors had quite a lot of freedom yet there was this discipline about how they should hold the flashlights or the lights that are outside of the shot illuminating the people in the shot. Only by giving the background just enough information to embrace the darkness did we really boost the tension,” says Wolf.
“I was operating myself, and sometimes even I had a flashlight in my hand moving with the cast, but it was mostly about working out the harmony in the lit spaces, between the practicals and soft sources hidden in walls and on the ceiling.”
The erratic tone of Bodies Bodies Bodies made it evident that handheld was the way to go as regards the camerawork.
“I explored two or three-camera set-ups, but they didn’t belong to this story, as did Steadicam, although we used it in a couple of scenes, on stairs for example,” he says. “One of my starting points was to find the right operation by deliberately changing the dynamic from time-to-time as the camera’s energy mirrors the anxiety on the screen. For most of the film it’s quite fast, but when they start playing the game, forcing others to join and ruining the mood, the camera goes static.”
The hurricane storm makes going outside a bit insane but with killer(s) inside, what seems crazy becomes a worthwhile solution.
“The rain scenes were tough because we wanted to have very dark images and at the same time see the downpour. We did extensive camera and light tests, with the various phones and flashlights, to establish which mobile light sources we would use, with cherry pickers and other lights to get the shape and create this slightly nauseating feeling,” recalls Wolf. “There are shots where you could arguably see there are soft lights hidden in the bushes and overhead moon boxes exposing the rain, but this was the best way to achieve the effect we wanted.”
Be it an increasingly surreal journey into the mouth of madness, or a psychological thriller about the thin line that divides some of us from becoming killers, Bodies Bodies Bodies is as intense experience that should not leave anyone indifferent. Wolf admits that even though it was quite a demanding project, he had a blast.
“From our initial discussions and prep with Halina, the shoot with our cast, the experience with A24 and our producers, and finishing the grade with Damien, it was an invaluable experience and I am very happy we shot the film the way we did. We made it our own, now we hope the audiences will like it too.”
Images – Photos by Eric Chakeen. © Public House Rights LLC and A24.
