The Anniversary - Color and Lighting.

To give The Anniversary that distinct 1950's/1960's feeling, the color choices we made had to be really careful. Agfa film does a lot of unexpected things from my point of view. It desaturates when I would expect it to saturate and vice versa. Everything seems to be tinted warm, but blues can be very vibrant or very grey. Reds can pop right off the page and darks become blacks very quickly.

I posted just a few of the references I gathered below.

Act 01

At the outset of the film, as a viewer we wouldn't be aware that the Old Man was visiting the grave of his wife. That would be revealed in the third act. We set it up to look as if he was meeting his wife at their "secret" spot on their anniversary. I kept the colors warmer but relatively desaturated for Act 01. The Old Man goes about get dressed up for an occasion in positive spirits and makes his way up a hill towards a woman on a bench...

 Act 02

As time passes from one year to the next, we see that the Old Man has lost the vigor of Act 01. I dropped the warmer colors closer to green and lowered the overall ambient light. Where ass my shadows were mostly warm purples, almost browns in Act 01, I start to really introduce cool grays into the scenes and the weather has taken a turn for the worse.

 Part 03

As another year passes, things get even worse. I pushed the saturation and the richness of the shadows in the interior scenes and we took care to show that the house had been neglected as the Old Man lost interest in his yearly ritual and even life itself. It's nice to see the color mood swing from beginning to end here. At his lowest, on the verge of a breakdown at his wife's grave, the Old Woman he passes every year on the bench comforts him and gives him hope. Cue the saturation as the storm clouds break symbolizing a new beginning for them both.

It's a shame were unable to continue this project, but a number of factors got in the way and we had to move on. But that's how it goes and the time I was able to spend on this during my 1st year at Brain Zoo was invaluable to prepping me for so many of the projects that have followed.

The Anniversary - The Cemetery

Walking to the Cemetery

The main outdoor views included a pathway on a hill up to a cemetery, and the cemetery itself. It needed to work as both a stark scene as well as a beautiful scene. I kept the hill pretty open so that the vastness of it could inspire one with wonder or make someone feel totally alone. The other reason is that I knew we'd be revisiting the same locations several times over the course of the short and it would make showing different weather situations much easier with an expanse of sky clueing us in immediately.

The Cemetery

I liked all of the variations for the cemetery, but the two black and white ones didn't feel as grounded in the same world I had been developing as the third one. I had designed them to be more intimate, but that made them feel cozier, and not lonelier and more desolate. I took a cue from my hill design and kept the view pretty open with the color version I've posted. The other odd thing I found is that with the vast expanse, you get a feeling of how small the cemetery is whereas in the black and whites, you never see the perimeter of the property, so it looks like you're just seeing a small part. Obviously, the fence in the color version helped too. ;)

The Anniversary - The Old Man final artwork.

The Old Man was an easy pick and the wardrobe came together very quickly as well. For a guy going on a solemn occasion, a suit would be fitting. Even though we chose a fairly round face, we kept him lanky and worn.

 My director and I had already discussed color styling for The Anniversary, so I went into the colors with a bit more knowledge than I usually do. The film was going to be a bit of a period piece and the goal was to give it that old 50's/60's agfa film look which was so distinctive of the time.