Soft Core Cell

The lighting in Soft Cell videos has been on my mind a lot lately. It is similar to Liquid Sky, and there is something to the romantic hazy quality it emits. Principle photography will not be for awhile (ideally Summer 2011), but this is a look I keep coming back to:

I have started experimenting with the VHS camera at SAIC- mainly shooting straight off of the computer screen from youtube videos: pornography, vaginal births, exploratory surgery, neon lights, sperm. The camera naturally creates a fuzzy color scheme that is similar to the soft cell/liquid sky color scheme. I plan on using this footage as a backdrop to the film- I want these images to bleed in and out of the main plot- Im not sure exactly what I mean by that yet, but things like this have a way of working out once everything is shot I am free to experiment.

I am also planning on experimenting with some stop-motion animation. When I started thinking about this project (almost 2 years ago now), I never thought animation had any place in it. But I am now approaching this project with the big guns- I believe animation is one of my greatest skills and also very easy and fun- so Im just going to have fun with it. It will be paper cut outs of either my characters or historical painted figures related to the work (such as Lilith, Adam/Eve, 1920's flappers, Nosferatu, Louise Brookes etc.) that will move in any way I find necessary- only the backdrop will be a Television screen (it will be easy to manuever the pieces by just taping then to the glass of the screen). I will experiment with Static, neon lights, still moving image landscapes, and pornography on the TV (Im very curious to see what effect animation will have on the final image). I will start on these as soon as possible (getting a free TV tomorrow!), and will know if this is a technique that should be in the film or not by the time principle photography comes. Ideally they would be similar in context to the animated sequences in Tank Girl- only extremely lo-fi and more suggestive then explanatory.

I am trying to stay away from using final cut effects as much as possible (mainly color contrast) since I have been developing a bad habit of over color correcting, leaving the image in a raisen state- life sucked out with no where to go.