Cabin In The Woods
Hello everybody! I am just back from an amazing week-long location shoot with Chloe Toy, Faye Taylor and Scarlett Foxett. We hired a cabin in the woods location to film some horror-inspired photosets. My idea for the shoot was that the photos should be like publicity photos from forgotten horror films that never were – the sort of lurid shots that were used on movie posters, box covers and magazine articles back in the day that would suggest the story of the horror film and make it look as sexy as possible.
Of course this wasn’t all we shot- we shot some regular RE sets as well. But the horror-inspired theme was the main
aim of the trip.
I’m absolutely thrilled by how well they came out. The best working pattern turned out to be lighting and photographic style decided by me and Faye in collaboration, Faye taking the photos with me as creative director, then me stepping onto set as the monster/shape/stalker/possessed person to menace the girls. That worked best when Faye figured out that we needed to use me like a prop for the models – so Scarlet and Chloe would tell the story, acting and posing themselves, then Faye would position me to enhance what they were doing and make sure I was in the right part of her shot. It was a really enjoyable collaboration, especially with models of that calibre so all we had to do was enhance the storytelling that they were doing and
make sure we tailored the lighting, props, costumes and the like to suit.
I have a dilemma now as to what to do with these sets. As with the Kitsune Battle set that’s just gone up, some of them have fake blood, prosthetics (thanks to Scarlett Foxett for all her hard work on those!) and they generally have a darker tone than regular RE sets. They are mostly of the 1970’s Hammer Horror film vibe rather than anything too realistic – not least because it’s HARD to do practical effects without dedicated crew. But it’s certainly a departure.
We decided the thing to do was to shoot an RE set within each storyline – so there’s a point in each story where one or both of the girls get tied up, but before anything bad happens to them. We shot at least 100 shots of the pure bondage part like that, so that if everyone hates the horror film aspects we still have a saleable RE set from each storyline. Similarly we have shot a few sets with the horror theme that might sit well on SilkSoles.com too.
I’ve decided as with some of the other RE side projects like Elegance Studios or the D&D film that I should spin off discussion and promotion into a little mini-site: BrideOfDarkness.com. All the sets we shot will be available in full from the usual RE/SilkSoles/ElegeanceStudios eStore in a new category, I will just be linking to them from BrideOfDarkness.com so they’re all accessible in one place for Horror fans to find.
What I don’t know is whether I should put the sets up on RE or SilkSoles in just their cut-down form, the 100-ish bondage/foot fetish shots (maybe with a few of the set-up storytelling shots as well). Or should I put up the whole set, horror aspects and all? We promise that the cut-down sets look very much in keeping with regular RE sets, albeit on the more stalker/darker end, but nothing that you’d not expect to see in a regular set.
So the question really is – if you’re NOT a fan of the horror elements, is it going to freak you out to have the whole set including those later shots in the storyline on RE? Or should we just put the cut-down RE friendly sets on the RE members’ area and leave the full set to BrideOfDarkness only?
What are your thoughts? You can comment on the blog post here to let me know:
http://elegancestudios.com/wordpress/?p=29377
Hywel
