Blackmagic Design Horror Thriller Film Mind Body Spirit

According to Blackmagic Design, the horror/thriller feature film “Mind Body Spirit” was shot by cinematographer Blake Horn on the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro digital film camera and color graded by colorist Nicholas LaRue in DaVinci Resolve Studio. The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro digital film camera was essential for Horn to create a tense, found footage look, while LaRue used DaVinci Resolve Studio in post production to add a cohesive, natural feel and enhance the horror tones.

The show tells the story of Anya, played by Sarah J. Bartholomew, an aspiring yoga influencer who embarks on a ritual left behind by her estranged grandmother. As Anya becomes obsessed with the ritual and its power, things quickly go from spiritual self-help to something dark and sinister as an otherworldly entity begins to control her yoga videos and her life.

Blackmagic Design Uses Blackmagic Design in Horror/Thriller Film “Mind Body Spirit”

Horne commented:

Horn: Mind Body Spirit explores the challenges of personal identity in today’s digital world. Through social media and 24/7 access to information, we feel constant pressure to be validated by our peers while craving the dopamine hit of attention.

With that in mind, we went for a tense found footage feel. We wanted the footage to look like something Anya shot herself, so we needed flat lighting and simple camera movements. As the story progresses and Anya’s real fears become clear, we increased the contrast and moved the camera around to show that Anya is not alone.

Many of these shots were taken with a wide range of focal lengths, from 11mm to 16mm. The longest lens used was a 35mm, which was used for just one shot.

He says the Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro is his first choice because of its small size, light weight, 6K resolution and Blackmagic RAW support.

Horn: “ We wanted the film to look like a series of YouTube videos, so we shot it with a camera that our protagonist, Anya, would probably buy and film herself. It’s small and light, so it’s incredibly versatile and flexible. That allowed us to make bold decisions on the day of shoot, but also meant we weren’t constrained by any technical limitations.”

With a minimal camera team – just myself and assistant cameraman Sean Singer – we were able to move very quickly from one setup to the next.

And every step of the way, we were able to switch from a static YouTube setup to a handheld POV (selfie) camera, 360 panning shots, and floating gimbal looks. The ability to set up quickly gave the director and I total flexibility to work together and ensure we captured the mood we were going for in each scene.

In depicting Anya’s evolution through the found footage, the colour grading goal was to create a cohesive, natural atmosphere, meticulously balanced and shaped by Horn’s deliberate light sources, accentuating the sense of dread as the story progresses.

LaRue: “ I tried to emphasize the light and color in each scene, but make sure the focus was always on Anya.

Some of the light shaping was done to induce a fear response, making things invisible or manipulating parts of the frame to guide the viewer’s gaze as the story moves into horror territory.

I did a lot of slight shaping using windows, and because I was able to load a DCTL I was able to further tweak the hue, saturation and intensity parameters.

There were also a number of darker sequences with only one light source, where we used Resolve’s HDR wheel to create our own range of whites and darks to create more accurate contrast, such as in the attic scene.

The few night scenes, in which the camera moves through the house, were memorable for LaRue.

LaRue: It was fun having to animate and keyframe the windows to balance the light coming from the different rooms.

I was also able to emphasize some of the colors, moving away from a natural atmosphere. By increasing the cyan, I increased the saturation of the reds and yellows. In some scenes, I adjusted the exposure to make the silhouettes of the subjects more prominent than they were when I shot them, giving them a more horror-like feel.

Horn: I loved the collaborative creativity that surrounded this project.

Writers/co-directors Alex Henness and Matthew Merenda created an atmosphere of constant yes, and the entire crew was on board with the found footage style – this project is the perfect blend of technology and creativity.