Daphne: Making Of…

Author: Team | Posted: September 8th, 2009 | Filed under: Digital, Staff, Starworks Commissioned | | 1 Comment »

The short art film we created with Daphne Guinness is finally out (Mnemosyne). Here’s a “behind the scenes” post to shout-out all the great people involved in the project.

(Our crew was underwater from midnight to 5am)

Kai Regan (Creative Director)
“Daphne was really amazing to work with. She really lives for the images that inspire ideas. The whole shoot was so conceptual it was hard to imagine we actually were trying to make a film about scent.

(Kai Regan Taking a Break from the Watertank)

[Kai continued] … “The place where we were shooting is where James Cameron shot The Abyss. It was located somewhere in the desert plains, far off the 134 Freeway in the middle of no-mans-land. It was massive. The underwater team was getting in and out of frog suits 14 ft below water the tank from midnight to 5am while Daphne and I were looking at stills on laptops trying to talk through the images through the lens of the cinematographer Carlos Veron.

(Kai Regan, Daphne Guinness, Make-up artist Sharon Gault, Exec Producer Ben Duhl)

[Kai continued] …. “I was also translating to Carlos what Dave Parker (Co-Director and efx master) was trying to explain for the vision and what we needed to capture for the weeks ahead in post-production. It was a bit intimidating at first but on the 12th hour, we were all wet and loving every frame that we were creating and checking it twice so we had what we needed for the post effects. By the end of the night we were all so tired and excited, it was like a dream that you know was powerful and important.”

Sharon Gault (Make-Up Artist)
“Daphne is a woman with true vision and passion for art & life. Working with Daphne, you know it’s going to be out of this world.  Her life is a work of art. Daphne and everyone working on the set felt so inspired. It was a magical night. The set was something I’ve never seen. It was out of this world.”

(Lysa Cooper with Daphne Guinness)

Lysa Cooper (Stylist)
“I loved the gangster style of shooting in the middle of nowhere across from the strip club. It was also a great vibe set with old friends and family”.

(Juan Carlos Saizarbitoria with Ritu Paramesh)

Juan Carlos Saizarbitoria (Videographer)
“It was a pleasure to work with a crew that definitely thinks out of the box. It makes the visuals more interesting and inspires you a bit”

Ritu Paramesh (Line Producer)
“Working on this piece was just as it should’ve been: a surreal, dreamlike affair. The prep for it, however, had been pretty grueling for me, as I had never worked on anything that was shot underwater. And, as always when shooting at night, everything takes on an air of peculiarity when you’re fatigued. Just having Daphne on set created an even more ephemeral, mercurial atmosphere. David and Carlos did an amazing job, not just bringing Daphne’s vision to life, but embedding it in our subconscious.”

(Jauretsi of Starworks)

Jauretsi (Agency Producer)
“On the set, I sorta wandered and spoke to the caretaker who showed me some old-school props back from old advertising days. This was the set where they filmed Gremlins also. She busted out some Pillsbury dough boy bodies and heads (which look like carcasses now). I’ll never forget how ridiculous the ad campaign got when he started rapping! Anyway, me and Daphne were the few crew members outside the water and just waiting for images to arrive every 30 minutes. It was intriguing to watch the new images emerge as they did. Daphne was a rockstar… making everyone laugh and full of good cheer. A true team player.”

(Pilsbury Dough Heads from the Set)

(Pilsbury Dough Bodies from the Set)

(Cinematographer Carlon Veron)

Carlos Veron (Cinematographer)
“It is not often you come across and intresting concept for a spot. Even less often it happens that the people you colaborate want to push the limits of what can be done. When this project came, i realized Daphne wanted the spot to have a life on its own, to live as a piece of art, and she pushed us all to dream and experiment with the imagery. It was such a pleasure working on Mnemosyne.

On shooting underwater, I have been diving for quite some time, but I have never became certified, because I had never needed it. When Mnemosyne came together, the master divers made it mandatory to be certified so I had to sit for the test and finally became certified. It was a blast to shoot this spot underwater and try as hard as we could not to make it look as if it was shot underwater. Dave and I love diving, and we will find any excuse from now onwards to shoot anything underwater. It was an amazing experience.”

(Model Eva Kass)

(True Gremlin prop found on the Set)

(Bailey Beckstead, wingman for Kai Regan)

(Eva Kass)

(Carlos Veron & Underwater Team)

(Starworks CEO James Grant chomping on the set)

(Co-Directors Daphne Guinness and David Parker)

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