Siggy Ferstl creates an 80s universe of humor and horror for 'Totally Killer' with DaVinci

‘Totally Killer’, película estrenada en Prime Video que homenajea en su tratamiento de color a los slashers de los 80s y 90s, fue ejecutada por Siggy Ferstl de Company 3 empleando el software DaVinci Resolve de Blackmagic Design.

Siggy Ferstl está familiarizado con proyectos de etalonaje desafiantes y singulares, como muestra su espectacular currículum: The Boys, Gen V, Wednesday, Narcos… Recientemente, se encargó de Totally Killer, cuya sinopsis anticipa el cóctel de referencias that give shape to this film released on Prime Video: "Thirty-five years after the shocking massacre of three teenagers, an infamous killer returns on Halloween night in search of his fourth victim. When 17-year-old Jamie comes face to face with the masked maniac, she accidentally travels back in time to 1987. Forced to navigate an unfamiliar culture, Jamie, along with her teenage mother, attempts to stop the psychopath once and for all."

Totally Killer started from its recording with some images with a lot contrast and color in homage to the 80s, but with more current elements such as brightness, saturation and warmth. Ferstl gives as an example a key scene in the film: the first time the character Kiernan comes out of the time machine, an old-fashioned photo booth in an amusement park. "The moment he moves the curtains, there is a change in the exposure. Therefore, we increased this value a lot, so that everything was whiter but, at the same time, had a certain warmth and saturation. The effect made it seem that his eyes completely readjusted. Then, we reduced the exposure to a certain level that we later continued to use in the 80s scenes," says Ferstl.

This game of times, between present and the 80s, led the Ferstl team to create two different aesthetics relying on various design tools. DaVinci Resolve: "There is a scene that takes place in the present in the amusement park and another in the 1980s, in the same place. Nowadays, it is closed and a little ruined by the passage of time, so we have a somewhat spooky and deteriorated space. We went from a creepy, empty and fenced amusement park in the present to a place full of life and color, and the aesthetic really worked well. These two looks allowed us to exaggerate both aspects of the different epochs.”

Masks and VFX with DaVinci Resolve in Totally Killer

Upon entering the dark park of Totally Killer there is a mechanical beaver who once served as the establishment's mascot. He walks around, talks and welcomes people. While today it is covered in bird droppings and looks “horrible,” in Ferstl's words, when you turn 80, you function, talk, and are ultimately as good as new: “To help achieve this, I used the magic mask to isolate it; then we increase the contrast and saturation a little, depending on the weather and time of day. "Then we did the opposite for the '80s. We isolated it the same way and just increased the brightness and color to make it look more colorful and new."

Ferstl also benefited from the tools of VFX integrated into DaVinci Resolve for some key moments in the film: "In the opening scene of the film, it's Halloween, and they did an amazing establishing shot of an idyllic neighborhood in a rural area with tree-lined streets. The camera is lowered by a crane and panned to the front of a house. It's a very nice image, but unfortunately, there was a lot of sky in the shot and it was too much. They had to shoot when the sky was all white. Because it was the opening sequence, they wanted it to have more drama. So, I used the tool «Sky Replacement", in order to create a sky that simulates the afternoon or the beginning of the night with a lot of color."

“Also, I was able to track the sky and add the sun, and then, thanks to the effect OpenFX “Flash”, I managed to integrate it into the image. As the camera moved, the sun disappeared behind the trees, and I added some brightness around the sun using another plugin OpenFX. “It helped me unify the elements and finalize this beautiful shot,” concludes the grader.

https://youtu.be/5vYipYSDhtQ