DaVinci Resolve resurrects Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein': between ice and fire

Colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld (Company 3) carries out the color grading of 'Frankenstein', a version of the iconic novel directed by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro whose color has been built with DaVinci Resolve software from Blackmagic Design.

This new and majestic interpretation of the classic Mary Shelley Frankenstein, nominated for nine Oscars, tells the story of the eponymous scientist (Oscar Isaac), who uses the energy of lightning to give life to a creature he has created by suturing body parts with his own hands (Jacob Elordi). Del Toro and Dan Laustsen (ASC, DFF), close collaborators for many years, had the vision of producing this film as a classic brought to life with modern tools, making use of film sets, special effects, scenes in real locations and miniature representations, with the intention of making the environment in which the story takes place seem realistic and tangible.

The senior colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld (Company 3) worked closely with del Toro and Laustsen using the software DaVinci Resolve: "I've worked on a huge number of films with Guillermo and Dan, and as always, Guillermo had a clear vision for the art direction and costume design from the beginning. Dan is fully aware of the aesthetic Guillermo is going for and knows exactly how to use lighting and framing to bring that vision to life."

Refining a color worked on the set

Laustsen designed the production so that the daily shots and final color were closely aligned, so the color palette and contrast were primarily set in-camera. From the specificity of the costumes, to the warmth of the light coming through the windows, the intention was to make the creative decisions on set, rather than developing a completely different aesthetic later in post-production.

Therefore, instead of reinventing the captured images, Sonnenfeld He describes his work as “improvement.” Employing DaVinci Resolve Studio, focused on softening the inevitable variations that occur between each take when shooting on different days over such a long schedule, for which he compared the images with a split screen: “A lot of the work is smoothing out the subtle differences that occur when takes of the same scene are filmed days or weeks apart, with changes in weather and all the practical problems that we solve in the grading room.”

Between ice and fire

A vital part of the palette Frankenstein was the interaction between warm and cold tones. Sonnenfeld noted that the filmmakers wanted to get scenes with a golden hue, powered by candles and torches, with the help of the light of fire flames and tungsten lamps and, at the same time, maintain a controlled presence of steel blue in daytime shots indoors and under the shade outdoors. Sonnenfeld used DaVinci Resolve Studio to develop and maintain this look, applying occasional adjustments in order to maintain uniformity of tone without taking the image to the point where it appears artificial.

In the words of the grader: "We defined some aesthetics for the amber undertones, this helped maintain consistency throughout the entire film. There is also a steel blue tone that the filmmakers really liked, particularly for the indoor shots and under the open sky shadow. That's something we enhanced slightly and made sure it was consistent with the rest, as the case may be."

In short, Sonnenfeld does not hesitate to affirm that his approach to Frankenstein has been “intentionally simple". The result is a “natural” aesthetic, always taking into account the brave universes that Guillermo del Toro usually constructs in his films: "I try to maintain simplicity in my grading process. There are appropriate moments to apply elaborate techniques in order to completely modify what was captured by the camera, but in a film like this, the final appearance had to retain an intact and organic quality."

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