Summary
Stephen King throws us a “Bag of Bones”
There are three things that are certain in life: death, taxes
and that Stephen King's movies will always be wickedly
creepy. Based on King's novel of the same name, "Bag of
Bones" promises to be a nightmare-inducing movie that premieres in
December on the A&E channel.
How do you make a Stephen King-worthy promo? Drowning a
little girl is a good way to start. "It's very challenging to put a
seven-year-old girl underwater and capture the right behaviors on
camera," says The Mill NY Director Rama Allen. "The brief
from [agency] BLT & Associates included making the town feel
like it was underwater, so we had to make it look believable but
also make it look like dry land post-composite."
Allen found the setting for Bag of Bones "Hold Your Breath"
while on a road trip to the Catskill Mountains. "I pulled
over to get gas and noticed this little abandoned town called
Parksville. We took some test shots that night to make sure it had
the right feel. It was then we knew we had found our world."
BLT wanted to create a spot that would tease the show but not use
any of the actual footage, so all of the footage in the promo is
unique. The Mill's production team built a tank to shoot leaves and
other elements underwater. Using a macro lens and flipping it
around which gave a telescopic effect, Rama was able to get very
close to the elements through the tank's glass: "It was
experimental, and after about six hours of playing around we got
what we needed," he explains. Through a bespoke combination of
striking live-action production, nimble editing from The Mill NY's
Ryan McKenna and seamless compositing by Flame Artist Danny Morris,
the end result is literally breath taking.
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