John Cocteau

When we told Geraldine the concept for our film, she advised myself and Hayley to research the French director John Cocteau. I managed to find some clips from his 1946 masterpiece 'La Belle et Le Bête' on youtube.



I really liked the lighting in this film & think that it reflected our own effect 'darkness'. It was high contrast but also soft & I liked the grainy effect. He also features extreme close ups on inanimate objects which we plan to do with the music box. We both thought it would be a really cool idea to feature a music box in our film, starting off with a close up of the ballerina twirling & then cross-fading the tune to Marilyn Mansons 'The Nobodies' & then throughout the film we want to keep featuring quick flashes of the box as she is running through the forest etc. We're hoping to try and track down a vintage style one on Ebay.

In 'La Belle et Le Bête', it shows the woman running through a forest & I liked the way in which John Cocteau makes her dress billow in the wind as she moves. I would like to achieve this effect with our film & think that we need to consider the type of fabrics which will show movement the most. Her character also jumps from fairytale white to gothic black attire. He uses a lot of panning which we aim to do & also mirror reflection shots.