The-Mirror-Box-Making-of-The-Changing-Room  (AWARD WINNING) by Ayat fatima - video Dailymotion

Ayat Fatima

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00:00Hey guys, this is Sam Evenson, the director of The Changing Room and the creator of Grimoire

00:07Horror. A lot of people were wondering how we pulled off the mirror effects in The Changing

00:11Room. There's a lot of impossible shots, an invisible cameraman, and some physics-breaking

00:15supernatural shenanigans. So while there was definitely a lot of VFX involved, you might

00:19be surprised to find out that a lot of it was practical. So here's a look behind the scenes

00:23at how we created the mirror box. Mirrors are one of the most overused tropes in horror,

00:34so I really wanted to add something new to the genre. An entity that can move through planes

00:38of an infinity reflection is something I'd never seen before, and I was really excited to solve this

00:42creative challenge. I toyed with a few VFX-intensive ways on how to make it work, but landed on a more

00:48practical solution, two-way mirrors. A two-way mirror allows you to see through one side but

00:54not the other, as long as one side is brighter than the other. It does this by using a thin metallic

00:58layer between the glass that allows a certain amount of light to pass through while the rest is

01:03reflected. So if there's more light coming from your side, you can see your own reflection only,

01:07but if the light comes to the other side, it'll work more like a window than a mirror.

01:12By using two two-way mirrors, I figured we'd be able to plant the cameraman invisibly right behind

01:16the glass and shoot straight down the infinity reflection. Since this meant we'd need to build

01:21a set, I designed the whole thing in blender first so I knew what dimensions I'd need to

01:25achieve the kind of framing I wanted. I did a walkthrough with our DP, Drew Gardella,

01:30virtually, where we were able to set up shots, decide which lenses we would need,

01:33and figure out lighting solutions before ever stepping on set. I then created a shot-by-shot storyboard

01:39and shot list. Producer Jamie Stevens and I then got to work creating a schedule, getting materials,

01:43and assembling our team. We rented a studio space to build the set in and hired a local builder to

01:48assemble it based off my blueprints of the room so we could easily remove the walls and mirrors to

01:53get the shots we needed. The build went pretty smooth, but I've never felt more anxious in my entire

01:57life than driving these two giant mirrors to set and carefully installing them. One mistake and

02:02the whole film would have shattered. Some interesting quirks we noticed immediately were that the

02:17mirrors weren't perfectly flat, so it created a warping effect in the corner. I actually think

02:22this is pretty cool looking, especially paired with the green shifting of the light, and it adds a really

02:26otherworldly kind of quality to the reflections. We have the glass shop give us a few smaller cuts of

02:31the mirror to use as a camera filter. We filmed actress Jamie Balesta's non-VFX shots first,

02:47while the talented SFX artist Mandy Mossman spent a couple hours getting our Hanged Man, Alan Maxson,

02:52roughed up. For the shots where the Hanged Man would show up later, we made sure to record the camera,

02:58height, lenses, and angle so we could match it on the VFX plates and maintain the correct perspectives.

03:03When it was time for the Hanged Man scenes, we removed the mirrors from the wall and shot him

03:08moving into the room with a blue screen backdrop. It was important to have him interacting with the

03:12physical set so it would be visually consistent when compositing him into the reflections later.

03:18We shot his hanging scenes with him standing and falling off of a block, just to make sure that we

03:22didn't have to do any sort of dangerous rigging. We ran out of time on location to get Jamie's

03:27hanging scene, so we did a pickup shot at my friend Claire's apartment with her Circus

03:31suspension rig, where she helped coach this final stunt. No one was hurt, but my creative partner

03:36McGuffin was very concerned. For post, I edited the film in DaVinci Resolve, and once the cut was in a

03:42good place, I exported all the VFX shots into Nuke. Nuke is a node-based workflow, which can be confusing if

03:48you're used to using layer-based systems like After Effects or Photoshop, but the techniques I use here

03:53could be replicated in any compositing package. For the reveal shot, I tracked the hanging footage

03:58onto the mirror and matched the defocus color and warping to have him sit naturally and deep into

04:03the reflection. For the bit where he falls down, I had to do a bit of stitching on the rope to get

04:07the right length and speed. I realized that we really needed a close-up over-the-shoulder shot for

04:13the moments leading up to a run to the door. This was something that we actually didn't shoot, so I created

04:17this shot by punching in on this clean plate of the reflection, then rotoing out Jamie from this

04:22wider shot and layering her back in with different perspective and some fake depth of field to make

04:26it look like we shot with a longer lens. The ceiling was full CG made in Blender. I wanted

04:33to have this little rail move where the man was hanging in his own world to show the supernatural

04:38connection to ours. I also liked that it finished that closed-in, grimy kind of feeling with the

04:43fluorescent lights and moldy ceiling tiles. The crawling shot was the same idea as the hanging

04:50ones, but with a lot more manual tracking and warping and painting on the interaction points.

04:56For the final shot, I did a 3D camera track on the pullout, then re-projected the walls onto 3D

05:00planes so we could have it feel like the camera was pulling back through the reflections. I then did the

05:05blue screen comp on her swinging in and used a light-raise effect on her to create an interactive

05:10shadows that shows in the room where she swings, which I think really helped sell her presence in

05:14that particular reflection compared to the ones around it. There were a few more minor effects

05:20like paintouts, there was a CG sign in the shop, a little mirror wobble that I added, and a few

05:25inevitable reflections that were caught on the back side of the mirror glass. Once this was all together,

05:31I sent it to my composer friend Aaron Drake, who wanted to use some unique sounds that created an eerie,

05:36glassy feel to give the reflection more of a character. He was able to come up with some

05:41really sick stuff using steel drums. Once we had all of this audio, we sent it to my friend Toby Mason

05:48to do the final mixing and sound design, and then the final color was done by Asa Fox in Resolve,

05:54and that about sums up post-production.

05:58Thanks so much for watching this, guys. This is the first BTS thing that I've done, so if there's something

06:02you really liked about it, or if you have any other questions, make sure to post in the comments and

06:06I'll try to respond to you. Like and subscribe. I'll be coming out with more original horror and

06:11filmmaking videos soon. Take care.

The-Mirror-Box-Making-of-The-Changing-Room (AWARD WINNING) by Ayat fatima

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