Creating the lab was one of the biggest challenges of production designer Tamara Deverell's and cinematographer Dan Laustsen's careers. Ken Woroner/Netflix Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment For Tamara Deverell, Frankenstein truly came alive on a trip to Scotland. The production designer, whose collaboration with writer-director Guillermo del Toro dates back nearly 30 years to the sci-fi drama Mimic, was briefed on the adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic long before del Toro's script was written. "I know him intuitively and I've worked with him so long that I get what he is going to ask for," she says. Deverell went all over the world, searching for what could best realize del Toro's vision, and eventually came upon the country where Shelley wrote the sci-fi novel. Del Toro tagged along. 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Del Toro worked primarily with returning colleagues and emphasized coordination among departments. This was particularly true for the connection between Deverell's massive, detailed set builds and the roving cinematography by Dan Laustsen, who was tasked with capturing the scale of the production. "Dan lights from the outside, so I have to make sure that I'm always designing with him in my mind," Deverell says. "When you're exhausted and giving your all, you know that it's going to be filmed so beautifully." Referring to Frankenstein's single-source lighting method, del Toro explains: "It means the majority of the lights are outside, so the set has a huge amount of light coming through a window. Basically, you are gaffing the light with the set. You are using the window as a gaffer device for the light to shine through." Much of this effect, Laustsen explains, emerges via candle lighting - particularly in the film's first section that is focused on Victor as he constructs the Creature; the lighting is "very romantic." "When things start to fall apart, everything is getting very cold, very steel-blue ... the color palette is built in from the beginning," Laustsen explains. Guillermo del Toro in Frankenstein's lab. John Wilson/Netflix "If the light is cold and the colors on the set or the wardrobe are warm, that's countering; if the light is warm, then you're adding magenta or yellow," del Toro adds of keeping the palette complex. "We do extensive tests and make decisions about coordinating the language of shapes and textures between the set and the wardrobe so all these things work together and create a single story told in images." One of the biggest sets in Deverell's or Laustsen's entire careers was Frankenstein's lab, which featured several individual, interconnected builds. "There were three walls and then this vortex where we had rain towers, because rain is pouring through the center of this, which was crucial to the way Guillermo wanted to tell the story," Deverell says. "That was a lot of cooperation among so many departments working together - not always seamlessly. There were a lot of bumps along the way, but we had the good fortune of having Brandt Gordon, our supervising art director, bringing all the parts together. I could focus on the look with Guillermo and the final textures and how this thing was going to appear on camera." Enter Laustsen, who calls the moment when the Creature is brought to life in the lab "the most difficult to do" during shooting. There's lightning, rain, sudden plot turns - all tracked by an ever-moving camera. "Victor is coming down to the lab, and then the lightning strikes hit the key light, so all the field light is disappearing," Laustsen says. "When Victor is looking up, the lightning strikes have to kick in right there, precisely, because otherwise we don't see him. So it's a combination between the actors and the design." He takes a deep breath, remembering the stress of hitting those beats fluidly: "That's very important for us