you introduce those elements into
the air on set, you will enhance the
exposure. You get a little more light,
a little more depth in the space. At
the end, when you’re changing into
more dramatic moments, you have
to enhance the contrasts because
drama is contrast. It’s dark and contrasty. To enhance the contrast, you
have to take the dust or smoke out of
the atmosphere. Then the light will
come in much more straight, much
more directional. That will enhance
the shadows and intensify the contrast.
So we changed the atmosphere
and mood of the light by playing
with the contrast and the depth of
field. I have to admit that something
magical happened thanks to the
work by the production designer,
Jennifer Spencer, and the costume
designer [Leah Butler] also. The
three of us found the proper light
that David wanted, and that look
also gave an incredible transition to
what happens to the children from
the first part of the movie to the sec-
ond part of the movie.
That house, the exterior loca-
tion, if you go there now it’s this
creepy house in the middle of no-
where, surrounded by dry grass and
dead trees. But in the storytelling,
that house had to be the most beau-
tiful place that those children had
ever been before. When they arrive
on the bus, there’s beautiful mu-
sic and the house looks absolutely
awesome. Then, little by little, ev-
erything changes as they’re pulled
into the nightmare of the Annabelle
story.
A lot of that magic comes from
the atmosphere, the smoke and the
dust, and that really let us play with
the depth of field and the contrast.
That helped us to drastically change
the feel in the movie. Even if you’re
not a cinephile or an expert, you
can still feel it. It’s awesome when
you can feed a subtle element into
a story that the audience won’t real-
ize but the brain will record it, and
it will enhance all the emotion they
have at the proper time.
"...you have to
show how
beautiful life
is before
you drop the
characters
into the worst
situations
you can
imagine..."
