Inspired by: Dark Shadows

You may remember from this post that I went to see the movie Dark Shadows a couple of weeks ago. And if you know the film genres I like… this isn’t one of them. Needless to say: I didn’t see the trailer before I made the decision to go.

So… why did I decide to go see this film? Well, it had something to do with seeking inspiration, my Finnish friend Riikka daydreaming about going to Paris and me wanting to go to this Tim Burton exhibition… And as neither of us are going to Paris anytime soon, we decided to see the latest Tim Burton movie instead!

Not being familiar with the gothic soap opera that it was based on, Dark Shadows reminded me of the Addams Family, Scooby Do and cartoony films like Dick Tracy. I liked the cinematography and the styling of the sets/characters. The first mental note I took was of red details on the clothes of one of the characters. Little did I know that red would be a visual theme throughout the entire film.

I’m not going to tell you everything that caught my eye seeing the film. That would spoil the fun if you plan on seeing it yourself ;-). But this is what I created afterwards:

The colours, most of the elements and materials are based on what I saw in the film: light blue, grey, red details, a chandelier, carved wood, wavy patterned marmor flooring, lace.

The funny thing is… even the photos match! There’s one scene in the film that has pink/purple lighting and that lighting reminded me of something I had photographed on a Sunday in Antwerp. And then, when I came to think about it, I saw that other photos from that day also matched visual elements I picked up from the film. How about that for synchronicity?!

You can see what Riikka created after seeing the film here on her blog.

Seeing a film with the purpose of seeking creative inspiration was very interesting. It made me enjoy this film on a whole other level, because as I already mentioned… I wasn’t impressed with the story. Luckily for me, the film didn’t disappoint in the visual department!

Riikka and I had a lot of fun doing this little challenge and we think it’s definitely worth a sequel… so keep your eyes on our blogs for that!

Have you ever been creatively inspired by a film? If so: which one(s)?