HEART EYES PRODUCTION
WORDS KATIE KASPERSON IMAGES SCREEN GEMS/REPUBLIC PICTURES L ike the slasher films of yore, Heart Eyes blends gore with a smidge of romance and invents a memorable villain. In this case it’s the Heart Eyes killer, who targets couples, wears a glowing mask and stabs victims with an arrow. Directed by Josh Ruben and shot by Stephen Murphy, BSC, ISC, the film is ‘an earnest love letter to the romcoms and slasher movies of the eighties and nineties’, according to the latter. “It was clear that Josh has a real love for both genres,” Murphy shares. “That passion and energy was infectious.” No stranger to horror, Murphy cites Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and The Monster Squad as references, adding that Dean Cundey’s work ( The Thing , Halloween ) was particularly inspirational. “I wanted this to look like a classic Hollywood movie – stylised blue moonlight, anamorphic lens flare, atmosphere and a beautifully lit cast,” he explains. “The trend, since the advent of digital cameras, has been to move towards more naturalistic visuals, but I miss the pictorialism of older movies.” To achieve this stylised look, suited to both the romcom and slasher storylines, Murphy used light to ‘create mood, separation and contrast’. He ‘wanted atmosphere without gloom’, ensuring the audience could always see the action. “I could indulge in all the visual kinks I loved with wetdown streets, big backlights and Panavision anamorphic flares.” Pairing Stephen Murphy, BSC, ISC, tells us about Heart Eyes, an ode to old-school slashers
THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER Murphy drew from the escapism of horror staples, his style emulating vintage cinema
the lenses with an ARRI ALEXA 35, Murphy achieved ‘fantastic close focus’ and a vintage look, thanks to the Custom Shadow Nostalgic Texture setting. Though the story takes place in Seattle, Murphy filmed mostly in New Zealand. “One of my favourite scenes was the sequence at the drive-in theatre, shot over a week right beside the shoreline,” he recalls. The Heart Eyes killer murders multiple couples at the outdoor cinema, causing ‘mass crowd panic’. “It took us several weeks to plan that sequence, which started wide, with hundreds of extras and cars, then tightened to a smaller, more intimate scene,” Murphy describes. “Being right next to the water’s edge meant that our ability to position lighting machines was limited,” he adds. “Our solution was to take half a dozen Vari-Lite Profiles and rig them on top of the existing streetlights. I combined that with a 40x40 softbox hanging off a lifting crane; this gave us the flexibility to relight in any direction within minutes. “For the kill shot,” which is particularly gruesome, creating a hole in the victim’s
head that we then pass through, “we needed to shoot with a probe lens on an underslung motion-control slider,” continues Murphy. He, Ruben and first AD Joe Nolan broke the scene down into ‘bite-sized pieces’, making everyone’s lives easier when it came time to film. With the killer itself, the mask – as in Friday the 13th , Halloween and Scream – is key to the character. While mostly yellow, its heart-shaped eyes glow red; achieved in camera. “It’s a fine balance between having enough light to see it, without over-lighting. You need it to feel threatening,” Murphy suggests. This sense of dread was maintained with some added sheen from the makeup department, as well as dynamic lighting cues. “It’s enough to let you see the mask for a second, but not enough to linger.” Heart Eyes hits upon both horror and romcom tropes, bringing a bit of escapist fun to our screens. “I got into the industry because I loved the escapism of eighties cinema. I don’t see enough of that today,” Murphy states. “We all genuinely had fun making it, so I hope that translates.”
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