Shots recreated in Unreal Engine 5.5 from Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) and Mandy (2018), films from Director Panos Cosmatos' filmography
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Beyond the Black Rainbow has a very minimalist aesthetic, keeping relatively symmetrical, static framing throughout the movie. Because of how simplistic the environment is, light sources are often limited and are either coming from lights in the rooms or screens.
Movie Reference Frame
Unreal Engine Render
This shot only has 2 main light sources, the red spotlight coming from above the character, and the blue light coming from underneath the character from a screen. The most difficult part about lighting this shot was making sure the two lights didn't fully overpower each other.
Beauty
Blue Fill Light
Red Spotlight
Back Light
Movie Reference Frame
Unreal Engine Render
Shot 2 had 3 main light sources: The light from the hallway behind the character, the yellow lights on either side of the character, and the red light coming from behind the camera. The hardest part of this shot was trying not to let the lights overpower each other, especially with the light behind the camera. That light tended to need adjustment the most as it would often be too bright and blow out the foreground in a way that wasn't like the original frame.
Beauty
Hallway Light
Fill Light
Side Lights
Movie Reference Frame
Unreal Engine Render
Shot 3 had 2 main light sources: The red lights from the ceiling and the white light from the room the character is facing. The ceiling lights proved to be the ones I had to adjust the most as it was originally too dim and needed to be lifted to light up more of the character's back.
Beauty
Red Spotlight
Key Light
Ceiling Emissive
Mandy has much more variety in its lighting set ups compared to Beyond the Black Rainbow. The heavy use of color is apparent in both films, but is less limited in Mandy compared to the red palette of Beyond.
Movie Reference Frame
Unreal Engine Render
Shot 1 only had 1 major light source. The challenge here was trying to get the right intensity fall off on the character's face. I ended up using 2 different lights, one as the main key and the other to brighten up the cheek like the reference frame. I also used a fill light to lighten the other side of the character's face as initially it was too dark.
Beauty
Soft Key Light
Harsh Key Light
Fill Light
Movie Reference Frame
Unreal Engine Render
Shot 2 had 1 major light as well: The overhead light. I used 1 light for the character spotlight, 1 for a character fill, and 2 for the background to light different parts of it.
Beauty
Character Spotlight
Table Key Light
Wall Spotlight
Fill Light
Movie Reference Frame
Unreal Engine Render
Shot 3 had 2 main lights: The green front light, and the red offscreen light. The major challenge for this shot was trying to get the offscreen light to interact with the Unreal Camera Actor. I was finding that the camera lens wouldn't be affected by lights that it couldn't see in frame, and even at that it would only apply bloom or lens flaring to lights that were bouncing off of objects or other actors in frame. My compromise was testing out dirt masks on the camera and adjusting their intensity to attempt to achieve the same kind of look.
Beauty
Character Key Light
Background Light
This project served as an exploration of the lighting and, by extention, the visual style of two films from Panos Cosmatos' filmography: Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) and Mandy (2018).
I was responsible for layout, lighting, and set dressing. All models, characters, and environments were free assets found on Fab.
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