The Craft Of ‘Frankenstein’: How The Production Design, Cinematography, Editing, Costume Design & Score Brought Guillermo Del Toro’s Dream To Life

For a director like Guillermo del Toro, you can only imagine what he’ll do when he gets to create his fantasy project. With FrankensteinDel Toro and his crew of craft collaborators were finally able to achieve his years-long dream of bringing Mary Shelley’s book — in which scientist Victor Frankenstein creates a humanoid being — to life.

“It was his dream masterpiece and the summit of his triptych — the creature of The Shape of Waterthe creature of Pinocchio and the creature of Frankenstein,” says composer Alexandre Desplat.

“The first time I heard about Frankenstein was many, many years ago when we shot Mimicsays cinematographer Dan Laustsen. “He talked about that as his dream project. I read and love the book, but then I got the screenplay and it was something different. I shouldn’t be surprised, that’s Guillermo del Toro’s way to look at the world and that’s what I love.”

One of the first changes that Del Toro decided early on was to move the time period from the late 18^th century, from the book, to the 1850s. Even with the shift, it was important for every department to not use the period as the sole focal point for inspiration.

“We didn’t want it to be a ‘period score’, like early 19^th century, but there had to be something that’s connecting us with that time,” says Desplat.

As Desplat says, if Del Toro wanted a period score, he could simply use Beethoven or another composer from the era, but what he really wanted was a modern interpretation. “It’s a tale, so there’s a fantasy about it that allows us to be away from any period reference.

“When you use violin and flutes, it sounds classical depending on how you write it, so you keep the sound of these instruments but you try to make it sound like if it was today.”

For the sets, production designer Tamara Deverell did thorough research on what medical and scientific technology would be available at that time for Victor. “Guillermo insisted we go to the Hunterian Museum, which wasn’t even open at the time,” says Deverell. “They were under renovation, but they allowed us to look at the actual Evelyn tables and all the medical gear.”

The Evelyn tables are the oldest surviving anatomical preparations, made from real human tissue, dissected blood vessels and nerves glued to wooden boards and covered in varnish. Deverell says she took more than 3,000 images at the museum for inspiration.

While Desplat avoided the period and Deverell embraced it, costume designer Kate Hawley chose to focus on her history with Shelley’s book and Del Toro’s script for inspiration. “My first job and allegiance are to my director and the text, that’s my bible,” says Hawley. “When you read the script and see how rich the themes are of religion and mythology and nature running wild and untamed… the tonal aspect of it still captured all of those things with the novel, the loneliness, the melancholy, the sense of memories and seasons. And when Guillermo talked about color being a way to suggest its own gothic quality and keep those links to the tone and world of writing, that all felt like part of Frankenstein.”

Crafting the color palette was a big undertaking, with a collaborative focus from Deverell, Hawley and Laustsen to achieve a consistent look throughout the film, beginning in the Arctic. “If you think about it in terms of movements, you’ve got The Creature’s story, Victor’s story and you’ve got the Arctic as the link,” says Hawley. “The Arctic’s almost all white with pale blue and gold tones, almost like a limbo space. The captain is almost evocative of Peter at the gate, listening to the story and judgment will come at the end.”

“For the ice field, we had this Caspar David Friedrich painting of an ice field that Guillermo just loved,” says Deverell. “We specifically copied those icebergs and that whole ice field.”

The color palette for Victor’s story was black and white, with a through line of a specific red that Del Toro calls pigeon blood. “The image of red is first established with Victor’s mother on the steps of the house,” says Hawley. “You hear her voice more than see her, it’s an abstract thing so that color served as part of the operatic tone of the piece.”

In contrast, Elizabeth’s palette was greener and more ethereal. “We painted all the veils and translucent layers with color suggestive of that ephemeral nature,” says Hawley. “We used a lot of layering of color, rather than flat color, because Guillermo wanted really intense colors that still had to sit tonally with depth.”

For cinematography, Laustsen’s approach to color was driven by the use of light. “When we first see The Creature in Victor’s bedroom, he opens the blinds and the very warm sunlight comes into this first meeting with father and son,” he says. “At the beginning, the relationship was very romantic, and later in the story, when everything’s getting a bit tenser, we are going away from the warm light.”

As Victor’s opinion of The Creature grows colder, so does the light used to illuminate his holding cell, until Elizabeth meets The Creature again carrying warm light with the candles that contrast the dark, cold appearance of the room. “We like using single source lighting a lot, because we like when the highlight is bright, but the shadow has to be as dark as possible,” says Laustsen. “So, when you have candlelight, that’s going to be the key light, but we still try to have this contrasting blue in the background so it’s not completely monochromatic.”

For The Creature, the color palette of the clothing was not as important to Hawley as what each item represented and how it matched his appearance. “Guillermo was talking a lot about the translucent pallor of The Creature’s skin, almost the childlike waxiness, evocative of 18^th century anatomy models,” she says. “The first stage of his wardrobe was a coat remnant from a dead man on the Crimean battlefield. When The Creature talks about being made up of the memories of other men, that coat does the same thing. It’s a heightened language and it’s constructed in a way that’s evocative of flayed skin.”

His clothing changes with his state of mind, as he goes to the mill and experiences love and friendship from the Blind Man. “That’s where he begins to learn language and gains eloquence, and when he gains the other external layers,” says Hawley. “He’s almost a noble or a prince in his fairytale.”

The Creature’s state of mind became a focus for Desplat, who found the most important decision in the score to be finding their sound. “With this extreme strength, this overly powerful thing created by Frankenstein, I suggested we go the opposite way and find the smallest, most fragile beautiful and precious instrument, which is the violin with its pure sound,” he says. “If you look carefully, all of these characters are seeking love, so the violin would really convey to the audience the emotions of this creature, the deeper sensations that he’s feeling and the way his emotions are blossoming.”

The emotional impact of the film actually led editor Evan Schiff to be “emotionally exhausted” when editing a few of the scenes. “One of the more emotionally involved scenes was at the very end when The Creature and Victor are coming to a level of forgiveness with each other,” says Schiff. “That’s one where you really have to invest yourself and feel what the actors are giving you in those dailies.”

Schiff worked closely with Del Toro every day on set in the edit room, which is not the norm for directors. “He comes in and edits every single day during the shoot,” he says. “By the time the shoot actually wrapped, our cut was much more advanced than normal. It was beyond where a director’s cut would be, and everything had temp music and VFX in it, so within three weeks after wrapping the shoot, we were showing it to people for notes.”