Creating The Upside Down on a budget

When the brief for this one came in I knew I wanted to go hard on the theme - being a big fan of the Stranger Things series I started exploring how to go about creating a set for this one.

I had experimented with a glow coming through from underneat on previous projects, and immediately felt it would work for this - I just needed to be able to build the set properly rather than bodging it together from things I found in the studio. I sourced some thick, clear perspex to build the set on, laid some gravel out on it and created the ‘split’ in the ground to create the feel of the upside down. I then used a spray bottle with some water to wet everything down - popped a red gel on a flash head underneath the suspended surface and voila - the set was almost ready.

The shot above used the same gravel, laid out on perspex. I changed the angle of the camera, from overhead to just above the eyeline of the book. The background for this was simple too - it’s mountboard, cut into wide strips and hung off a bar. There’s a red gel behind the background, and another behind the book which creates the circular glow around the book, the light behind creates the glowing red strip light effect. I’ve added a blooming effect, and created further atmosphere in Photoshop - using a Wacom tablet for work like this is invaluable, yes there’s a learning curve but it is 100% worth it for the subtle effects you can create.

A lot of people have suggested that this project is AI - it’s not. There’s a few BTS videos over on my Instagram