Making of Kassandra - 6 - Mystery

In this new video, the cast debates the screenplay, specially the story's mysteries. Luis Franke creates some theories about them (as we can see in the picture above).

Check it out (video in portuguese)!

Alfredo Barros, the editing man

Alfredo Barros is amongst the main names in Kassandra’s cast and crew. He’s an editor and one of the successfull cinema professionals that accepted the invitation for this project, just like Pablo Chasseraux, Luis Franke and Leandro Lefa.

Barros is the kind of person that doesn’t have a “curriculum”. He has a filmography. He was assistent editor in movies such as The Man who Copied (2003). Today, he got plenty of work as main editor and some of them end up in awards. In the last Gramado Film Festival, he won for best editing in short film with Três Vezes por Semana (“Three Times at Week, in english). In Kassandra, Alfredo’s job is to put together more than 120 camera shots.

According director Ulisses da Motta Costa, Alfredo got into the project when he knew it was going to be a psychological horror. “He asked me: ‘is this a horror movie?’ and I said yes”,  tells Ulisses. “Then he replied: ‘man, that’s cool, I’ve always wanted to edit a horror movie”.

The editing process is already began.

The movie inside the movie

A simple detail on Kassandra’s script ended up creating a whole new monster, with the biggest proportions possible. It was right there, in Roger Monteiro’s script, in the scene 7: the neighbor, played by Leandro Lefa, is in front of the TC watching a “porn movie of questionable taste”.

We could have simply hided the TV or used any erotic vídeo. But director Ulisses da Motta Costa decided to shoot some erotic scenes – but no hardcore, changing a bit the original concept, without sex.

“I took as reference the ‘Pornochanchada’, a popular Brazilian genre from late 70’s, early 80’s, that used to mix comedy, some action and plenty of nudity and, sometimes, even real sex”, explains Ulisses. “And anyways, we couldn’t make someone go through any embarrassment, but we could make it all funny. That’s why I invited a longtime friend, Elena Meneghetti, who, when we were in college, made a class work dressed as a dominatrix. She’s really humorous, perfect for what we needed.”

A frame from the original material

The scenes that will be used on Kassandra were shooted in a couple hours on Elena’s house. Maico Silveira made a small part as the man who is seduced by Elena. The crew and cast had such fun in the shooting that when the producer Ramona Barcellos called to know if everything was ok, all she heard was laughter.

The crew was improvised: besides Ulisses directing, the producer Roberto Coutinho made the cinematographt, the publicist Daniel Coutinho was the set producer, the composer Chico Pereira edited the video. The only one on her function was the costume designer Giulia De Cesero, who also made art direction.

In no time, what was to be a small scene turned into a “bigger project”: a fake trailer of a Pornochanchada set in Porto Alegre (usually, those genre was made in Rio de Janeiro or in São Paulo). Not just that: even artistic pseudonyms are being thought to make the 70s vibe even more alive. Not counting, obviously, more characters and scenes.

“I got why people used to make Pornochanchadas at that time: it’s so much fun, even thou the movies were awful”, says Roberto Coutinho. “It´s a challenge to make something purposely poorly made”, Ulisses states. “That’s why the improvised crew was essential for the bad visual results.” Chico Pereira, responsible for editing the little “treasure” got the difficulty. “I was editing right the scenes when I thought: no, I have to unlearn everything I know”, tells him.

New scenes will be made on the breaks of Kassandra’s shooting. Wait for it!

About the cast: Leandro Lefa

He’s the last one on the presentations. Doesn’t mean he’s less important: Leando Lefa plays one of the main characters in Kassandra, a weird and nameless neighbor which represents a threat to the leading character. However, the actor was the last one to be confirmed in the movie.

According to director Ulisses Costa, the difficulty was to find someone different from the other men in the cast. “Roger Monteiro, the writer, imagined someone older and possibly ‘bigger’”, he remembers. “But I was really afraid that the character was confused with the Big Man”.

Ulisses chose Leando Lefa also because their long friendship. He was one of the actors of  The Screamer (watch it with english subtitles), the director’s first short movie. The promise that they would work together again stood and more than one project was thought to continue the partnership, but none worked out. Another point well considered about Lefa was the fact that he already had done a horror movie – played a role in the almost legendary Beyond the Grave, a zombie movie shooted in Porto Alegre, never released commercially.

The construction of the character had to be really specific. Even with a tight schedule, Lefa was able to email pictures to the crew, showing some ideas of costume, make up, facial and body expression (pic). “Despite the lack of time to rehearse the way we did with Renata, for example, Lefa’s dedication was essential to make the character as ready as it was in the day of shooting”, tells the director.

“Ulisses’ merit: with intelligence and sensibility, he knows exactly how to say what he wants and then things just flow”, says the actor. “All I needed was the script, one coffee and three minutes of improvisation exercise where enough for me to feel completely safe and comfortable with my character and the whole crew, particularly with the rest of the cast.”

Coffee? Yep: on his first scenes, Lefa needed to look dirty. Art director Ana Gusson, suggested that a shirt was stained with coffee, to make the filthy look on the black and white photography. After that, the actor wore a wet shirt with a strong smell of coffee for several hours, what resulted in many jokes from Renata Stein.

About working in more than one horror movie, Leandro says: “I wanted to create a guy without deepness, driven by sex, who thinks is fun being grouse and repulsive. It’s interesting that in Beyond the Grave I also played a man intellectually limited and who didn’t know how to act like a person, but the characters are completely different”.

About the cast: Luis Franke

 

Somewhen, during the footage of Kassandra, the following dialogue happened between actor Luis Franke and director Ulisses da Motta Costa:

Ulisses: You do know I’m a nonsense director, don’t you?

Luis: No. You have some sense. Some.

A few minutes later:

Ulisses: Luisão, do you know why I’m a nonsense director?

Luis: Why?

Ulisses: Because only a nonsense person would call an actor two times winner of the Açorianos Award to play a character that… doesn’t speak.

Luis Franke is the mysterious Big Man: a man with huge proportions, whose only purpose is a mystery to the main character, once he usually appears as a threat. “Kassandra is a walk through the real and the imagination, the lucidity and madness, the fight and the encounter with our real ‘me’”, defines the actor.

 

During the rehearsals, Luis was worried discussing the meaning of each character and their actions along the narrative. He wanted to know the role of the Big Man related to Kassandra: “I think my character represents the sleeping courage in her, which will be awake whenever she needs”, said.

Wanted by cinema, publicity, television and, of course, theater, Luisão won one Açoriano Award (a theater award in Brazil) for his work on the play O Sobrado – as a supporting actor – and another, for best actor, in an adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist’s The Broken Jug. 

He praises the whole cast and crew: “I have the biggest pleasure on being in the cast of Kassandra. The high level crew, coordinated by the great Ulisses Costa, who directed the process beautifully, allowed all the actors to connect with their characters and reach the deepest point of their minds. Acting with the young Renata Stein and my friends Maico Silveira and Leandro Lefa was, more than anything, an honor”.

About the cast: Suzana Witt

Renata Stein is not the only girl in Kassandra's cast. She's followed by Suzana Witt, who plays two different roles in the movie.

It's not mere coincidence that both the actresses study together, at the Dramatic Art Department in the Rio Grande do Sul Federal University. Suzana already worked a couple of times with director Ulisses da Motta Costa as assistent director. One of these works was a web series in wich Suzana called Renata for an audition. Eventually the web series was not released, but it was in the audition that Renata met Ulisses and most of the Kassandra's crew. By the way, she was aproved in the audition for one of the main characters. 

From assistent director, Suzana was promoted to actress. "In our earlier works, I was used to work behind the cameras", she says. "In Kassandra was different, but not that much. In the end, cast and crew are one". A curiosity: she and the costume designers Isabela Boessio and Giulia De Cesero were high school colleagues. To choose a costume for a prostitute (one of Suzana's roles) was a great fun for them.

Thou it is a quick appearance, the prostitute's scene was complicated. Suzana didn't have the time to rehearse with her partner, Leandro Lefa. Also, the dialogue indicated in the screenplay was vague: "a discussion with obscene terms". Both the actors and Ulisses conceived the scene just before it was made. 

In the first take, Suzana turned to Lefa and spoke out loud:

- Honey, this is way more expensive!

The crew had to hold the laughing until the "cut".

Making of Kassandra - 5 - when a cell phone rings

We talked about Maico Silveira's participation recently, so let's check one of the rehearsals with him and leading actress Renata Stein. That's until someone's phone starts to ring.

And you know: never let yout cell phone ring when an actor ir performing (video in portuguese)...

Shooting in black and white

The black and white photography always was one of the main ideas on Kassandra’s creation. We always imagined the movie with no colors. The image had to be thought in dark and light. So, the decisions of the cinematography, art direction, costume design and make up had to be different than usual.

Kassandra’s director of photography is Pablo Chasseraux (pic), a most wanted professional who works in several projects in advertising, TV and cinema – check his cinematography reel here. He used a Canon 5D and shooted in color to apply the black and white on the post-production. However, the scenes were monitored with no colors, so one could see the contrast between the light and the dark and if the image wasn’t too grayish.

Once the main worry was the light and dark, Pablo simply started to ignore the color temperature, which means that some of the shots had warm and cold lights mixed. In color, looks like a mess, but in black and white it’s all simply wonderful. Worried about the crazy colors on the camera, Pablo asked more than once to the director Ulisses da Motta Costa:

- Are you sure that’s gonna be in black and white? There’s a purple light here.

The costume designers Isabela Boessio e Giulia De Cesero also had their issues to solve. One of the characters, for example, had to wear a dark shirt in a certain moment. They got a navy shirt, hoping that it was good enough. At the camera, however, the navy looked like a light and lovable grey. A quick switch for the Daniel Coutinho’s, the adman, black shirt and the problem was gone.

About the cast: Maico Silveira

We already talked about Renata Stein, the leading actress of Kassandra. Now, it’s time to talk about the other cast members. One of them is Maico Silveira, who plays the therapist that takes care of Kassandra.

Maico is a brazilian actor who’ve been in France and Spain. Despite his acting in several short and feature films, he usually prefers the stage. Or whatever can be turned into a stage: his monologue O dia em que aprendi a dizer não (The day I learnt how to say no, in english) requires nothing more than a small room to be performed.

Now you may be questioning yourself: how did a theater actor, used to the stage, got in this project? Maico is an old friend of director Ulisses da Motta Costa and of most of Kassandra’s crew (like composer Chico Pereira and producer Roberto Coutinho). The actor worked on their first short movie ever, O Gritador (The Screamer, in english - watch it with english subtitles), back in 2006. By then, Maico auditioned for three different characters and played them all good – which made the director say: “This guy has to be in the movie. I don’t know what he’ll play, but he IS in the movie”.

In Kassandra, Maico has a small participation. His presence, however, was essential to bring to debate the concepts of acting and to develop the work of preparation and rehearsals. Being a theater thinker, he used to discuss different ideas of acting with Ulisses, differing the stage acting and the work in front of the cameras.

 “At a certain point, we talked about Hitchcock, who said that was essential that, on suspense, the actor could play neutral eyes, so the director could build in the editing the meaning he wanted the character to have” , says Ulisses. “Maico, then, started to exercise this neutrality, playing really soft nuances of intention in some chosen moments. “This level of subtlety is pretty hard to reach”.

“At the rehearsals’ beginning I told Ulisses about some acting habits and asked him to don’t let me do those on the film”, the actor says. “I think he made a great work guiding us in a very subtle way to the whole meaning of the movie. No one had ever act in a suspense film and the suspense itself teach us a lot about acting in movies.”

Maico also appears on the “movie inside the movie” in Kassandra. But that’s another post.

Making of Kassandra - 4 - Tarot cards

Eager to see more making of videos? While we organize the material recorded during the filming and pre-production, follows an appetizer: a test of black-and-white tarot (which was not used).  In the background, diretor Ulisses and producer Roberto Coutinho were talking about one of the locations - an old mad house... (video in portuguese).

Wanna know more about the tarot cards in Kassandra? Go check this post here.

Kassandra's Images - 2

More pictures from Kassandra's filming, starring Renata Stein's with her thousand faces. Check out for more pictures here.

 Marker and action.

Leandro Lefa in scene.

Ulisses da Motta Costa directing.

"Calm down, Kassandra. It's just the world outside".

Bye-bye! See you in the next post!

Fake blood: such a hard work

Kassandra’s team had a really hard work with fake blood. Sounds strange? Well, work with fluids is an exhaustive job, due its unpredictable nature.

During filming, two shots involving blood took an hour and a half hours to me made. In one of them, one of the actors had to spit blood. Crew rushed between each take to clean set, costume and actor, and also to find some glass so he could pour out the remaining blood in his mouth.

Even harder was the shot in which Kassandra’s face was dripped with blood. Director Ulisses da Motta Costa did use his fingers to release the drops in Renata Stein’s face. But his hand eventually showed up in the camera. So he stood a bit far from the actress and made the second take.

It was a disaster. The drops did go everywhere: in the floor, in the set’s curtain and even in the script girl Marina Cardozo. Nor a single drop in Renata. While art director Ana Gusson and producer Roberto Coutinho furiously cleaned the mess up, a beaten Ulisses changed the shot to make the dropping task easier.

At least the blood made by Roberto and Jackson Ritter didn’t stain…

Kassandra's first images - 1

Some of the film was already been made. Check out the first pictures made during the production:

"Reach out a bit more, Renata. That's it, now a bit lower"

 

Maico Silveira smiles the gather sympathy.

Suzana Witt wants YOU to watch Kassandra!

The sad funeral for producer Roberto Coutinho.

The Wind of the Gods.

Jackson Ritter's last production list

A great misfortune: producer Jackson Ritter is finishing his job in Kassandra. Here’s his final list (see the other lists here, here and here): 

1 - Fake blood: OK!

2 - Bird: My woman did not liberate Galato, the parakeet with Grêmio’s colors. Let’s buy the birdies;

3 - Cockroaches: we discovered that ether (what I would use to dope them) have controlled sell by the Brazilian Army. I believe that this information scared the production a bit and the cockroaches were cut off. Such a pity;

4 - Slider: OK! 

The crow now goes for Robert Coutinho, who will replace Jackson. But the spirit remains: 

1 - Syringe. Note: catch the biggest syringe in the market;

2 - Dagger.

3 - Fake glass. Preliminary Observations: A) formula glues in absolutely anything. I ignore if it haves chemical, physical or quantum reasons.  B) My employee got cut with it, so perhaps the formula is not functioning. C) I am using sugar and maize glucose. Maybe don’t work as glass, but at least I already know how to make lollypops.

Kassandra's Tarot

One of the main elements in Kassandra is the tarot cards. Actually, the cards are the film’s great mystery: everyday, a new card appears mysteriously inside Kassandra’s apartment. 

Director Ulisses of the Motta Costa says: “The tarot cards have something puzzling in its image. Most of the people do not know its esoteric meaning but they search in it at least a suggestion of some occult meaning to be disclosed. Therefore, they are part of what is hidden in the universe of Kassandra". 

Although the tarot don’t have esoteric function in the narrative, the scriptwriter Roger Monteiro decided to respect the meaning given traditionally to each card, relating it with specific moments of the film and with the character’s state of mind.

Kassandra's home

It's time to present Kassandra's home, where most of the scene take place. It is an apartment in Moinhos de Vento, in the City of Porto Alegre. In the picture above, art director Ana Gusson evaluates the place. That's right, it's not a ghost. 

The apartment have the necessary size and characteristics for the movie, as the long corridor in the picture bellow.

The place is also the production headquarters and meetings and rehearsals have been made there - which helps to capture the film's mood and atmosphere.

Kassandra's Feelings - II

Written by Renata Stein during the rehearsals on Ulisses da Motta Costa's notes. See here the first part.

- Do you want it always?

- I was in a place where my back was vulnerable and this is horrible.

- I didn't know what was worse:
                           your voice
                               or
                          the silence

- It was kind of "strange", because I didn't cry, but my body was sensible, I don't know...

- I'm almost hungry. :P

- Good rehearsal. I like Kassandra very much.

Jackson Ritter's production list - 3

Yes, we know that people are eager for an update in Jackson Ritter's production list (see Part 1 here and Part 2 here). Here we go:

1 - Wall tiles: All tests fail. We will use a real location;
2 - Fake blood: OK! Tomato sauce stains. Better results were obtained with corn glucose, detergent thickening and a copy of the Daily Gaucho crushed and chopped;
3 - Birdie: Build a  puppet bird (Note: do not tell the director how to prepare it to make him worried on purpose);
4 - Cockroaches: Tests with ether have been unsuccessful  (Note: stop using ether for other reasons);
5 - Slider: OK! The wheels can't shake (Note 1: Beat the hell out of a skater. Note 2: Remember that I'm beating a skater because we need the wheels, not because of the simple fact that he is a skater).

Making of Kassandra - 3 - Acting

Kassandra’s new video shows a bit of the work that director Ulisses da Motta Costa is making with the cast. Here, an exercise between leading actress Renata Stein and Maico Silveira, one of her co-partners. It was in the same occasion that she wrote the first of her Kassandra’s Feelings.

The rehearsal’s objective is to increase the cast chemestry. This work helps to create new dynamics and also helps to build the characters (video in portuguese). 

Nosferatu and Snow White

Hello, Ulisses da Motta Costa here again.

References are essential elements when you are making a film. The references help to create narrative, visual, acting and sound conceptions. Cast and crew debate references all the time.

But sometimes, a reference comes in a subjective manner, because it’s already within the project. That’s what happened to Kassandra.

When we were going for the second draft of the screenplay, writter Roger Monteiro and me discussed the need for a good character presentation for Kassandra. Roger came up with a good Idea, involving her and a bird. 

As soon as I read the new scene, I remebered Nosferatu (1922), a horror expressionist classic. Not because of the movie itself, but because of the presentation of the female character, played by Greta Schröder. Our scene was kind of a distant echo of Nosferatu.

“Such a great reference”, I thoght. I called Roger on Facebook chat:

Me: Dude, I really liked Kassandra’s introduction. Reproduces the heroin's trajetory in Nosferatu. It is coincidence or inspiration?

Roger: No. It came from Snow White.

Me: The scene just became even BETTER.

Unbelievable how things live in our cultural unconsciousness. I was exulting with the unexpected relation between two cinema classics. So pretentious from our part. I love  both movies and I’d always though that Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1938) was kind of a horror movie. It’s dark and sinister -- the evil queen metamorphosis is just horrible.

Anyway, we become sure that we’re in the right track when the references come up naturally.

Kassandra's feelings

Written by Renata Stein during the rehearsals on Ulisses da Motta Costa's notes. Topics are deliberately random and reproduced exactly as she wrote:

Kassandra's fellings.

- I'm anguished, I can't talk.

- I was bitten.

- I'd puke I if were him.

- Oh, the "fag" don't eat chocolate.

- To eat -- that's very easy

- THE FAMILY PICTURE

- My birdie is awesome.

- No, I mean that I also felt it.

Making of Kassandra - 2 - lots of blood

The new video from Kassandra production shows the fake blood tests, for different uses in the film. Many of the tests just didn't work... (video in portuguese).

Check also the first video from Kassandra here.

Oh, yes: Jackson Ritter's performance is outstanding. Remeber his production list (here and here)?

Jackson Ritter's production list - 2

After a while, check out how Jackson Ritter’s production list is going:

  

1 – Wall Tiles: silicon holds the tile, but stains the wall; hot glue doesn’t stain, but also doesn’t hold;

2 – Fake blood: metallic taste neutralized. Try to make a solution that doesn’t stain. (Obs: test tomato sauce and gelatin);

3 - Birdie: task transferred to the art department. They’re afraid that I actually kill the BIRD.

4 - Cockroaches: still studying how to dope them. I’ve got the impression that ether might work.

5 – New task: build a slider. Piece of cake. Manual or with a motor?

Kassandra's Cast and Crew

These are the people who are making Kassandra. Check it out:

An Ampli Produtora production

Direction and Story: Ulisses da Motta Costa

Production: Ramona Barcellos

Screenplay: Roger Monteiro

Cineamtography: Pablo Chasseraux

Art Direction: Ana Gusson

Costume Design: Giulia De Cesero e Isabela Boessio

Music: Chico Pereira

Editing: Alfredo Barros

Sound and Executive Production: Roberto Coutinho

Assistent Director: Victor Fiúza

Second Assistent Director: Marina Cardozo

Production Manager: Jackson Ritter

Advertising: Daniel Coutinho 

Cast:

Renata Stein

Luis Franke

Leandro Lefa

Maico Silveira

Making of Kassandra - 1

This is our first making of vídeo of Kassandra, made on the meeting we had Saturday, 3^rd. Watching it, you can know pretty much all cast and crew. Go, go, go!

Jackson Ritter's production list

The first meeting with the whole Kassandra cast and crew happened some weeks ago. Several subjects were discussed, next meetings were sated. 

And the producer manager, Jackson Ritter (pic) took the moment to list the first demands – all really bizarre and apparently useless, but with more like comedy roles than realistic functions:

1 - Wall Tiles (Obs: use hot glue and silicon as options)

2 - Fake blood (Obs:  make it taste less metallic)

3 - Birdie (Obs: DO NOT kill any bird)

4 - Cockroaches (Obs:  they got to be genetically clean; Obs 2:  they are not supponse to escape during filming; Obs 3:  find a way to dope them without killing them)

When three ideas unite

Ulisses da Motta Costa here, director of the short film Kassandra.

A movie is like a child with several fathers and mothers. One of these genitors need to produce the original zygote, so to speak, need to light the first flame that begins the project. In this case, this blame is mine to bear.

Kassandra came up to my mind in the last winter, in a rainy period, when I was taking a few days off. That’s when three long-time different ideas blended in a surprising amalgam. The ideas were:

  

1 – I’ve always wanted to make a film based only in the visual narrative, a film with very few dialogs. I’m a silent movies big fan, but all of my other films were quite verborragic. So, for me, the best character for a visual narrative is one that could’t speak.

2 – On the other hand, I’ve always wanted to shot a film in black-and-white, to think not in colors, but in light with a primitive state of constrasts between darkness and brightness.

3 – At last, the third idea was born in a conversation with score composer Chico Pereira. We’re talking about how difficult is to listen a non-cliché music for horror films. We’re sort of decide that one day we would make a flick with a soundtrack different from what one’s used to hear.  

Those three concepts were sparked togheter one night, probably inspired by Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness (the book I was reading at that time). Like three twisted creatures, they gathered in an indissociable maner. From this primordial mix, new ideas breeded: a charecter, her name, tarot cards, family photos, a scary shadow, a bathtube filled with blood.

Finally, the confusion founded an order when the face of actress Renata Stein appeared in Kassandra’s silhouette. She was the first invited for the Project. She told me: “I’m in, but movie had to be made”.

Her wish is an order. Through this blog, we will tell you how the production is going.

Be welcome.

Here is Kassandra

Nothing better than presenting the leading actress of Kassandra, the person who will be the face, the life, the expression of the heroin on the movie: Renata Stein (pic).

Renata is an actress and a ballerina (also a light and youthful infectious soul). Soon, she will write here about the experience of portraying a character who doesn’t speak and who has to express its feelings just with face and body language.

According to the director Ulisses da Motta Costa: “Renata was the first person to know about the project. If she hadn't accepted, I think we hardly would find another actress for the part”.

Welcome

Hello everyone. Be welcome to the production diary of the short movie Kassandra, that we’ll be producing next months in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Here, we’ll share with you all steps of creation of the movie, with texts written by cast and crew, besides making of videos.

We’re inviting you for a journey. Maybe a little dark – but that will give you wonderful stories, for sure. Come with us!