VIVA LA VULVA
UK | 2023 | Colour | 13 min | Graphic Designer & Art Assistant
Short Film, Comedy
One day, Erika wakes up and her vulva starts talking to her! On the journey of shutting it up, she learns how to cherish her body.
Role: Graphic Designer and art assistant (set building) & BTS photographer
Nominated for Best Production Design at the International Taiwan Golden Short Film Award
One of the most important graphic elements of the film, and the one that I was most excited about, was the magazine that the Little Girl was reading at the gynaecologist clinic.
The director wanted the illustration to be cute and simple - but still realistic enough that they looked like real vulvas. They also wanted to include a diverse range of vulvas, shapes, colours, sizes and genders.
Here, we have the initial sketch of the vulvas spread on the magazine and the actual magazine (that was then printed and assembled to be used on the film).
I also designed the font at the cover of the magazine. The idea behind the font was for it to be bold but soft and round, so that is felt playful and smooth.
Another important element for the film was the Strawberry Vulva painting. Located on top of the water cooler, when Erika first sees the painting she sees an actual vulva. But the painting itself it's just a strawberry - that looks slightly like a vulva.
So, for this painting, there were actually 2 paintings: the real painting and the version that Erika sees at a first glance:
The other graphic elements were the poster decorating the waiting room of the clinic and the treatment room.
The director wanted them to be copies of famous painting, and the main poster (the one based off “The Scream") was a crucial element to the film as it had it's own close-up as a form of visual match-cut with the sound of Erika screaming on the previous scene.
Because of that, I made many versions of the poster until the director and production designer were satisfied. Here are the earlier versions of the poster:
Below it, you can also see the final version of the poster and the second poster, inspired on a Picasso painting.
The final graphic elements needed for the film were mainly to populate the board at the treatment room. These were actually done on the day of set dressing as the production designer realised there needed more unique graphics to fill the space.
So, these graphics were done in under 5 minutes each:
And here are some photos during set build, where I painted the walls, hanged the paintings and posters and helped fitting windows, curtains and other fixtures.
Cast:
Sian Kayleigh as Erika
Jem Chevillotte as Doctor Alex
Shannon Rothwell as Pregnant Lady
Amelia Sowden as Little girl
Alex Scarott as The Husband
Crew:
Written and Directed by Weili Hsing
Producer: Karina Stephan
Assistant Director: Lara Kuijper
Director of Photography: Tzu Ting Huang
Cam Operator: Dazhang Wang
Production Designer: Mengfei Li
Graphic Designer: Ana Graça
Sound Recordist: Ziheng Wang
Sound Design / Editor: Ziheng Wang
Gaffer: Chien Han Lai
Script Supervisor: Jessica Sayer
Script Editor: Jessica Sayer & Megha Bhaduri
First AC: Zinian Cai, Rastine Mir, Tony Barosso
Second AC: Lucian Affordm, Ruiqi Zhang, Siyu Ma , Linlin Zhang
Spark: Bethany Yang, Jack Cameron , Tavleen Kour, Elitsa Marielle , Kejiu Shi, Theodor BR, Yuchao Tsai , Voy Bach, Licheng Zhang, Linlin Zhang, Tony Barroso
Boom Operator: Issy Halpin, Xiaoxiao Xu, Shengyuan Tong , Yican Zhen, Han Zhu
Makeup Artist: Dian Jin, Ilona Haldil
Costume Design: Jiangnan Wang, Fengshuo Zhao, Chenzhe Chloe He
Art Assistant: Ana Graça, Chang Liu, Voy Bach, Ricky Zhang, Jiangnan Wang , Siyu Ma, Yifan Zhang, Yiou Shi, Goya Wang, Mushi Cai
Composer: Haukar Karlsson
Re-recording mixer: Paul Harris at Pinewood studio
Colourist: James Slattery at Co3 company