The New ‘Starvation Video games’ Movie Is All About Storytelling By means of Magnificence

The identical dystopian North America that noticed Katniss’ Mockingjay support a rebel serves because the backdrop to the franchise’s forthcoming movie, The Starvation Video games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The distinction? The brand new story takes place 65 years earlier than the occasions of the unique trilogy, a time soar that allowed director Francis Lawrence to think about a retro aesthetic— a Forties really feel showcased by means of the movie’s vogue and sweetness. 

“[The film’s] dystopian future meant I may create the interval look however with the considerably insanity of post-war and push it with a bit of extra eccentricity and a barely edgy really feel, particularly on the Academy college students and the Capitol crowd,” says Nikkie Gooley, who headed up the hair division, which included a workforce of as much as 25 stylists. “We had all of it on this movie: wigs, swimming with wigs, scalp bleaches, bald caps, buzz minimize wigs, cuts, colours!”

The movie’s metaphorical “songbird” is Lucy Grey Baird (performed by Rachel Zegler), a personality who visually embodies her upbringing. “For Lucy’s character, she’s a part of this group referred to as the Covey—it’s type of a troupe of touring musicians and performers,” says costume designer Trish Sommerville, who created an eccentric ingenue by means of tiered tulle, smocked blouses, and painted by hand corsets. “She’s a bit vaudeville, so I actually preferred making her utterly totally different from what we see of the Capitol.” Together with softness and handwork to juxtapose the Capitol’s regimented kinds, Somerville integrated Easter eggs for herself and the followers: look intently at Lucy’s corset, and also you’ll discover flowers recognized to District 12, together with primrose and katniss. 

The hair, make-up, and costume groups labored intently collectively to create a myriad of equally significant moments reflective of each character character and circumstance. Character seems have been developed by the costume division—led by Sommerville—who supplied references to hair and make-up. Intricacies of every District have been integrated into magnificence seems for each utilitarian and visually pleasing functions. “Every District is understood for a distinct provide or manufacturing ability and totally different monetary conditions,” explains Gooley. “Tribute Wovey’s District 8 is understood for clothes, so we wove ribbons and buttons in her hair.”

Then again, district 12’s coal miners have been impressed by the Appalachian area of the Nineteen Thirties. “You see this mirrored within the make-up with interval facial hair, filth, and soot from the mines and an general really feel of the struggles and hardships the individuals of District 12 endured,” says make-up division head Sherri Berman Laurence. In distinction, Laurence notes that Lucy and the remainder of the Covey, who discover work performing in District 12 bar the HOB slightly than the mines, get pleasure from a bohemian and pure—although at instances elevated—aesthetic.

“We acquired to be actually playful with [the performance looks],” says Laurence. “One in every of her HOB seems was harking back to an previous Hollywood film star with a crimson crimson lip, holographic inexperienced and blue-winged liner, and exquisite highlights on her pores and skin.” (Gooley provides that Lucy’s menu of gypsy-style wigs stored the workforce creatively busy all through the shoot.) “The HOB was additionally a spot the place the individuals of District 12 went to bounce and benefit from the evening out, so the actors in these scenes can be extra cleaned up, some having a extra ethereal, carnival-like look,” says Laurence. “Being so poverty-stricken, there wouldn’t have been a lot entry to make-up, so I’d create backstories to the place the make-up would come from utilizing pure components like wild berries, crushed beetles, and coal to call a number of.”

In the meantime, the Capitol sees well-known franchise characters like Tigris (performed by Hunter Schafer) of their youth, every visually exuding the perceived wealth and standing that they so depend on. “As a result of she does make clothes, and we all know she ultimately has her personal atelier, I made her just about essentially the most modern individual in our movie with excessive shapes, but in addition doing put on on her clothes to indicate that they’re in restore,” says Sommerville. “She’s making an attempt to keep up the picture and uphold this narrative that they nonetheless have cash and that they’re nonetheless a prestigious household.” Laurence remembers the character’s ombré lips and pointed bleached brows, whereas Gooley cites her luxurious and old-style Hollywood hair as a standout second. And as for brand spanking new mains, like Viola Davis’ villainous Dr. Gaul? “She’s type of our madcap mad scientist/Dr. Frankenstein character, so we made certain that she had a number of texture,” explains Sommerville, who labored with Laurence and Gooley to conceptualize her playful, horrifying presence, alongside together with her scarification. “Her materials are most likely manufactured inside the Capitol the place she lives and works, and he or she brings in a number of colour together with her.”

The movie’s magnificence and costuming groups are simply as passionate concerning the franchise because the followers—and it exhibits. “This film ran the gamut with make-up seems, hairstyles, and costumes,” says Laurence. “We acquired to stay in so many worlds, and switching backwards and forwards between them was extremely rewarding and difficult.”