DIRECTIONS: Director - Film

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Catherine Hardwicke is a director I have been looking at to give me inspiration for my film. Hardwicke is an American film director, production designer and screenwriter. She co-wrote Thirteen with Nikki Reed, and directed Red Riding Hood (2011), Twilight, (2008), The Nativity Story (2006) and Lords Of Dogtown (2005). The opening weekend of Twilight was the biggest opening ever for a female director.

Hardwicke became a production designer to begin with, on films including Tombstone (1993), Tank Girl (1995), 2 Days In The Valley (1996), The Newton Boys (1998) and Three Kings (1999). She also worked with film directors such as Cameron Crowe, David O'Russell and Richard Linklater. She was influenced by them and gained experiences in their techniques, she "always told them I really want to make my own movies, and they were all very generous and gave me tips". Her time as a production designer helped shape her career as a director. Spending time with top directors helped her and were able to give her a sense of direction She also worked with a female director, Lisa Cholodenko, on her film Laurel Canyon (2002). Other than working with directors, Hardwicke taught herself a few things such as Final Cut Pro and she was working on her own scripts and short films, while going to acting classes to better herself as a director. 

Her first directing film was Thirteen which was developed by her in collaboration with Nikki Reed, who was 14 years old at the time, and she wrote a screenplay which reflected some of her teenage experiences. Hardwicke then went on to direct Lords Of Dogtown about skateboarding culture. Next, The Nativity Story, Hardwicke was reluctant to take this project on as she was worried about finding a fresh approach to the traditional nativity story.  In the end she had Mary as a young girl faced with a big task, incorporated a psychological approach to Joseph and she tried to dramatise the account of the Bible. The film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's best-selling novel, Twilight, was next for Hardwicke to Conquer and then Red Riding Hood, the main film I have been looking at in relation to New Moon. Looking into these films, I can see that Hardwicke has developed massively throughout her career, first in production design before progressing into directing.

Hardwicke really takes the colour palette into consideration when directing a film. “I’ll take a painter or a painting or photography and say [to the crew], ‘This is an example of the colors. If it’s not in the painting, don’t have it on the set.’ Sometimes that really helps to create a beautiful visual cue for the movie. For example on Twilight, there was a very distinct palette, like nobody was allowed to wear a bright yellow shirt. You didn’t see bright orange or red. That way it had this beautiful unity, like the Pacific Northwest.” In Thirteen, Hardwicke said that the colour palettes reflect the emotional journey which the characters go on, becoming darker as the girls' relationship intensified and they dug deeper into sex and drugs. (2)

Red Riding Hood

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This film is about a young girl, Valerie, who lives in a fictional village of Daggerhorn. She is in love with an outsider, Peter, but her parents have arranged for her to marry a wealthy man, Henry. To stop this, Valerie and Peter are planning to run away together when they find out that Valerie's older sister has been killed by a wolf which stalks the forest around the village. For years, the village people have been giving the wolf a monthly animal sacrifice, however, this time the wolf took a human life. The village people turn to a wolf hunter to help them kill the wolf. The hunters arrival has unintended consequences as he warns the wolf, who takes human form by day, could be any one of them. As more people get killed, Valerie starts to suspect that the wolf could be someone she loves, later realising she has a special connection to the animal making her a suspect and bait. 

For the colour palette in this film, Hardwicke said that she wanted the red cape to be the only red thing in the entire film. The cape was a very important feature in the film and it was huge in the fantasy scenes of the film. The cape was such a big part that they arranged for a circle of 14 women in Vancouver who embroidered the detail into the cape. (3)

How did Hardwick's directing work interest me?
Specifically, Red Riding Hood is the film by Hardwicke which interested me and my project the most. It even contains a love triangle in it, between the young girl, woodcutter and a rich man, similarly to New Moon, where the story is based around the love triangle between Bella, Edward and a family friend and werewolf, Jacob. It is Hardwicke's passion for colour in her films which I admire the most. After finding out about her and the different colour palettes in her films, I have realised actually how important having a colour palette actually is and how much extra detail it can bring to the film and story. My next bit of research will be about the colour palette of the original New Moon and to see how I can recreate the same colour for my film. 


(1) http://twilightsaga.wikia.com/wiki/Catherine_Hardwicke

(2)  Bernstein, P. (2016). Here’s How to Direct Catherine Hardwicke-Style.Available: https://filmmakermagazine.com/97615-heres-how-to-direct-catherine-hardwicke-style/. Last accessed 14th Feb 2017.

(3) Keegan, R. (2010). ‘Red Riding Hood’ director Catherine Hardwicke explains the big, bad sexy secret. Available: http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/red-riding-hood-director-catherine-hardwicke-explains-the-big-bad-sexy-secret/. Last accessed 13th Feb 2017.

(4) https://uk.pinterest.com/lauriepint/red-riding-hood/