Behind-the-scenes production of mysterious villages

When casting, Shamalan put forward a prerequisite. If you want to star in "Mysterious Village", you must receive a three-week training, because the characters in the film lived in the late19th century, and the actors must know all kinds of skills to make a living at that time, and only by wearing clothes from that era can they find the feeling of the characters in the film. The crew found several surviving ancient farms in Pennsylvania, and let the actors learn a series of farm work from peeling, tanning and wax making to forging, logging, making cream and shearing wool. Sigourney weaver even likes a farming method called "surfing the land". Actors should not only put themselves in the forest to live in tents, but also take turns cooking with the help of their companions.

props

Before filming began, Shamalan found an illustrator, Brick Mei Sen, to make a storyboard for the film. They spent several months sketching every scene of the film.

The village in the film is located in a valley in southeastern Pennsylvania, covering an area of 40 acres. It took two and a half months to build, and there is still one week before the official shooting. The craftsmen of the crew built 20 buildings, including a chapel, a school, a bakery, a blacksmith's shop, a barn, a greenhouse, a cemetery, a bell tower and the residence of the characters in the film.

The exterior walls of many buildings in the film seem to be made of stone. In fact, the exterior of these walls is made of inverted molds. The construction department took the mold from the ancient house not far away, then cast it with gypsum and painted it with different rock tones. Because the interior space of the house at that time was very narrow, which caused a lot of inconvenience to shooting and framing, the crew adopted a movable wall, and the director and photographer were free to choose the shooting angle. In addition, most of the houses built by the crew are authentic and sufficient.

The crew was also meticulous about the livestock in the film, not only built a barn for 125 livestock, but also carefully studied the local livestock varieties at that time, among which Devon cattle was the most common, which could not only produce milk but also eat meat and even plow fields. At that time, the villagers worked seven days a week and got up at 4: 30 every morning to feed the cows. In addition, Dorset sheep with long horns appeared in the film.

clothes design

Most of the clothes in the film are made by the clothing design department. No matter what cloth clothes are made of, they will eventually be dyed linen and worn out. In addition, most of the costume designs of the main actors are closely related to the natural theme of the film. The costume design department completely adopts the same type of natural dyes, and brown, brown, beige and moss green, which are similar to rust color and earth color, become the main colors. But in Bryce Dallas Howard's Ivy Walker, blue and indigo appear, which shows her lively and capable personality.