Birth of Pleasure is the passion project of choreographer Anicka Austin and filmmaker Lev Omelchenko. It is a narrative disco ballet-film, based on the live choreography work “Sunday Morning at 7”, which was written and directed by Anicka. You can learn more about the work here.
For this project, I acted as Art Director and Set Designer. My roles included designing the set for Lev’s interpretation of Anicka’s performance, which was an envisioned disco dance floor that illuminated the actors into minimalistic space. I sourced the materials and worked closely with carpenter Chris Gravely to construct a remote-controlled LED dance floor for the film’s set. I built an RGB LED grid and encircled the floor with blackout curtains. Amber Bournett, the director of photography for Birth of Pleasure, beautifully complimented the ambient light emitted from the LED grid with stark spotlighting on the actors in the film. As Art Director, I also helped prop and stage the rest of the scenes that were filmed offset.
