The world changes, but the performance remains

A black-and-white Jekyll office with a rainy gothic window — The black-and-white office world of Episode 1.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an intense gothic thriller, combining real performances with dramatic worlds built in Absurd.

Most of Episode 1 lives in a black-and-white world inspired by film noir. When we enter Jekyll’s mind or a flashback, the film moves into color and full German Expressionism. The rooms can bend, the proportions can become strange, and the environment can express what is happening inside him.

We already filmed the performances, the blocking, the camera movement and the audio. I’m using AI in Absurd to create these worlds around what the actors gave us. I want to push the scene far beyond the room we shot in while keeping the human intensity that makes the story matter.

Daniella Raphael seated outside against a brick wall — Daniella Raphael

A colored German Expressionist office with angular green and gold walls — A colored Expressionist office study for the world inside Jekyll’s mind.

A spiral staircase seen from below in a shadowed stairwell — A stairwell study for the film’s heightened spaces.

A corridor inside Jekyll’s mind, its walls opening around a towering metal form — An environment study for the world inside Jekyll’s mind.

A room the actors can live in

The colored world can be theatrical and distorted, but it still needs to feel like a place a camera could photograph and an actor could move through. The black-and-white world needs that same physical logic. I’m building environments for a film, so I need to know what happens when the camera turns or someone crosses the room.

A gothic window might give me a beautiful image, but it doesn’t give me an office. Where is the door? What sits behind the camera? Which wall comes into frame on a reverse angle? Where are the desk, chairs, mirror, skeleton and cabinets in relation to one another?

I asked the agent for an overhead map and worked around the office wall by wall. We kept environment plates in References and gave the office, staircase and ward their own pages. That lets each place develop as a connected space rather than a single view.

I can use those plates to ask for another angle, then correct the details that make the room consistent. The window may need to move, a chair may need to face the other way, or the light may need a clearer source. Often I’m explaining what exists just outside the frame. That unseen part of the set determines whether the part we see feels believable.

The black-and-white patient wall of Jekyll’s office — The patient wall of Jekyll’s office.

A black-and-white hospital exterior seen between bare trees — A study for the ward exterior.

Talk through the shot

I bring the agent the filmed take, the environment plates and any prop references that belong to a shot. Before it makes an edit, I want it to explain exactly what it thinks I’m asking for and show me the prompt it plans to use.

Which footage is the performance we’re keeping? Which references describe this room? What will change in the image? What will remain from the take: the actors, their timing, the camera move and the audio? I want to know what I’m getting before we generate a version.

Each scene has its own chat, and I tell it which references belong there. That conversation lets me choose a direction, revise it and be precise about the work. The agent can help me explore the world; I make the call about the film.

Let the world change with the performance

Scene 02A gives me a way to test this. The camera move and the actor’s performance are already in the filmed take. In the office edit, we worked on the room around him, the direction of the light and the transformation. I asked for the veins to appear gradually, developing with the moment rather than arriving all at once.

I put the filmed take beside the working edit. I can watch the same movement and performance in both, then judge what the new environment adds. Does the light belong to the window? Does the room hold its shape through the camera move? Does the transformation follow the actor’s timing?

That comparison helps me decide what to keep and what to refine. I can leave experiments and references on the canvas while choosing the strongest clips for a smaller presentation. Each version is part of developing the shot; the film still needs my judgment about which one tells the story.

The filmed performance

Scene 02A. The filmed take.

The working edit

Scene 02A. The same performance in the developing office environment.

Make every detail belong

A large environment can be convincing until one small thing breaks it. A prop has to sit in the actor’s hand in the right position. A gesture has to continue from the filmed take into the edit. The light on a face has to agree with the window or lamp in the room.

In the Sybil shot I want to show, she holds the ice pick. I use its reference and check the starting frame so its position belongs to the gesture she performed. Then I compare the edit with the filmed footage. I’m looking at the hand, the prop, the light and the space around her together.

An ice pick against a gray background — The ice-pick reference.

Sybil holds the ice pick in the finished shot.

These details give the audience a world they can stay inside. The environments can become bold, strange and full of color; their physical connections still have to hold. When they do, the audience can follow the actors from the reality of the noir scenes into Jekyll’s inner world and continue to believe what those actors feel.

The performances were the beginning. Absurd lets me build the extraordinary world around them, from the rooms we could have photographed to the spaces inside Jekyll’s mind. I want the audience to feel the force of that change and still recognize the human moment we filmed.