The critically acclaimed body-horror film The Substance has become MUBI's biggest box office hit to date. Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, the story follows a fading celebrity, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), who decides to use a black-market drug to generate a better, younger version of herself named Sue (Margaret Qualley). Although the story was set in Los Angeles, the film was shot inside Epinay Studios in Paris and on location on the Côte d’Azur, France. Continue reading to learn how the filmmakers used a Custom Rosco Day/Night SoftDrop to create a Los Angeles background that infused the story with symbolism.
Much of the film is set inside Elisabeth’s minimalistic apartment that features floor-to-ceiling windows with panoramic views overlooking Los Angeles. The retro-futuristic set design, conceived by Production Designer Stanislas Reydellet, is meant to convey a symbolic representation of Hollywood rather than the real world. Coralie said: “From the start, I knew I wasn’t interested in depicting the real Hollywood but rather what it’s about. It’s about beauty. It’s about success. Taking it out of reality was a way to make it timeless and thus universal, like the story could happen today, yesterday, or tomorrow — as well as anywhere. I wanted the locations and set decorations to have a very strong symbolic meaning.”
Director Coralie Fargeat and Margaret Qualley stand in front of the floor-to-ceiling set windows that flood the space with artificial sunlight and offer unobstructed views of the Los Angeles skyline.
Coralie highlighted the symbolism of the Los Angeles background: “This view of LA gives you a scale and the scope of how her (Elisabeth’s) life has been successful and how she once dominated the world. At a certain point, she doesn’t even go out of her apartment, which becomes a place where she’s trapped in her mental space and is going to be paralyzed by it with this Big Brother-like billboard. She feels diminished by this confrontation every moment. And then it’s the city that she’s ready to conquer again when she’s in Sue. When she has the strength of being young again, and she’s going to eat the city.”
Rosco SoftDrop provides expansive views of Los Angeles inside Elisabeth’s home.
One of the biggest challenges the filmmakers faced was how to recreate a believable cityscape outside the set windows inside the Paris studio. Production Designer Stanislas Reydellet – whose set design was nominated for a 2025 ADG Award by the Art Director’s Guild – noted in his ADG Award design presentation that: “Coralie didn't want to shoot on key screen/VFX and she wanted the billboard to be physical. Therefore, with the constraint of a physical object between the background and the set, we pushed the thinking on 2 options:
A camera-synchronized LED wall, which was quickly discarded due to its cost and technical contraints.
A printed day and night backdrop, combined with occasional VFX retouching if necessary.”
Cinematographer Benjamin Kračun BSC also noted that they needed to use hard sunlight on set to evoke Hollywood and California but couldn’t do it with LED walls because “if the hard light from the LED screen bounces back onto the wall, it becomes grey.” He also felt the LED wall was “too modern, too sci-fi for what the background needed to represent – a kind of dreamworld/nightmare world of its own.”
In the end, they chose to use a Day/Night Rosco SoftDrop, and Stanislas said that it “worked perfectly, offering the camera considerable freedom of movement.”
Benjamin noted how the Rosco SoftDrops felt a little bit more romantic and poetic, and how they fit well with Elisabeth’s Hollywood dream. He said: “We went to a set in Paris, and looked at a SoftDrop, and we did a basic test. I turned off some lights, and I photographed Coralie against it. I hadn’t used a lot SoftDrop backdrops. I was concerned it was not going to be powerful enough for what we wanted. But then looking at those tests, and thinking about old movies - even watching an old clip from Hitchcock or something - I was like, ‘We should go for this.’”
The final artwork file of Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles that was used to produce the 32,99 m x 13,21 m (108'-3' 'x 43'-4'') Day/Night SoftDrop for The Substance.
Coralie shared the same view: “It’s a trick that has been used through the history of film,” she related. “There was this kind of softness, as if the whole history of films was able to touch it. We didn’t know if we were going to be successful. We had to find a location to take the photograph with the right angle, and we were in such a tight schedule that if it didn’t work, we were really screwed.” Phil Greenstreet, Rosco's Head of Technical Development, took the photo in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. The day was pretty foggy but the RDI team worked with the Art Department to achieve the desired quality.
The front “Day” view and a behind-the-scenes view of the rear "Night" view of the SoftDrop inside the studio.
“This backdrop was one of our biggest tasks,” she added. “We experimented. Ben can remember that the first time I came on set and it was finally set up, I just shouted a huge scream of happiness because I felt it was so real. I had bet on doing it with a real backdrop and no LED screens or green screen…I tell people when they ask, ‘Of course, you’re watching a made-up world.’ But everything in The Substance is real. It’s physical. You can touch it. That was very important. LED or green screen was just a different movie - way too tech for what we were doing.”
Cinematographer Benjamin Kračun and Demi Moore on set during the filming of The Substance.
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Do you need a Los Angeles background for your next production? The SoftDrop used in The Substance is now available for rent from our Madrid, Spain warehouse! |
The Substance won several awards since it was released last year, including The Best European Cinematography award, The Best Screenplay award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, and a Golden Globe for Demi Moore’s performance as Elisabeth Sparkle. The film has also been nominated for five Academy Awards®, including Best Picture, Best Director for Coralie Fargeat, and Best Actress for Demi Moore.
For more information about the product that the filmmakers used to create the sweeping views of Los Angeles for The Substance, please explore the SoftDrop product page on the RDI website.
Tatiana Massano February 20, 2025 Questions?
Content Marketing Specialist: Based in the Madrid office, Tatiana is ideally positioned to share inspiring stories of how customers use Rosco products to accomplish their ideas in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
