The Digital Mood Board
Pinterest is a visual discovery social media platform where users can collect and organize images and videos into virtual collections known as “boards.” A Pinterest board is, in essence, a digital mood board or scrapbook. While it is used by the general public for a wide range of interests like recipes and home decor, this exact functionality has made it an indispensable professional tool in the pre-production phase of filmmaking.
Before a single frame is shot, a film’s creative team must first define its visual identity. They need to agree on a cohesive look and feel that will inform every aesthetic choice. The Pinterest board has become a simple, collaborative, and highly effective way to develop and communicate this vision.
A Crucial Pre-Production Tool
Various key departments on a film production rely on Pinterest boards (or similar digital mood boards) to establish the movie’s aesthetic foundation:
- Directors: A director will often create a master board to communicate their overall vision for the film. This board might contain a wide range of images, including paintings, photographs, and stills from other movies, that evoke the desired tone, color palette, and emotional atmosphere.
- Production Designers: The production designer and their art department will create detailed boards for each specific set or location. These boards will collect references for architecture, furniture, color schemes, and set dressing, providing a clear visual blueprint for what needs to be built or sourced.
- Costume Designers: The costume designer will create boards for each main character, curating images of clothing, fabrics, and accessories that define the character’s style and reflect their personality and circumstances within the story.
- Cinematographers: The director of photography may use a board to collect references for lighting styles, camera angles, and lens choices that will help to create the film’s specific look, whether it be gritty and realistic or stylized and dreamlike.
By allowing for the easy collection and sharing of visual ideas, the Pinterest board has become a crucial tool for ensuring that all creative departments are aligned and working together to create a single, unified visual world for the film.