Referring to Frankenstein’s single-source lighting method, del Toro explains: “It means the majority of the lights are outside, so the set has a huge amount of light coming through a window. Basically, you are gaffing the light with the set. You are using the window as a gaffer device for the light to shine through.”
Much of this effect, Laustsen explains, emerges via candle lighting — particularly in the film’s first section that is focused on Victor as he constructs the Creature; the lighting is “very romantic.”
“When things start to fall apart, everything is getting very cold, very steel-blue … the color palette is built in from the beginning,” Cinematographer Dan Laustsen explains.
“If the light is cold and the colors on the set or the wardrobe are warm, that’s countering; if the light is warm, then you’re adding magenta or yellow,” del Toro adds of keeping the palette complex. “We do extensive tests and make decisions about coordinating the language of shapes and textures between the set and the wardrobe so all these things work together and create a single story told in images.”
(https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/guillermo-del-to...)
The cinematography, lighting, and sets in Frankenstein are incredible, Pat Alexander! The cinematography, lighting, and sets in all the Guillermo del Toro films I've seen are phenomenal! Mimic scared me growing up, and those three things are part of the reason that movie is so scary.