Making of Vampires in “Sinners” – Behind Cinematography and Prosthetics

Oscars 2026

by Mascha DeikovaMarch 10^th, 2026

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“There are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true, it can pierce the veil between life and death, conjuring spirits from the past and the future.” This is the opening line from “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler’s latest horror film. Yet it could just as easily describe the gift of filmmaking itself, and “Sinners” proves it beautifully. This year’s Oscars darling, one of the frontrunners with a record-breaking 16 nominations, is definitely a visceral and gripping experience that will make you want to laugh, sing, dance, choke, and shiver with fear. The film mixes blues, period drama, and – surprisingly – supernatural evil in a way you’ve likely never seen before. Let’s talk about vampires in “Sinners,” and what makes them special, as well as the movie’s masterful cinematography and special effects makeup.

“Sinners” tells the story of twins, gangsters Smoke and Stack (both brilliantly portrayed by Michael B. Jordan), who return to their hometown in 1932 and purchase an old lumber mill from a former Ku Klux Klan member. Their idea is to create a juke joint and invite their talented blues-performing cousin, Sammie, the protagonist. Yet, as it turns out, racists and supernatural creatures are in their way and not willing to let it happen. As the film’s main plot spans just about 24 hours, the story is packed with twists and develops at a furious pace. You become so enchanted by it, so sucked in (pardon the pun), that the next moment, the epilogue is unfolding before your eyes. Wow! How on Earth did they do it?

Unconventional choice of formats in “Sinners”: the why

Not only does Ryan Coogler blend genres and aesthetics, creating a southern-gothic vision for “Sinners.” He and his cinematographer, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, decided to mix the formats as well and made a rather unusual choice in rendering this story. After extensive testing, they combined 5-perf 65 Ultra Panavision and 15-perf 65mm IMAX (something nobody’s done before). As Autumn explains in the interview with the ASC:

This combination asks the viewer to really use their eyes and scan the image, going from this very wide landscape to the taller IMAX frame.

The first idea of going large-format for “Sinners” came from Jesse Ehrman (the president of production and development at Warner Bros.). As director Ryan Coogler explains in this “ASC Clubhouse conversation,” the studio was thinking from a business perspective. After all, they had to motivate people to leave their homes and watch something on a bigger theater screen. When Ryan experienced the IMAX image during the American premiere of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” he knew for sure: this was it. The epic scale suited the story of “Sinners” more than anything else.

Ryan explains that for him, the decision was also emotional. During the research phase, he listened to many blues recordings from the 1930s. But only when he encountered a melody that had been re-recorded by the same musician decades later did he realize how much of the original soul had been lost due to the technological limitations of the time. They simply couldn’t record the same fidelity in the 1930s that we can today. The same thought occurred to him when considering the use of large format. By choosing it, they were giving these people – “who had next to nothing and were taught by their own government they weren’t human beings” – the epic visual treatment they deserved. And with that, the decision was made.

Cameras and lenses

The idea of mixing these formats came from Autumn. She called it: “full banana, if we did this.” As Ryan explained in the conversation, the two of them often exchanged long emails during pre-production, sharing ideas and images that came from an emotional place. In his words, Autumn is very ambitious and passionate. She simply likes every frame to be great.

About 20% of the film was shot with IMAX MSM 9802 cameras and 50mm and 80mm Panavision lenses, custom-built for “Oppenheimer”. Autumn adored their softness, and Ryan had no problem restricting the visual storytelling in some parts to just those two focal lengths. In fact, he said it made things simpler. For the dreamlike moment at the end of the film, where Smoke and Annie appear again, Autumn asked Dan Sasaki, Panavision’s legendary lens expert, to create another custom lens: a Petzval 80mm for the Imax camera. Here’s the resulting scene:

Blurred edges, clarity in the center, aberrations… Autumn admits she loves it when lenses have character, so she often detunes them. For the non-IMAX parts of the story, the filmmakers used Panavision System 65 Studio cameras together with both vintage spherical and anamorphic Panavision lenses, Sphero 65 and Ultra Panatar 1.3x.

An interesting fact is that the team knew not all cinemas would be able to present their dance of formats properly. So they had a special board on set showing how many theaters would be able to display each frame, and in what way. It was important that everyone paid attention to this and kept those limitations in mind while shooting.

The phenomenal juke joint long take

There is a 3-minute-20-second sequence in “Sinners” that is so mind-blowing and awe-inspiring that I’m grateful we can rewatch it as many times as we want. As one commenter notes below the video, “When you watch this scene, you realize what cinema was made for.” I have to admit I fully share that sentiment, and I hope you will too:

Although this juke party scene is not an uninterrupted take, but rather five shots invisibly stitched together, it was still a huge logistical task. Both Autumn and Ryan knew this was their chance to use IMAX. Because the IMAX camera is extremely loud and usually problematic for audio, the fact that this scene was a musical sequence made it possible. It also involved epic choreography showing how Sammie conjures spirits with his music, carrying us across different times, from the ancient past to the modern future. The surreal quality and the sheer number of details called for large format and an impactful long take. Ryan wanted the moment to create a feeling that the music could truly summon something, not only the vampires but also the forces of good. It needed to feel like a completely transcendent experience, as if ghosts were actually joining the humans on the dance floor.

The challenge was accepted. In addition to deciding where the stitches could be and planning complex choreography for the camera and the many performers, they also had to figure out the lighting. Autumn Durald recalls they generally tried to light interiors with a combination of toplight and practicals. It was important to her that everything felt real, not staged. In a real juke joint, there would be practical lights above the tables, so the toplight felt like the right choice.

In 1930s Mississippi, not everyone had electricity, so we have a scene [showing them] tapping into the electric line, which allowed them to string some incandescent bulbs in the juke.

Autumn Durald, a quote from her interview with the ASC

Vampires in “Sinners”: finding a connection

What amazes me most in this film is how “Sinners” finds a new angle on vampire mythology, old as the world itself. The vampires are antagonists, for sure, but they are not the “real” evil in this story. (Racists are.) When they appear at the door, they are not as hostile to the main characters as people like Hogwood are, the man who sold the mill. On the contrary, they sing, dance, enjoy their time together, and promise anyone who joins them a sense of belonging to a big, welcoming community:

In fact, vampires and the Black community share a number of parallels in this film. Both are portrayed as beings treated differently, almost like outsiders who are not meant to belong. The Black characters experience this through the infamously mandated racial segregation in all public facilities (hence the setup of the juke joint, opened exclusively to the community). Vampires, on the other hand, must be invited to cross the threshold and enter. As we know from the mythology, they cannot simply walk in, and the film shows this more than once.

One of the other essential topics in “Sinners” is family. Yet even here, the main villain, Remmick, dreams of creating his own “one big family.” Among his followers there is no discrimination, and everyone appears equally content in their endless existence. It is a rather interesting angle, isn’t it?

The prosthetic challenges

The vampire’s wounds and bites feel so real and tangible in this film that it gives you the ick. There is a very simple reason. They are real, as almost everything you see on screen is prosthetics and special effects make-up. Led by the talented artist, Mike Fontaine, who, by the way, developed the mesmerizing look of the Penguin, the team created hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces. As Mike explains in the making of making-of below, the production had a large cast, and almost everyone went through some kind of transformation or injury. That meant he and his team had to design and build a wide range of custom pieces for each character. Of course, it was also difficult to keep track of how those injuries progressed over the course of a single night, especially since the scenes were filmed out of order.

Even if make-up is an additive process, we try to create an illusion that it’s subtractive.

Mike Fontaine

This created another challenge. The team had to work with layers to show that something was missing from a character’s face, whether bits of flesh or simply a torn lip. In Remmick’s case, there was a full transformation. As the film went on, Remmick’s façade broke down more and more until he barely looked human anymore.  

Despite all the challenges, the final results are so impressive and realistic that the effort clearly paid off.

The development process of special makeup in “Sinners”

Mike Fontaine shares in the interview that he can’t stand real-life violence and finds it difficult even to look at it. So when working on prosthetic wounds, he chooses to think of them as a form of abstract art. Reds, purples, yellows, oranges, the forms, the textures…

I’m just interested in what will be interesting artistically. If there’s a wound, how can that shape be almost a beautiful shape or something that is compositionally balanced? And if there’s blood – how can the blood be a pattern that is almost like an impressionistic painting?

Mike Fontaine

To achieve the bespoke level of realism in wounds, he studied animal attacks as reference. What would skin look like after a shark bite, for example? How would it change when it burns? Some of the material they had to analyze was gruesome and disturbing, but for Mike it was important to mimic reality rather than take references from other vampire films.

In addition to prosthetics and fake teeth, there are gallons of fake blood in “Sinners,” of all types and kinds. Some formulas are meant to be used in the mouth and spat out, others are designed to be pumped through tubes, and some are made to dry directly on the skin. As actors share in the making-of, SFX makeup influences the acting more than one might expect. There is also something strangely liberating about being covered in blood and sweat. On “Sinners,” it felt like a bonding experience for the cast and crew alike.

The eyes of vampires in “Sinners”

Another small detail I found fascinating about the vampires in “Sinners” is their eyes.

Mike Fontaine mentions that in their early conversations, Ryan often spoke about a phenomenon called tapetum lucidum, the reflective quality found in the eyes of many animals. Imagine meeting a cat in a park at night. Sometimes, it will seem as if its eyes are glowing. Ryan wanted to achieve the same effect for vampires in “Sinners.” Fortunately, Mike found a creator who was developing contact lenses with this exact effect at the time. So, the lenses in “Sinners” actually bounced light back. Beautiful and terrifying. And what a clever idea!

No wonder the Makeup and Hairstyling department got an Academy Award nomination! As did the cinematographer, the director, the costume designer, the lead actor, and so on, and so forth. The Oscars event will take place on Sunday, March 15th, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This year, several absolutely stunning films are competing for prizes, so we will definitely keep following the race and update you along the way.

Until then, tell us, please, what you think of “Sinners,” their extraordinary cinematography choices, and unusual approach to vampires. Let’s talk a bit more in the comments below!

Feature image: a film still from “Sinners” by Ryan Coogler, 2025.