"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."
Created as a trailer for a film, The Metamorphosis is an experimental film combining traditional digital video with 8mm and 16mm film, analogue medium-format photography, microscopy, photograms, cyanotypes, contact prints, and digital scans.
CAST
The Body and Voice of GREGOR Noah Read
The Body and Feet of GRETE Ellie Holmes & Hannah Blackwell
The Voice of GRETE Nelly Read
The Voice of MR SAMSA Noel Read
The Voice of MRS SAMSA Nicola Read
CREW
Director Noah Read
Producers Noah Read & Hannah Blackwell
Executive Producer John Smith
Written for the Screen by Noah Read
Based on the Novella by Franz Kafka
and the Stageplay by Steven Berkoff
Assistant Director Hannah Blackwell
Creative Advisors Noel Read and John Smith
Graphic Designer Noah Read
Camera Operators Noah Read & Hannah Blackwell
Editor Noah Read
Sound Engineer Ellie HolmesMix Engineer Ellie Holmes & Noah Read
MUSIC & SOUND
Music from "Ghosts" by Nine Inch Nails
Written and performed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Foley Audio Recordist Noah Read
ADR Audio Recordist Noah Read & Ellie Holmes
On-Set Audio Recordist Ellie Holmes
THANK YOU
To John Smith, Noel Read, Oliver Sherwood, and David Freeman.
With thanks to the Project Gutenberg
Dedicated to Helen Ings Digby.
The script contains translations from David Wylle, Stanley Corngold, Ernst Kaiser, Eithne Wilkins Edwin & Willa Muir Joachim Neugroschel
Shot at Noel Read Photography's studio in Milton Keynes, and Westminster School of Arts Studios in Harrow.
"All language is but a poor translation." — Franz Kafka (tran.)
T H E D A R K R O O M
The making of The Metamorphosis.
Still frames from 'THE METAMORPHOSIS (2024)'. Canon C300 / NIKON D850 / Nikon D800, 28mm / 35mm / 50mm / 80mm. © Desktop Studios 2024.
FEBRUARY 2024.
HARROW, LONDON — When setting out to make an experimental proof-of-concept film, one of the first tests I carried out was with film manipulation. I tried scratching, cutting, tearing, burning, and melting different film stocks to see the kinds of image it would produce, and hoe the method affected the clarity of the image it produced. Carrying out some tests on blank film allowed me to create overlays that could be used over the top of digital images, cutting down ointments film costs.
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'ANALOGUE GLITCH TESTS', HARROW, Nikon D800. © Desktop Studios 2026.
'DARK ROOM', HARROW, Nikon D800, 50mm. © NOAH READ 2026.
After a long day in the dark room at Harrow, I had a set of images that I was happy would work. Up next, was some microscopy. Luckily — or perhaps eerily — the photography studios at Westminster School of Arts have a lovely selection of archived bugs, along with various cell slides, so I had a good selection of material (once you get past the shivers).
MARCH 2024.
MILTON KEYNES, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE — Practical shooting took place over two main locations: Read Photography studios in Milton Keynes, and Westminster School of Arts studios in Harrow. In MK, I set up the typewriter and lighting, and then very carefully found a suicidal woodlouse who wanted nothing more than to crawl into the mechanism, but despite his attempts, was nevertheless released unharmed back into the wild at the end of the day.
'TYPEWRITER BTS', MILTON KEYNES, iPHONE 14 PRO, 77mm equivalent. © Desktop Studios 2026.
