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You've worked on HALLOWEEN, THE FOG, ESCAPE FROM
NEW YORK and THE THING and JURASSIC PARK. All of these films
incorporate some wonderful techniques to surprise and shock
the audience. What do you think it takes – from a cinematographer's
point of view – to really scare an audience?
That's an interesting question. Actually an example
of creating terror comes out of making the THE FOG. After
making HALLOWEEN with no blood in it, John (Carpenter) was
very interested in how do you create not just the suspense
and the fear but how do you really scare an audience. So
the initial thought on THE FOG was that again we wouldn't
use any blood or gore and we would just try to create this
very psychological fear.
So we shot it and when we were done they cut it together
and they screened it for an audience and there really wasn't
the same reaction there was with Halloween. And this was
because the premise was a ghost story. People were drawn
and disappeared into the fog and then never seen again.
What we came to realize was that for the audience there
was no real threat of life. Everyone has experienced fog.
You drive into it yourself all the time. So, when people
disappeared into the fog in the movie and there was no apparent
consequence people were like, "So what?"
So changes were made after that?
Yes. We went back and shot some additional footage and
that included all the sort of gruesome bits like the pirates
appearing and the mullets with meat hooks and things like
that. When that was cut in for the audience there was a
completely different reaction to the movie. The audience
knew there was a threat to life in the fog. So, it went
from just sort of a suspenseful ghost story to one that
had real terror and fear in it. It was an interesting lesson.
What else do you learn from that?
There are various elements to creating terror and fear
but one is that the audience really has to fear for the
lives of the characters. They have to empathize with the
characters. They have to like the characters. They have
to realize the threat to the characters is very real and
typically this has to be demonstrated through the lives
of other minor characters. But at least the example of what
can happen to your favorite characters has to be there.
So that was one of the lessons that were reinforced over
(HALLOWEEN and THE FOG).
And then one of the other things that was developed was
how do you sort of create the mechanical aspect of scaring
an audience. How you build up the threat of something that
lurks somewhere. Part of the fun is creating the Red Herring
scare. That's sort of been developed over time so that
we're all sort of used to the fact that sometimes it
will be real and sometimes it won't be real but the
question is which time is it when it happens in the movie.
It must be a lot of fun to plot how you're going
to scare the audience.
The thing I enjoy about it is the visual aspect of it,
using the camera and a composition that creates tension
by leaving the character on one side of the frame and darkness
on the other. Those are the things that are all part of
it. That's one of the reasons that very good horror films
are all very well crafted. The visuals have to be very well
thought out. How do you work with light and dark and spaces
and make it exciting for the audience.
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