"It's always interesting when you're working with a new director," adds Russell. "You're trying to figure out what the other person wants, yet you're never sure if what they're saying is what they mean. It takes working with that person to understand where their head really is and where to go with it. I'm used to working with directors who are very visually oriented, so I was quite happy to discover that Rob has a very strong visual sense. I find that my work gets that much better when I have a director who has an idea of what he wants and understands what my contribution is. Before going onto each set, we had a lot of discussions concerning the lighting. He's very conscious of light and understands how its direction and mood works; when we went into a scene, we were able to talk about the light source, and we almost always agreed on the best angles from which to show the set. Some directors don't even think about the set; all they consider is the actors, the words and how they go together. That method is the most difficult way to work in terms of lighting because once the director has staged the scene, you then have to figure out how to light the given set to the way he's staged the action. It's much easier — and usually more visually interesting — if the director understands the set and the angles that will be the most visual, and then encourages the actors to work within that environment."
Expanding upon this theme, Bowman submits, "The fundamental language I refer to in staging is: where are the triangles in the shot, and where are the three planes of depth the foreground, middleground and background? Then I have to consider the look I want to achieve, the time I have, and the actors' blocking in relation to those [other] factors. I look for where my light source is coming from which I may want to be cross- or backlight and ask, 'How can I say something about the character or scene with simple staging and the right camera move without that becoming the star of the scene?' I've done projects in the past where an image we've created becomes more about how it looks than what's happening on a story or character level. Ultimately, in those cases, you fall short in a narrative sense, because you've aimed for the wrong goal."
"[Blocking a scene for the best visual angles] really is the best way of working," enthuses Russell. "Once we get to a set, give it to me for an hour so that I can rough in some source lighting and then bring the actors in and stage the scene. If they don't naturally gravitate toward the light we want, then the director can encourage them to do that. That way, you don't have to fight to create a good look. Every set usually has its own look to start with, so if you utilize what you already have, it's then just a matter of adding a few final touches before you're ready to shoot. I've found that if you're shooting a certain scene and nothing is working right, it's usually because the camera is in the wrong spot. If you get the camera in the right spot in relation to the actors and the set, it all just falls into place."
In designing the look for the film, Bowman and Russell discussed which aspects of the series' photography would be maintained and which would be reinterpreted for the added scope that the larger screen offered. "The X-Files is unique in that most films don't have five years of previous material that you have to relate to," attests Russell. "Usually, you just go and create what you want to create, as you want to create it. Here, we had to confront a series which has award-winning cinematography. We couldn't totally ignore that, so we had to consider the elements that people really associate with The X-Files' look. Of course, one word instantly comes to mind: dark! So darkness became an element that I latched onto as a theme that I could carry throughout the movie.
"The techniques we used were an extension of what John Bartley had done - using vast areas of darkness as compositional elements — and Rob always encouraged me to keep this dark element in every frame. Even in scenes that were brightly lit, I tried to bring a sense of darkness to them that made them somewhat unreal, without making it jump out at you. For example, if we had two people out in the middle of a flat plane in a day exterior, I'd put large blacks above them to create a negative fill and place them almost in shadow. I tried not to do that to the point where you'd think they were standing in a shadow; instead, you'd ask, 'Something's wrong with this image, what is it?' On interiors, I'd always try to frame foreground people or objects in silhouette. That way, the audience would feel that element of darkness even though the performers are quite bright.
"Both Chris Carter and Rob were very concerned with the composition, and with giving the movie a cinematic look," Russell continues. "Television is very conducive to having big faces right in the middle of the screen, and you often need to use a lot of tight close-ups just to be able to see the actors. As soon as you do a wide shot, definition is lost, people get small and it's difficult to see anything. Rob was used to shooting with wide lenses on the show, while I'm more accustomed to using longer lenses, and we had discussions prior to shooting about going with longer lenses than he was used to. Unfortunately, we were shooting in Super 35 and not anamorphic, so we lost a lot of that long-lens feel that you can get with anamorphic. But even though we were using spherical lenses, I tried to encourage him to use longer focal lengths all around. Instead of using a 27mm, for instance, I'd tell him to use a 50mm and pull back basically doubling whatever he'd put on the camera and backing off to lend a sense of compression to the imagery. It was a learning process for both of us; Rob was learning about long lenses, while I was learning about wide lenses. It will be interesting to see the final cut of the movie; for some scenes we used wide lenses, and for others we shot exclusively with long lenses."
"The use of longer lenses and was something Ward brought to the party because of his experiences with Tony Scott," Bowman elaborates. "Using longer focal lengths also allowed Ward to create a more specific lighting style. Because the lenses weren't showing off as much to the right and left of frame, Ward was able to place his lights more specifically."
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