The Cell was shot in the Super 35 format, and Laufer decided to stick with one stock for the entire picture: Kodak’s Vision 200T 5274. "I tested all of the available stocks, and it came down to 74 and 48," he remarks. "They are almost identical except that the 74 is half a stop faster [though Kodak rates the stock a full stop faster] and has truer color tracking in terms of under- and overexposure. Kodak had just come out with the new [lower-contrast] 74, and Don Henderson from Eastman made it possible for us to be one of the first movies to try it. 79 was used on occasion, but when the visual-effects unit had to push it a stop for Photosonics work, it was too much to ask for it to match the 74."
It is highly unusual to use more than one brand of camera package on a film, but Laufer did, opting to employ Panavision gear from Panavision Hollywood for the outdoor sequences and Arriflex from Otto Nemenz for the interiors. The reason? Lenses. The cinematographer tested Primos and Cooke S4 lenses against each other (the new Zeiss Ultra Primes weren’t out yet), first on a stage and then outdoors in order to check them for flare. "What it came down to is that they treat the phenomenon known as Narcissus differently," he explains. "The light coming in through the lens hits the film, and while most of it is absorbed into the film to create the image, a certain amount reflects back and hits the back of the lens. Narcissus can create something like a flare; it’s not really a flare, but [more of an image] that is moving in the opposite direction to a highlight. It happens with objects like headlights and sun flares.
"Primos are designed [to turn the flare] into a very clear, resolved image, while Cooke has taken the opposite approach and diffused it; with a Cooke lens [the flare] can turn into a slightly blue haze, or ’blooming,’ especially wide open. If you aren’t aware of it, it can contaminate your blacks. But it’s not a matter of one approach being right and one being wrong. I simply preferred the way the Primos handled specular flare."
When it came to underexposures, however, Laufer chose the Cookes over the Primos. "Once you got to two and three stops under, the Cookes were performing two-thirds of a stop better than the Primos. Everything was much more three-dimensional and the colors were truer. Those distinct characteristics are probably due to the different coatings and to each lensmaker’s approach to Narcissus."
Taking advantage of the shooting schedule, Laufer used the Primos for the first three weeks of the shoot and the last two weeks, all of which were day exteriors. He used the Cookes on the stages, where the light levels generally remained low and the aperture usually sat somewhere between a T2 and T2.8. Using the Primos outdoors also allowed him to utilize a 3:1 Primo 135-420mm T2.8 zoom as a variable prime in the African region of Namibia, where a dream sequence and couple of inner-world sequences were shot.
The camera packages included a Platinum, a PanArri for the Primo-based sequences, and an Arriflex 535B and an Arri 435 for scenes photographed with the Cookes. Camera moves were fairly routine, with a few notable exceptions. The most arresting sequence is a home movie of Stargher as a young child being baptized in a pond. The scene was shot in two styles that were married in editing. Fine-arts photographer Cecil Cole used an underwater camera to make shots of the baptism from an underwater perspective, lending the sequence the feel of a distant memory. The show’s main unit used an "up-and-over rig" to boom in a perfect arc over a group standing in the pond, and the camera keeps shooting as it plunges into the water. "The part where we see a man’s feet under the water is on a stage with somebody’s feet in a tank and the camera on its side," Laufer reveals. "Then we bring the camera upright onto a tide pool, where Catherine is lying. It’s actually a simple transition no computer manipulation or any other tricks were involved."
On shots such as these, Laufer received help from a crack crew that included camera operator Tony Gaudioz, first assistant Don Burghardt, second assistant Brett Gates, loader Kate Santore, key grip Rawlins, gaffer Ball and riggers Nead and Leitelt. While there was no second unit on the film, there was a visual-effects team headed up by director of photography Dave Drzewiecki. Laufer also singled out Sara Romilly and Lauren Ritchie (New Line’s postproduction supervisor and vice-president of visual effects, respectively) for their "incredible support," and timer Jim Passon and Ron Koch at Deluxe for their dedication to the project.
One of the film’s most demanding shots involved helicopter footage taken in Namibia, where Laufer worked with his regular overseas camera crew (camera grip Gary Pocock, focus puller Colin Watkinson and second assistant Dan Holland). The scene starts on Catherine, sitting in bed in Los Angeles and watching television. The camera looks down at her hands holding a small pillow, then drifts over the folds of the blanket, which transform into the undulating sand dunes of Namibia. "It was a great technical challenge," Laufer remarks. "First we shot Jennifer sitting on her bed in a practical location in Los Angeles at T2 or T2.8. Then we shot an aerial plate in Namibia. Back in L.A., we re-created the shot of Jennifer’s hands on a stage. We not only had to match the stage lighting with the earlier bedroom scene, but also the perspective of the blanket with the aerial view of the sand dunes.
"In order to get the same perspective, we had to be down among the blanket’s folds, so we used a Kenworthy snorkel lens, which needs a stop of at least T8. I think I was working at a T16 in order to achieve the depth of field and get the performance out of the snorkel system. That meant we had to bring up the lighting values."
To get the aerial perspective of the sand dunes, Laufer strapped a Libra head onto the nose of a Jet Ranger helicopter. The rugged digital head, which won a Scientific and Engineering Award at this year’s Academy Awards, is good for any kind of off-road work, but The Cell marked one of the first times the rig was used to capture aerial footage. "It can do motion-control and motion-capture, and if you want roll, pitch or pan-stabilization you just press a button," enthuses Laufer, who was able to mount the Libra head on the helicopter because it had been approved by the British Civil Aviation Authority. (FAA approval is still pending.)
The Cell moves from the sunny expanses of the African desert to the dingy, underground torture chamber where Stargher imprisons and kills his victims. The six women, bleached as white as snow and made up to look like kinky porcelain dolls, are posed in bizarre, sometimes contorted positions and displayed behind glass as though in a shop window. They are glimpsed only briefly in the film, but the images are unusually potent.
Each victim got her own lighting treatment. "The [ambience] was incredibly moody," recalls gaffer Ball. "One room would be lit entirely with Kino Flos for a cool, white look; the next room would be all tungsten and color." A woman tied up in a dentist’s chair was lit from above with green bulbs while a Kino glared up at her from below. Another, more pastoral setting was enveloped in daylight blue fluorescents. Behind a different window, a ballerina stands before an octagonal mirror, bathed in a golden glow. For one more grim tableau in which a girl, frozen to death, can be seen pushing a baby carriage, four softboxes, each containing nine 500-watt EAL bulbs, were hung above the action.
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