Halloween Set Visit Exclusive – Interview 4 of 9 - Phil Parmet
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On the set of the insane asylum. [Photo: Marsha LaMarca]
Staci Layne Wilson: So the look that you're going for on this, I understand, is timeless. We don't really know what year it is... Is that correct?
Phil Parmet: Um, I mean in terms of the art direction… sort of this 60's, 50's period movie kind of look.
Staci: How are you shooting this? With a lot of masters, or what?
Phil: No, very few masters actually. We're not shooting this in a traditional kind of way very much. We start out in a style that we thought we were going to carry through the whole film but it kind of has evolved.
Originally, we were going to shoot the whole film hand held, kind of like we did The Devil's Rejects, but after the first week or so we decided we wanted more control. I mean the original idea was, and it still is the idea I think, is to create something which is very realistic in its feeling and the way that it's shot. Probably what you'd call kind of realistic cinema or something like that. The idea is generally that we're observing a scene from the outside, rarely do we get inside it. Although we do occasionally shoot-overs. A lot of the time we're outside a scene or like observing it. There's almost always a perspective which is outside the scene as if someone were watching. It gives it kind of a creepy...
Staci: Sort of voyeuristic?
Phil: Yeah, very voyeuristic. Sometimes it represents a specific point of view, like Michael's point of view, but not always. And sometimes it's just an outside kind of objectification of what it is.
Staci: I understand it's meant to be a total separation from the first Halloween film more or less, but do you find that the cinematography on that is kind of revered? Are there any nods to Dean Cundey at all?
Phil: Not really. I mean, I've seen that film. I watched it, and not to say anything against Dean Cundey, but it was a pretty low budget film and it was very dark. A lot of times you couldn't see anything, you know. We want people to see things but we want them to see what we want them to see. We kind of control that. We're obviously open minded so I'll say this kind of ah, it's a process of subtraction: What don't you want the audience to see? Until it's revealed. So you don't want to see Michael very much. You don't want to see his masks. You want to feel his presence but you don't want to see him. You don't want to see the detail because it's like the devil is in the details. As soon as you start seeing the details, it becomes a movie and it's not so scary anymore. We didn't really use horror films as a model, or as a reference at all for this. Rob was much more... When we talked about this it was like 21 Grams which was shot by Rodrigo Prieto, ah, films which dealt with a sense of reality and kind of drawn in a way from "contemporary media".
Staci: Ok, but some people think that realism equals aggressive, excessive shaky cam, which I absolutely hate. I hate shaky cam.
Phil: Well that's what I said. When we started, we were going to use hand-held like The Devil's Rejects [but decided not to].
Staci: To me Devils Rejects is interesting because you shot that hand held, but it didn't feel like you needed Dramamine to watch it.
Phil: Control, that's it. We started off hand held and that's when we felt that the shakiness of it, even the kind of controlled shakiness that we had on the Devils Rejects was too much. So we scaled way back on that. Now the only time we're shooting like that is when there's action. Most of the other time, it kind of contrasts with that you know.
We created this feeling of serenity and kind of... I mean like this scene you just saw us shooting [with Loomis and Myers sitting in the insane asylum], there's like a lot of masters that are like very still but they're like, unbalanced in a way. The way the compositions are, is unbalanced just a little bit. Sometimes the lighting is unbalanced. Like that window there, it's like weird; it's not like the rest of the windows.
So, the sense of perfection is something we strive not to have. We kinda try to have things off balance a bit. The feeling that you know there is kind of an off balance composition. Off balance anything kind of puts the audience off balance as well. It makes them kind of not ready for what happens next.
Staci: I've noticed a lot of movies lately have been horribly under-lit and not using much fill, so... Are we going to see people's eyes in this movie? Please? [laughter]
Phil: Oh yeah. Well it's… I think [it's important to understand] that actors act a lot with their eyes. Particularly film actors. It's a cliché but it's the window of the soul. It's something I'm always aware of, I always try to see what's going on. Although what's weird is that originally, Rob and I were looking at dailies and a lot of times, early in the film, you see something in Michael's eyes. He said he didn't want to see them. Then later on he's like, "I kind of like seeing in the eyes," you know? Now the eyes have sort of become this thing.
Staci: Because the eyes have a life of their own?
Phil: They do, in a sense. I shot this scene where there's this enormous screen with Michael's eyes and Doctor Loomis was standing in front of it saying, "These are the eyes of a monster."
Staci: What's one of the most challenging, interesting, or fun things that you've done cinematically on this film?
Phil: That I'm really happy with? I love this room, actually. This room turned out to be great! I mean when we first looked at it, you know, it was nothing like this. It was painted and the windows were all transparent. So we made it into a monochromatic cell which is huge. But we use every corner of it.
[end]
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