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dapted from his own short play Aby Irish writer Enda Walsh
(Hunger), Chatroom, filmed at Shepperton Studios and on locations in London, is a creepy
tale of teenage manipulation set between the real world and an on- line universe.
Described as a “Lord Of The Flies for the noughties’ generation”, the film co-stars Aaron Johnson, Imogen Poots, Matthew Beard, Hannah Murray and Daniel Kaluuya. It’s the first collaboration between Japanese director Hideo Nakata and French cinematographer Benoit Delhomme AFC, whose award-winning credits range from The Scent Of Green Papaya and Cyclo to The Proposition.
Nakata is no stranger to conjuring up chilling tales of the unexpected having originated The Ring cycle of horror films with Ringu in 1998 and the sequel a year later. The films were later remade in Hollywood with Nakata himself directing The Ring 2. Dark Water, shot by Nakata in his native Japan in 2002, was also Americanised in 2005.
Chatroom brought Paris-born, Cherbourg-raised Delhomme back to the UK where he’d previously made both Breaking And Entering for Anthony Minghella and 1408 for Mikael Hafstrom.
According to the filmmakers: “Chatroom touches on the darker side of social networking and depicts the power and influence these virtual worlds hold over us. It takes us into the real and virtual
lives of a group of London teenagers and shows us, with terrifying consequences, the power and the ability to manipulate reality in a virtual world.”
Notes Delhomme: “The director’s name attracted me to this story straightaway. I thought the combination of the script and him would make something very exciting to shoot. I didn’t see the play [first produced in 2005], but cinema gives us the chance to make a visual metaphor for the internet.
“In a brief note before the script begins, Enda and Hideo wrote some lines about what they had in mind: the idea was to have these kids at home when they’re chatting online alone, but then, in the film, they actually project themselves into this internet place where they then meet and talk, the idea being to show the lives they imagine for themselves... ‘What an incredibly visual idea’, I thought. The idea was to make the online sets more vibrant, more
beautiful in every way, so when you come back to their bedrooms, like looks sad and drab. Contrast was everything. Online shouldn’t look like a real space; we needed to invent everything from scratch: the design, the lighting and the colours.”
Says Delhomme: “You’re never really meant to know whether it’s night or day there; it’s a 24-hour world, all the light is artificial. The chatrooms are like four walls with no windows, the ‘windows’ being the ceilings and the floors, which have a view out on to the other chatrooms. All the light coming in I had to create,“That,” concludes, Delhomme, “was quite a challenge.” QUENTIN FALK
Chatroom, opening in the UK on Boxing Day, was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA Vivid 500T 8547, ETERNA 500T 8573 and ETERNA 250D 8563
THE DP VIEW
BENOIT DELHOMME AFC
By the time I arrived on the
film, the director, producer and “production designer had already figured out the idea that the online world would be more saturated, that the sets would have strong, vibrant colours.
What did I think? I decided to go with the flow then suggested trying to increase the effect even further, to make the colours even stronger still.
I was also keen to try and use new stocks for this film and found that Fujifilm has at the time just produced the ETERNA Vivid 500T. The first test was so special, so interesting and didn’t look like something I’d pushed at all.
It all looked really organic, very natural, very sharp and I liked the texture immediately. I felt the contrasting looks of the different Fujifilm stocks [including ETERNA 500T and ETERNA 250D] would work perfectly to represent the
on and offline worlds of the film. ”
FEATURE IN FOCUS
CAUGHTINTHEWEB
TERRORS OF THE INTERNET COME TO VIRTUAL LIFE IN CHATROOM
Photos top and above: scenes from The Chatroom which co-stars Aaron Johnson, Imogen Poots, Matthew Beard, Hannah Murray and Daniel Kaluuya
34 • EXPOSURE • THE MAGAZINE • FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE