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DENIS CROSSAN BSC
“I’d rather do something that is right for
the character than have the photography go a certain way.”
continued from previous page
stage in this place and two or three back lot sets. But that was some culture shock going there from Hollywood.
“They had a completely different way of working, because under the old regime they might spend two years making a movie. They were all being paid by the govern- ment regardless, so if a set wasn’t there they’d hang around for three or four weeks while it was being built and then they’d carry on. We were making that film over a ten week shoot and they’d think we were crazy.”
In 1995 Crossan shot
Joyride, a short film for his
friend Jim Gillespie, which led to offers for the director that eventually included the horror movie I Know What You Did Last Summer. After shooting the eccentric Killer Tongue, and the problematic art caper Incognito – on which original director Peter Weller was replaced after a few
and that the ‘dead’ man might not be so dead after all.
“You do films like that,” Crossan explained, “and you think it might be easier to do because it’s a very straight- forward, commercial horror film. The hardest thing to do was not see the fish- erman’s face, and to work out ways to
try and make him interesting. He’d walk into places and you’ve got light around it and you’d try and keep it off him.
“There’s only so far you pull his hat down over his eyes. I tried to do different things like having lights in front of his face and stuff like that. It was a chal-
lenge through the whole thing, to make something like that work which I’d never really considered before.”
The box office success of I Know What You Did Last Summer led to offers of more of the same for both director and cinematogra- pher. Crossan preferred to look for something quite different, and went on instead to Christopher Miles’
starrily cast period piece The Clandestine Marriage.
And last year proved busier than ever as he completed two movies – The Hole, a suspenseful tale starring Throe Birch, and the
coming-of-age drama
Me Without You, with
Anna Friel and
Michelle Williams
from Dawson’s Creek.
“They were two good scripts, and
were good films to do
in different ways. The
Hole, for example,
was pretty much full-
on all the time. It had so much psy- chological stuff going on and also the physical stuff down this hole that the characters become trapped in.
“Then when I did Me Without You, which is about these two girls growing up through the 70s, 80s and 90s, I thought that should be easier but it doesn’t work out like that. Each film starts to throw up a whole lot of separate problems that you’ve got to get around.
“In lots of ways films evolve as you do them. I remember we did this sequence on The Hole where the psy-
chiatrist finds out that all is not as it seems, so she dri- ves over to confront one of the characters and get the truth out of her. It was quite a big, emotional scene all shot in this car.
“So I thought it would be a good idea, instead of shooting in the car with the windows open doing cross shots, that everything be kept outside.
“Also there were trees all around and I let the trees reflect on the windscreen in all the shots. It wasn’t that big a deal, it was something that happened on the day, but it kind of adds to it and
worked at that point in the script. You’re not seeing a clean image, and that worked with the emotional story because she’s trying to get through but can’t get to the truth as yet.
“It comes back to trying to think of the character when I’m working. I’d rather do something that is right for the character than have the photogra- phy go a certain way.
“Good photography can heighten things, like music can, so that all those emotions from the actor are enhanced. But the kind of cameramen I admire are the ones who will under- play things for the sake of a movie,” said Crossan. ■ ANWAR BRETT
The Hole was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
weeks – Crossan returned to the States to link up again with Gillespie on the hit horror film.
In it, four teenagers are involved in a car accident that seemingly kills a fisherman who was walking down a dark, winding road. The youngsters make a pact to dispose of the body and keep the incident secret, but soon find that someone knows something
Photos from top: Sarah Michelle Gellar (centre) in I Know What You Did Last Summer; Iain Glen in Silent Scream and a scene from the The Hole
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