American Cinematographer - January 1984 - 61

Hal Trussell

Visual

Style for

ONE DARK
NIGHT
One Dark

Night is a teenage sus¬
pense-horror film that blends sev¬
eral cinematographic elements.
Each element was chosen for styl¬
istic purposes to complement the
story and to enhance the enter¬
tainment potential. Conceived by
a visual director, Tom McLoughlin, and his co-writer, Michael
Hawes, the stylization of One
Dark

Night began

even as

it

was

written.
A

primary stylistic ele¬

Trapped in a

their intent to make op¬
timum use of subject movement
and camera fluidity. Frequent
movement of the camera would
ment was

mausoleum

accomplish three goals: i) give the
film production value in excess of
its actual budget, z) give the film
an internal rhythm, and 3) draw
the viewer more deeply into the
suspense of the film.
A moving camera is effec¬
tive in satisfying this last point
even when the camera positioning
is third-person-objective. This is
because the

movement

of the

cam¬

subjective quality due
to the sense of "presence" experi¬
enced by the audience through the
era creates a

movement

itself. What

more

sim¬

ple visual device

to draw the au¬
dience into a film than by moving
them closer to the subject? For all
these reasons then, in One Dark

Night, from fade-in
the

camera

is

to

fade-out,

panning, rising, tilt¬

ing, following, or tracking.
In writing the screenplay,
Tom and Michael had sought to

January 1984

American

Cinematographer

59



American Cinematographer - January 1984

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