American Cinematographer - December 2000 - 41

of the things that I found

with

interesting was [Nights] real care
for the characters; he has a real love

used

for

nothing particularly unusual about

Sense,

one

so

people, a genuine kindness. And I

think that's also

of Unbreakable;
fantastic
adventures

whatever

true

happen, the film is first about people,
and about the relationship between a
man, a wife and a son. We always
made the family scenes at home
warmer

in color tone than the exte¬

rior world;

even

if there are problems

[in the home], it's

a warm

and good

camera

filters, but he sometimes

gels on the lights.
At the start of the

David's look. But
tion

as

film, there's

his transforma¬

proceeds, his lighting becomes
stylized, as Serra explains.

more

"Sometimes, I used visual references
comic-book

style. In fact, our
pictorial reference was comic
books." In the story, Elijah is a huge
comic-book fan, and he gains a
strange sort of comfort from David's
to

at

birth, at age 6 and at age 10.1 used

coral filters

main

on

the

childhood, [and

camera

for

Elijah's

he gets older] he
becomes more normal [in color tone
and then a bit] cooler. I pullas

processed Elijah's childhood scenes
one stop to make them softer. Other
than that, I did nothing unusual with
the processing. We used two stocks,
Kodak Vision 320T 5277 for family
scenes and
Elijah's childhood, and
Vision 500T 5279 for the exterior

world."

place." The cinematographer adds
that the extra

just
light sources.

soft

of warmth

sense

created with

a

hint of CTO

whose

Serra,

was

credits

on

also

include The

Wings of the Dove (see
'98), Jude, Funny Bones, The
Color of Lies and Map of the Human

AC June

he has always been fasci¬

Heart, says

nated with the subtle ways in which
color can affect an audience, and he
worked

design

closely with Shyamalan to
color scheme

an appropriate
for Unbreakable. "In

our

[initial]

determined how the
color structure depended on the
character," Serra says. "Each character
would have a color arc,' quite a subtle
game with changes of colors -
things that are not supposed to be
very obvious onscreen, but which
still create a feeling [in the audi¬

increasing

ence]."

evidence

meetings,

we

The

important
"color arcs" belong to the main char¬
acters,

two

most

David Dunne (Bruce Willis)

and

Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson).
Bizarre and mysterious events make
David practically invulnerable to
injury (hence the film's title), but his
friend, Elijah, is born terribly frail
and becomes weaker
on.

Their characters

as

the story goes

are

complemen¬

tary, and so are the color arcs Serra
chose for them. "David goes from
cold to warm light," Serra explains,
"and

Elijah goes from warm to cold.
They are symmetrical reflections of
each other,
in

so

their color

arcs move

opposite directions." For the most

part, Serra achieved this delicate shift

power. For Elijah, it is
of a rational, ordered

universe, in which his friend's invul¬

nerability balances out his own phys¬
ical decline. By the time the movie
ends, David is lit rather harshly,
almost like a superhero or "a piece of
marble sculpture," Serra notes. "[His
appearance is] more abstract, silhou¬
etted; I was playing with shadows [to
convey the impression of physical
strength in some shots]." Serra used a
single key light from the side to get
this sculpted look, usually a Kino Flo
or a
tungsten Fresnel.
"[Unlike David,] there is
radical

no

change in Elijah, so the [color
shift] on Elijah is not as big," Serra
notes. "We see Elijah three or four
times before he appears as an adult:

In

long, handheld shot,
Elijah's mother gives birth to him at a
1950s department store. The scene
was

one

filmed

at a

that hid

converted convention

unexpected bonus
ceiling: old track lights, just like
the kind you'd find in any depart¬
ment store 40 years ago. Serra's chief
lighting technician, Steve Litecky,
details, "We used those track lights
practically unchanged from the way
they were originally installed -
incandescent, tungsten practical,
150-watt mushroom bulbs, pointing
straight down at racks of clothing
center

an

in its

and merchandise. Off to

one

side, we

had 5K

Skypans diffused by 20-by-20
gridcloths; those units provided
general background light for the
store, and none of it spilled onto
American

Opposite: After a
devastating train
crash,

a

confounded
doctor (Michael

Kelly) informs
David Dunne

(Bruce Willis)
that he's the
sole survivor -
and that there
isn't as much as
scratch on his

a

body. This page:
The resilient
Dunne has

a

chat with his
cosmic

counterpart: the
frail, enfeebled

Elijah Price
(Samuel L.
Jackson).

Cinematographer 39
American Cinematographer - December 2000

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