American Cinematographer - December 2000 - 64

Southern Gothic
Near

kind of underwater

feeling to it. [We
thought that if we did that,] the
background plate wouldn't just
vomit out the image of [Jessica's]
body floating in mid-air. Jamie then
thought we should shoot the Jessica

right:

Director Sam
Raimi confers
with actress

Hilary Swank,
who portrays
domestic-abuse
victim Valerie

element underwater

Barksdale.
Bottom

right:
Cinematographer

would
tree.

Jamie Anderson

literally appear to float in the

When

we

shot the separate

[visual-effects

supervisor] Peter
her in a pool and
photographed her against a greenscreen, then composited that with
the high-speed moss blowing around
to complete the effect. It all sounds so
simple now, but it was a bit tough to
come up with that whole moment
and make it right."
Donen,

disfigured body floating amid the
gnarled tree drip¬
ping with tendrils of Spanish moss.
Raimi says he chose Savannah,
Georgia, as the production's princi¬
pal location primarily because of the
dramatic, spooky cypress trees that
populate the area. "These fantastic
creatures with their gnarled arms

visual contribution

and weird faces looked like

knew it would look

branches of an old,

to

the film's

ambience, Raimi still struggled with

floating body. "That moment really

really a frightening
strange image, but I was

thought it
and

concerned

was

about

the

mixed

put

The filmmakers also

Annie's bizarre vision of Jessica's
troubled me," Raimi confesses. "I

we

lend interiors

strove to

compelling atmos¬
phere. One set featured prominently
a

in the movie is Annie's enclosed

porch, where she earns a living telling
fortunes for the locals. The porch was
not part of the house used on loca¬

this movie is that the world of the

metaphor of her floating in the tree. I
silly if I put her
up in a tree on a wire, and if I
composited her in as a blue- or
greenscreen effect, I was afraid she

supernatural exists, and

would still look odd and 'stuck in.' So

shoot," Anderson recalls. "For the day

played a bit with the idea of the
being underwater life; we shot
the background scenery as a plate at
42 or 72 fps with fans blowing all of
the Spanish moss around, so it had a

sequences, I lit almost completely
through the windows. We wanted the

some¬

thing out of The Wizard ofOz," Raimi
enthuses. "One of the premises of

to

we

wanted

make that real for the audience. It

great town to shoot in because
it had these fantastic trees, which feel

was a

like

they are not of this earth yet are
accepted part of everyday life.
That puts the idea in the audience's
mind that there are unexplainable
things - fantastic, outrageous
things - all around us, and they're
very real."
Anderson says he was imme¬
diately struck by the "ghostly quality"
of the trees. "They're such an inter¬
esting symbol and such a powerful
presence in [Savannah]," he remarks.
"They were immediately captivating
even though the trees are full of
life, they have a sense of death about
them. Sam immediately thought
they should become a kind of visual
thread [that would convey] dread
throughout the picture."
Despite the trees' significant
an

-

December 2000

that she

element with Katie Holmes and

blocks out a shot
with a group of
young actors.

62

so

we

tree

tion, however; it

was

constructed

on

stage by production designer Neil
Spisak. "That was a beautiful set, and
we

used it several times

room

to

have

a sense

during the

of the outdoor

energy [swirling] around Annie -
wind blowing through the curtains
American Cinematographer - December 2000

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