American Cinematographer - September 2002 - 65

receive

unexpected assistance
ghostly presence of one of

some

from the

Pratt's

victims, Jeannie (Gesine
Cukrowski), whose seductive spirit
haunts the Internet and

psychologi¬
cally torments visitors to Pratt's site.
"Do you want to watch?" she coos.
Well, of course you do.
Responsible for bringing the
terrifying details of feardotcom to the
screen were director of
photography
Christian

Sebaldt

and

director

William Malone. Malone is

a

horror

enthusiast who has helmed such
features
on

as

the 1999 remake of House

Haunted Hill and

otherworldly

episodes of the TV series Tales From
the Crypt and The Others. Sebaldt,
whose father

was a

TV commercial

director and composer, grew up

in

Munich, Germany, and trained at the

at

Bavaria Studios and Lab while

minded, and I wound up creating a

peri¬
odically working as a camera assis¬
tant. He spent 12 weeks working on
Rainer

Werner

Marleen (shot by
ASC and Xaver
and shot

Cube.

SCPFCMihecrianbcgataoeusnmrdsuledtft.y

WBroscao./Franuncerfhtieesy

Photgraps

some

Fassbinder's

Lili

Michael Ballhaus,

Schwarzenberger)
second-unit footage

for the film. Afterwards, he became

a

cinematographer and producer of
award-winning commercials. Bitten
by the motion-picture bug while
working with Fassbinder, Sebaldt
eventually moved to Los Angeles to
concentrate on long-form projects.
He has since filmed such features

as

Race to

Space, Caroline at Midnight,
Family Reunion and The
Adventures of Galgameth.
Addams

Sebaldt's

Malone

connection

happened in

a

with

somewhat

roundabout way during the produc¬
tion of House on Haunted Hill. The

the chance. William

was

open-

series of

moody, creepy and sexy
images by shooting through pieces of
Plexiglas I had warped at home, and
projecting bloody red fluids onto
bodies
just weird stuff. When he
-

saw

the dailies, he said, 'You're shoot¬

ing my next movie!"'
After

some

Sebaldt received
who

a

time had

ASC's

"Greedy Fly" and Dariusz Wolski,
stylishly expressionistic
photography on Dark City, as well as

Alistair Pratt's
latest victim

the classic German

tortuous rituals

Expressionist
films of Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau.
"From there, it developed into its
own look," Sebaldt
says. "We wanted
something that was dark and myste¬
rious and had a lot of backlight in

passed,

certain

areas

call from Malone,

smoke

to

prepping feardotcom in
Luxembourg. Sebaldt traveled to the
tiny country, which is nestled
between Germany, Belgium and
France, and spent four weeks formal¬
izing the look of the film with
was

Malone and the German duo of

production designer Jerome Latour
and art director Regine Friese. Their
visual references included the gritty,
monochrome music video for Bush's

with

give it

Malone adds that

a

subtle

use

little texture."
"feardotcom is a
a

modern film, but I wanted a filmnoir feel with a lot of shadows and
dark

areas.

I also

really wanted

set. He

the

set

a

desaturated look."

Filming began in the winter,
was no
shortage of rain
a boon to the
production because
much of the story unfolds during
downpours. A former steel plant in
Luxembourg was pressed into
when there

-

cinematographer's wife, Mary
Seward, was the script supervisor for
the show, and Sebaldt dropped by
the

of

Opposite: "Dr."
can't bear the
of the serial

killer, who

displays his
deadly work for
all to see on the
Web site
feardotcom. This
page, top: For a
in which

scene

Internet guru
Polidori (Udo

Kier) meets his
demise in

a

subway station
aided by the
ghostly
presence of

-

Jeannie,

one

of

Pratt's victims

(below) -
Sebaldt had

no

qualms about
mixing pure HMI
lighting with
tungsten light,
knowing he
could control
the look with

digitalintermediate

recalls, "I visited Mary on
and got to know William, a

color

(For

grading.

more

details

highly intelligent and gentle guy and
true fan of the genre. We hit it off,

on

this

a

sequence, see

and when William and his talented

on

first-unit director of

lighting diagram
page 65.)

photography,

Rick Bota, told me they needed a
second-unit cameraman, I jumped
American

Cinematographer 61
American Cinematographer - September 2002

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