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 Chapter 5 - A Nod to Kubrick |
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 With a nod to Stanley Kubrick's great, dark comedic "thriller" Dr. Strangelove, Koepp and his crew kept themselves on track with what was affectionately known as 'The Big Board' - an oversized rectangular cardboard panel revealing the day's shot list in a series of detailed storyboards. Koepp delighted in crossing off the storyboards as he completed the scenes.Through 'The Big Board,' Koepp also displayed his theory of shooting suspense thrillers. "Suspense sequences are really all about pieces. What is the character looking at? You need to see his face. You need to see what he saw - and maybe what he didn't see. It all comes together in pieces, as opposed to something you shoot in blanket coverage and try to put together later. Any suspenseful sequence needs to be very carefully designed. Coverage is no substitute for style.
You have to develop an approach, an attitude. The only way to do that is to figure it all out ahead of time. I had the luxury of a lot of prep time during which we created some detailed animatics - basically animated storyboards that take you through the entire sequence. In some cases, I had people read dialogue over them to give me a sense of the timing. It's a great technique. It helps you realize when you're missing something or if you have too many shots."
This kind of detailed preparation made the actual shoot much smoother, yet not so rigid that it short-circuited the spontaneity of the creative process. "There is nothing worse than being on a sound stage or on location and realizing that things are not well thought out," says Koepp. "Storyboards and careful preparation help avoid that. But there are times when a different inventive way to cover a scene presents itself, and I always want to have the freedom to try it. Other times you just have to get the hell out of the way and let the actors act. It's a balance. I see some sequences where I need to take over a little more and others where my job is to notice what the actors do naturally and make sure the camera is in the right place to record it."
Often, Koepp is able to do both by skipping the traditional establishing shot in favor of a whip pan shot from the actor to the next position. "I like the whip pan, because it adds movement, takes you from one place to another quickly and is easy to cut into," Koepp explains.
Koepp worked closely with his cinematographer Fred Murphy, with whom he'd previously worked on Stir of Echoes. In preparation for production, Koepp and Murphy watched several notable suspense films, including Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant and John Boorman's Deliverance. Taking a cue from the latter film, Murphy opted to shoot Secret Window in the wide screen Super 35 format, an interesting choice for a movie that, on some levels, is about confined spaces and the intimate, inner workings of the protagonist's mind.
"I like the wide screen for close-ups, because it allows you to add more to the background," says Murphy. "It also opens things up more, so the movie doesn't feel so claustrophobic.
We had several scenes at the lake near Mort's cabin, and the wide screen allowed us to take advantage of the great scenery."
The danger with shooting in wide screen, however, is that it's hard to conceal any mistakes, and there were plenty of opportunities for error since Koepp was interested in employing a recurrent theme of reflections. "Much of the movie is about a guy in his house by himself. That's very interior. But Fred opened it up by including multiple reflections. This is really a mirror movie. At one point Fred said he's never had as many mirrors in a film as in this one.
Because it is about reflection -- looking at yourself and seeing things you may not like -- mirrors are a major element, particularly the large one over Mort's fireplace. A mirror also makes the set look bigger, providing for some interesting shots. But you have to be so careful because the actors aren't the only thing that's reflected. The crew and the equipment can show up too. It was hard to work with, but the film definitely looked better and was more visually compelling."
The mirror images that had been scripted were challenging enough, but as the movie progressed, other reflections organically manifested themselves, and Murphy and his crew had to accommodate for them. For instance, a shot where Mort comes upon Karsch sleeping like a dead man in his car at night became a "mirror shot" when Koepp and Murphy saw that they could capture Mort's reflection in the car window.
"One of the difficulties about filming reflections, especially in mirrors, is that they tend to go darker so we always have to equalize the light," Murphy explains. "For the shots involving the mirror in the living room, we could plan ahead in terms of lighting. Other possibilities for reflections, like the one of Karsch in the car at night, just appeared. But in order for us to realize the effect of Mort's face reflected in the car window, we had to rig a special light so it shined brightly into his face. Fortunately, it worked out very nicely."
Koepp and Murphy also exercised a wide variety of cinematic devices to slowly reveal the truth about Mort's demons. They included several carefully choreographed crane and dolly moves, including an elaborate series that opened the film and a special 'Technocrane' shot that pierced the living room mirror, snaked through Mort's cabin and ended up outside in the driveway. That shot also required the use of a Super-8 camera and cross processing, a special manipulation of the Ektachrome film developed through a color negative process that results in higher contrast and increased graininess.
Another approach was to bathe Mort's memories of his previous life with Amy in a sunshiny glow with brighter, more cheerful colors in bold contrast to the drab hues that pervade his life after their break-up.
That palette is echoed in Odette Gadoury's costumes and, as Gadoury notes, took its cues from Mort's dispirited and confused personality. "We tried to keep Mort's colors mid-tone, the kind of range that was very strong at some point, but faded down as if it had been exposed to the sun. We took colors like burgundy, brown and blue and aged the wardrobe to make them appear almost smoky.
For me, Mort is lost -- he's a kind of shadow.
He's in a kind of 'Twilight Zone' and we wanted his wardrobe to reflect that. Everything he wears is loose and wrinkled and washed out - not too bright, not too dark. By comparison, his character in flashback is dressed in more colorful, brighter apparel. The overall effect is to make him seem even more vulnerable in the present.
Mort's vulnerability is underlined when his appearance is contrasted with that of Shooter, whose wardrobe featured stronger, darker and sharper lines. "Some of Shooter's wardrobe was scripted already," says Gadoury. "But I thought that by always wearing the same thing, he would be more consistently menacing. I wanted a strong silhouette for Shooter, especially compared to Mort."
Gadoury notes that Turturro is not a "hat person,' which posed a predicament, since Shooter's trademark topper is a major plot point. In the end, she had to specially construct Shooter's signature broad-brimmed hat to work with Turturro's features. A bigger challenge, she contends, was coming up with Depp's wardrobe, since Mort has given up on everything in his life, including any sartorial interests, which limited her options.
"It's harder when characters only wear one or two costumes in a movie and that's what Mort and Shooter do. In this film, it all had to be right from the start. And we had to make a lot of doubles!"
Gadoury has previously worked on such thrillers as the upcoming Wicker Park and Brian de Palma's Snake Eyes (for which Koepp wrote the screenplay). Secret Window, she says, was a particularly character-driven project with little room for error in the costumes. So Gadoury collaborated closely with the film's two lead actors. "I enjoyed working with Johnny and John (Turturro) because they were both very concerned with their costumes. For me, it's important for them to feel like their clothes are a second skin.
So, before I did anything, I discussed it with them. They had a lot to say about their wardrobe and we tried out many different outfits before we hit on the right ones."
Her conversations with Depp resulted in Mort's signature costume: A tattered, striped bathrobe. "That was Johnny's idea. I had long talks with both David and Johnny about it. At the first fitting in New York, I had a real one from a costume shop that Johnny fell in love with. We couldn't use that exact one, because it was unique and we needed to have duplicates, so I bought a new one and we aged it and dyed it, so that it was as comfy and soft as a baby blanket. I thought it was an interesting idea that a guy who doesn't care anymore and naps all the time always wears this same bathrobe."
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