HELLRAISER VII DETAILS
Kodak featured details and more information on the upcoming Hellraiser VII.
‘Horror movies spawn sequels and cults, none more so than Hellraiser. The original, based on Director Clive Barkers novel The Hellbound Heart, was shot in the UK in 1987.
With a tagline, It will tear your soul apart, it tells the story of the Cenobites, a cabal of sadomasochistic demons released from a Chinese puzzle box. Even if youve managed to stay serenely ignorant of the films, the iconic image of chief Cenobite Pinhead, shaven-headed with a matrix of pins in his face and skull, will not have escaped you.
The series is still going strong today. Hellraiser was followed in 1988 by Hellbound and Hell on Earth (1992); both were shot in the UK. In 1996 production went west to the US for Bloodline, Inferno (2000) and Hellseeker (2002). Now in a move reflecting the current trend in features and commercials production, the caravan has headed east. Hellraiser VII: Deader was shot last year in Romania by celebrated Romanian Cinematographer Vivi Dragan Vasile; I havent seen any part of the series. Actually before Hellraiser VII I had no experience in this particular genre of films. It was also my first collaboration with the Director, Rick Bota. So I wish to see if my innocence in this genre will be – or not – a benefit to the final result.
The pace of production was fast four weeks, three on location in Bucharest and one at Castel Studios. Dragans challenge was to obtain seamless links in both lighting and style between shots obtained in very different conditions. We nearly always used two cameras simultaneously – sometimes even three – to obtain more angles/shots and raw material, to help a more dynamic edit. We used ARRI 535, Moviecam and ARRI 435 cameras for special effects. Many of the shots were handheld or using the Steadicam.
Dragan, who has shot more than 50 features took his style for the film from the script and the locations. My thought was to create a continuously changing balance between light, shade and dark – focused mostly on dark areas, but a darkness that still lets the viewer understand the volumes. I never forgot that the film may also be seen on TV. To heighten the impact of the visuals, he concentrated on two key colours, blood-red and green-blue a dead body hue.
Much of the action takes place in the subway and here Dragan used his two key colours. The station was real, using the local neon lighting without filtering it. The result was a green-bluish hue, cold and strange. This came in balance with the inside of the train, with red light sources in some important areas of the shooting space. The outside windows brought cold light (HMI) reflected in fast rotating mirrors to enhance the idea of speed in the tunnel. Obviously the shots took place with the train in a fixed position and rendering this atmosphere of fast movement by rotating lights was maybe the toughest challenge of the shooting.
Dragan chose Kodak Vision 500T 5279 film but during the shoot he had the chance to test the new Vision2 5218. The test results are stunning. The camera travelled through spaces with dramatically different lightings – in quality and quantity – within a range of 7.5 f-stops. What came out was an extraordinary exposure latitude, velvet-like blacks, nearly non-existing grain and an extraordinary balance in colour rendition. This confirmed again my knowledge that Kodak is still in competition only with Kodak.’
Courtesy of Kodak
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