Owen Roizman: Breath Vapor in Cold & Light Heat

From American Cinematographer, Demonic Convergence by David E. Williams (August 2008)

Heat and lighting became key issues throughout the exorcism sequence. In the story, the paranormal activities leave the bedroom frighteningly frigid, and since the authenticity-obsessed Friedkin wanted to see the performers’ breath vapor, the set was built in a refrigerated room ironically dubbed "The Cocoon." The crew kept the room at a temperature of about -20°F, making heavy coats a necessity for anyone working in the space.

"We did some tests with the temperature at about 25 degrees, and you could see some breath, but it wasn’t really enough," Roizman says. "When the lights were turned on, their heat warmed the room so quickly that we couldn’t even get a single take. The breath showed up fine at zero, but Friedkin wanted the actors to really feel the cold because he thought it would help their acting. An actor on his knees for 20 minutes at minus 20 degrees is really going to feel the cold."

[The room was ostensibly illuminated by a pair of small table lamps set on either side of Regan’s four-poster bed. To ensure that the breath vapor would read correctly, Roizman painstakingly created a backlight effect for each actor while trying to stay true to his source-lighting approach.]

"This created a problem because our sources were right next to the bed, and [the priests] were always facing the light. The challenge was to get the backlight on the breath while keeping it off everything else. With the actors moving all the time, it became difficult to hide the backlight and keep it off them; my gaffer, Dick Quinlan, was usually sitting on the floor behind Max and Jason, handholding an inky-dink with a snoot on it and just getting the light on the vapor. He did an amazing job."

- Owen Roizman, ASC

Lance Acord: 3D Simulation

From American Cinematographer, Playing a Risky Stock on Buffalo 66, by Jean Oppenheimer (July 1998)

Acord remembered a technique utilized by French commercial director Michel Gondry, which employed a circular still-camera array that was simultaneously triggered-- "freezing" the subject from multiple angles. The resulting frames were then sequentially morphed and animated to create a virtual pan and 3-D effect. Acord thought he could add to the shock of his murder sequence by similarly "freezing" his actors, but he used a different method.

"I discovered it by mistake. I had previously worked on a project that was to be composed of a series of stills, with the exception of a few scenes that we would shoot with a movie camera. However, we used the movie camera as a stills unit and just shifted the angle slightly while all of the actors froze in place. By moving the camera around the completely motionless actors, we got that same kind of unnerving 3-D effect that Gondry had achieved [with the still-camera array]. A person can only hold so still, however. The thing that made it possible was ramping from a regular camera speed to a high speed. The actor would freeze mid-scene, at which point we would ramp up to 80 or 90 frames per second, sometimes as high as 120fps, and then quickly shift the camera from one side of the actor to the other."

- Lance Acord, ASC

Ramping the frame rate would ensure that whatever small movement the actors made would be imperceptible. To enhance the 3-D effect, and create the impression that a split-second in time had in fact been captured makeup artist Goochie Westman found some blown-glass pieces, resembling splashing red liquid, which had been used for a cranberry juice commercial. When these were attached to the back of Gallo's head, it looked as if a bullet were passing through his skull, with the blood effectively "frozen" in the moment of death.