 | | The Australian location, where cast and crew had to deal with unseasonably cold and cloudy weather. |
But she is also, Mitchell insists, “very much the eyes of the audience. Through her, the audience feels the torment, the darkness and the fear of the dark. When the spacecraft crashes, most on board are killed. Fry feels responsible for their deaths, but at the same time she now finds herself in command. So she’s full of self-doubt and her own guilt. Eventually, she discovers an inner strength, takes control and finds a new maturity as a result of the experience. This was a role that took a lot of energy on my part, but I am really pleased I had the opportunity to play her.”
Energy was certainly required, given the weather conditions during the Coober Pedy shoot. July may be summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but it’s the heart of winter Down Under, and the location was almost permanently affected by bad weather and freezing temperatures. This was a problem, given that the planet was supposed to be a sun-seared desert during daytime. But the drawback was overcome by cinematographer David Eggby’s use of a bleach-bypass process he had utilised two decades earlier when filming Mad Max on the same locations.
| PITCH BLACK |
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Gramercy Pictures
presents an Interscope Communications production.
Prod: Tom Engelman; Exec prod: Ted Field, Scott Kroopf, Anthony Winley; Dir: David Twohy; Scr: Jim & Ken Wheat, David Twohy, from a story by Jim & Ken Wheat; Ph: David Eggby; Prod des: Graham ‘Grace´ Walker; Creature des: Patrick Tatopoulos; Vis fx: Peter Chiang Cost des: Anna Borghesi; Ed: Rick Shaine; Mus: Graeme Revell.
With Vin Diesel (Riddick), Radha Mitchell (Fry), Cole Hauser (Johns), Keith David (Imam), Rhiana Griffith (Jack/Jackie), Lewis Fitz-Gerald (Paris), Claudia Black (Shazza).
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Fortunately, the Pitch Black company spent only three weeks in the outback before relocating to the Warner Roadshow Studios on Queensland’s Gold Coast, where The Matrix had just wrapped, and which remains pretty much of a ‘summer place’ even in the Australian winter. Even Mitchell - an Australian who should be used to it - was happy to get there. “I couldn’t have worked on that freezing cold location for one more day,” she says.
 | | Claudia Black as geologist Shazza. |
But, as is so often the case, the adversity established a team spirit among cast and crew, aided by director Twohy’s readiness to listen to what everyone had to say. “He was very receptive,” says Diesel, “and was prepared to incorporate those ideas in much the same way as Steven Spielberg. I feel very fortunate to have worked with Steven and David.”
And the end result, reckons Engelman, is a film that delivers the goods in three crucial areas: the creatures and effects that scare you; a story that really holds your attention; and characters that make you care about being scared.
“I think that, first and foremost, David succeeded in creating a great story,” he says. “You need a great story - you can’t just rely on the effects and creatures. The story must hold the audience’s attention. So we have great characters who are engaging when we first meet them, and who then grow and change as we follow that growth.
“And then, after we’ve succeeded at that... then, we’ll scare you!”
“When I read this script for the first time, I thought it was all about that childhood fear of the dark that most of us never really grow out of”
Tom Engelman. |
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