User Manual
THE RITUAL // Q&A
composition-wise.
In the ‘Black House,’ you have two guys shackled to the
wall and David had a very clear sense of how he wanted
to block it before we even built the building. So we built
it to those specifications and we taped o the floor
and used a lens on a viewfinder to estimate how we
thought we’d frame it. We talked about having cracks
in between the timbers because they are these huge
hewn logs, but we had used that trick already earlier in
the movie. We had built another abandoned building
that the guys approach earlier in the film, and the idea
in that house was to see through to the exterior in an
eerie way. It’s always scary to me being in a lit place
looking out into the darkness because you can’t see
who’s looking in. And so we had built these extra wide
gaps in the planks for that house to see lightning flashes
outside that would light up the whole place.
We didn’t want to replicate that technique for the ‘Black
House.’ So we decided to have Luke dig out the mortar,
which is this sandy clay that isn’t hardened, so he can
get a vantage point. He digs out a little hole so he can
see. Also, there is a window in the house because the
room wasn’t meant to be a prison. It’s just this logging
village. The characters are chained to the floor and
they’re never able to quite reach the window. But we
positioned the window in a way that would allow this
beautiful soft bounced light to come in and it spills
around the beams of these hand-hewn logs. I used that
as our main light source. It allowed the versatility to
shoot day for day, day for night, and night for day. So
there’s a source of light coming from the mortar hole
and the light that comes through the window, and you
get a minimal exposure and we were able to really work
some detail into the shadow toe of the curve.
Q // What scene or sequence are you most proud of in
The Ritual and why? What went into that scene?
A // I’d have to say that scene in the ‘Black House.’
That scene was a great challenge. It was exciting to
read and to figure out how we were going to shoot two
guys imprisoned in the dark. There were construction
choices, like how far are the planks, how big is the hole,
how near is the window, how big is the window, and, by
the way, all these measurements had to be in meters.
All those challenges were there. We cued the fire —
which Luke would use to burn the house down in the
end, in some cases with flame bars and other times an
electrical lighting eect. I was happy with how much
not next to a road. We were a 30-minute hike into the
woods. So part of our solution was using balloon lights
on generators and other smaller sources. In the case
where we weren’t able to use the flashlight, I brought
some Litegear light ribbon and had my electrics staple
it to yardsticks. We used a lantern battery to power
each yardstick locally and we positioned these o in
the woods so that we wouldn’t have to run cables. We
had about ten of them. We could position them where
we liked them and hit the dimmers to dim them down.
We found that we needed so little exposure that we
could just dim them down to 10% — just before they
started to flicker, and we’d have enough exposure, with
added smoke, to feel the dramatic depth of the forest.
Q // The practical side of shooting a half-hour hike into
the woods must have been challenging. Did you drag a
generator along with you?
A // We did some scouting and David [Bruckner] is a
very ambitious director. He doesn’t want to leave any
stone unturned and so we were all over the forest. We
would find these extraordinary locations that were
really special. You’d think that walking around the forest
everything would look the same, but we would find
these amazing little groves even if it was a hike to get
there. So when we did our tech scout, I’m thinking my
gaer Florin Ion is going to hate this. And sure enough,
we’d all show up and Florin says, “I hate this.”
So in some cases, we had to realize that yeah, that
spot is just too far. Or, maybe we could access it from
another road. Or, we can try to use battery-powered
sources. In some cases, we had a balloon on a 100’
construction crane and we were able to arm it over to
reach inaccessible areas. We could get it to where we
needed it distance-wise, and with the glancing angle
and with some rain, it felt like it was where we needed.
Q // Can you tell me about your lighting plan for the
village?
A // The group stumbles onto this weird forest cult in
an old logging village. We built the entire village. The
production designer Adrian Curelea brought these
amazing beams from somewhere north in Romania
and Hungary and constructed this detailed village over
a few weeks. It’s like five or six buildings made from
these huge hewn logs. Given that we were fabricating
the whole thing, we could strategize how to use
the construction to find opportunities, lighting and
PROFILES // VOL. THREE // 21