I've sort of given away details here and there about how I would want a movie of He's There if I were the director of photography, but I thought I would get them all down plus some other ideas and maybe it'd seem interesting and other people could imagine things the way I do while I am here writing the book version.


-- A gradual vitalization from black and white to full color. The beginning of the movie is clear but colorless. The things that are important to Lily are in some color, not entirely saturated, as well as the things that are gaining her interest. As the notes come, the whole world becomes moderately saturated as well, but never full. It won't be until... well maybe this night in chapter 35 that everything seems vivid. There will be some challenging of this color in the future... I think it's an interesting display of how Lily feels, even though I can imagine some people thinking it's me relying on the eye too much. I'm not doing it because I think there will be no other way for someone to feel the mood. I just think it's a neat idea. lol

-- Strategically placed dark spots in buildings. There probably wouldn't be a shadow there, at least not as pronounced, but I need them there. More of them will appear as she gets to know the Phantom. Her world becomes less something she understands. Also, I kind of need them for him to sink back into so he can disappear, and reappear. It's like a magic act, really. My Erik isn't superhuman, but he's a magician and traceur; sort of a modern day equivalent of the Phantom. His means are all natural, just uncommon and misunderstand. He needs a little help, though, which is why I have the dark spots.

-- I've been thinking of this camera technique I can apply to the Phantom when he's with Lily. When he wants to move backwards, I don't want him to look like he's moving his feet the way you normally would. I kind of want him to sift? Without it looking like he's on one of those moving floors at the airport. XD So gradual, really. I'm wondering if what I have to do is have him stand on something that does move, REALLY slowly, with camera just barely zooming with him, at a rate slower than he is being moved. That way you get the sense that there is movement, perhaps a race in your thoughts as he speaks and tries to take Lily away, but you can't put your finger on how you are made to feel that way because it's so small.

-- Could I make the Phantom have a movement coach? I saw it in the X-Men 2 extras, with Alan Cumming learning to walk like Nightcrawler and move his spine agreeably with his tail. It's not that I picture the Phantom with blatantly peculiar almost self-parodying movement, just something... odd? And insect-like as he is described? It's all about subtlety with this guy, always. I would like the movements to look natural for him but resulting in very angled shapes. Like he bends his arm, long and black and thin, and it looks like the leg of a spider. The way he leans forward, the way his fingers land on things... this weightless elegant folding and stretching... It almost distances him from the human vibe for a second. It's kind of hard to articulate what would be "right" when I saw him move, I just know there would be something that would remind you of that.

I'll end it there because I'm tired.

But the other night, I had an absolutely beautiful vision of the ending of He's There as a movie, which I will try to incorporate into the writing as best as I can. After I thought of it, I realized it's actually kind of similar to a scene in a certain favorite movie of mine that I'm going to leave untitled because I don't want anyone getting ideas!

It's a wonderful image, though. It has the effect I want it to, but isn't an attachment to just one kind of situation that they may end up in at the last chapter. It's an ending that makes me sit there, wondering if I could wrap my brain around everything I had just seen. Feeling like I have just been somewhere I had wanted to explore and I've come back, and how fascinating was that... I'll think about it for days, wondering if there is something to be considered in every dark place I see from then on out.



I want He's There to be the kind of movie that is stuck in your head. You have to see it more than once because certain things and scenes you don't feel you remember so well and for some reason it's so important to learn more about what really happened. Seeing Phantom pop out of nowhere is freaky in all the best ways. You know that kind of movie?

It was like that with Hard Candy for me. I just thought it was captivating. Some of the visuals and sounds together gave me chills.