How Jarin Blaschke and Robert Eggers lit The Witch, 2015.
Weather was everything
“We wanted it gray and dead. We were trying to have everything feel grim and oppressive.”
They shot outside the abandoned lumber town of Kiosk, Ontario, 250 miles north of Toronto, over 26 days. It began in late spring for a story set in autumn, leaving cast and crew to pick new buds out of the trees.
Exteriors went ahead at dawn, at dusk or under cloud, and when the sky turned they moved indoors. “You can’t change the core quality of light in post – you’re not fooling anybody,” Blaschke says. Of every color film here, only Hush holds less color.
No movie lights
“So much effort went into the accurate costumes and production design. I would have felt I was betraying that with movie lights.”
Daytime interiors came only through the windows, shaped from outside with Ultrabounce, muslin, solids and nets. “We didn’t want a mushy ‘available light’ look. We wanted it to have direction.” Day exteriors used negative fill.
Blaschke took a light meter into the recreated 1627 homes at Plimoth Plantation to see how much light those little windows let in. The film’s house was cheated bigger, with more and slightly enlarged windows.
Three wicks
Night interiors ran on custom candles with three wicks, which Blaschke and Eggers first tried on a short film eight years earlier. The only help was more candles, usually a few tea lights near the same axis, with the camera always at 800 ISO.
“You just can’t be afraid of light falling off, creating large dark areas in a realistic way.”
The hearth was a movable gas flame called a “slinky.” One exception was made for the safety of a live raven: three 200-watt bulbs on a flicker generator stood in for the flames.
One lens
Blaschke estimates 85 percent of the film was shot on a single 32mm Series II Cooke Speed Panchro, close-ups included, so the audience sits physically close to the family.
“It’s like looking through a porthole or crystal ball.”
He chose 1.66:1 for “a frame that evokes a history before the era of filmmaking.”
The goat
Black Phillip was a goat named Charlie, who rarely did anything on cue. The first shot of a fight with William took three hours and 27 takes and cost them the day, and Eggers rethought his ending.
“I had to go to A&E several times with dislocated ribs and torn muscle.”
On the fourth day of filming, Charlie rammed his horns into Ineson’s ribs. “I spent the rest of the five-week shoot on painkillers.”
Another scene called for Black Phillip to mount a nanny goat in the shed. “For this to happen, we needed the fresh urine of a nanny goat in heat,” Blaschke says. So far from anywhere, they never found any, and the shoot ended without the shot. Later, over bourbon, it became a visit from the hare.