Scream 6 Cinematographer On The Scene That Sets Up 'Just How Brutal Ghostface Is' [Exclusive]
This post contains spoilers for "Scream VI."
Say what you will about "Scream VI," but it's definitely one of the most suspenseful entries in the entire series. After the third, fourth, and fifth "Scream" movies seemed strangely uninterested in the tense chase sequences that made the first two installments so engaging, this new sequel serves as a welcome return to form. Not only is the film's bodega sequence both brutal and completely unlike anything we've ever seen in these movies before, but then there's the sequence where Ghostface barges through Sam and Tara's apartment like a bull in a china shop. They're a near-unstoppable killing machine, and the characters' only real option is to run away.
But where the sequence really escalates into one of the film's best moments is when Sam (Melissa Barrera), Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), and Anika (Devyn Nekoda) are forced to climb a horizontal ladder into the other apartment, several stories above the ground. For Sam, it's not that difficult, and for an injured Mindy, it's still doable. But for Anika, who's bleeding out from a massive knife wound in her stomach? It's basically impossible. Ghostface shakes the ladder while she's between apartments and she falls to her death, making for one of the most disturbing deaths in the whole series.
/Film's own Cass Clarke interviewed "Scream VI" cinematographer Brett Jutkiewicz, who shed some light on how this scene was filmed, and how much effort the film's cast and crew put into making it feel as real as possible.
No green screen needed
"I think [the ladder sequence] is interesting because it's a combination of a practical location and a stage build," Brett Jutkiewicz explained. "So basically, when we're outside and we're seeing all the wide shots of the space, the shot from overhead looking down, that's all on the real location. We found the exterior real location first, and the art department built the top two floors actually on stage, the exterior of that."
The challenge came with having to make the constant shots back and forth between the location and the stage feel seamless, so the audience wouldn't pick up on any of what was going on behind the scenes. This was part of why they avoided using any green screen. "Credit goes to [directors] Matt and Tyler pushing to do that stuff on the practical location," Jutkiewicz said, "because I don't think you can ever really get that look with visual effects."
"Scream VI" has gotten some flak for being the least New York-feeling New York in a long time; the movie was filmed in Montreal, Canada, and we can tell. But although the setting doesn't always feel like Manhattan specifically, there's never any doubt that the characters are really in an urban setting. The buildings and streets all feel real and lived in, which definitely pays off in scenes like this.
Avoiding 'impossible angles'
"We needed a construction crane to lift the camera crane onto the roof," said Brett Jutkiewicz, "so it was a challenge. David Dinel, my key grip, and his team did a fantastic job bringing that all together. So we could just tell them where we wanted the camera and they made it happen."
The big key to making the scene feel real was to avoid "impossible shots" when shooting on the stage; these are shots that would've been impossible to pull off on location. As he explained, "If we were shooting this all on a real location, where could the camera actually be? I think going into it with that mindset helped give us some grounding, just an anchor to how we wanted to approach how that scene looked."
Jutkiewicz admitted to breaking the rules a little bit at a few brief points "just because we needed some of these intense close-ups." It's hard to hold that against him, as the close-ups of Mindy and Anika's faces — in which both actors are truly selling that terror — are a big part of what makes this scene so effective. It's especially powerful considering that this is one of the first times that Mindy, the movie's most meta character, seems genuinely scared for her life.
"Scream VI" is easily one of the darkest films in the series, and the ladder scene was when it became abundantly clear that this movie wasn't messing around. "It's such an important sequence in the film," Jutkiewicz explained. "It really sets up just how brutal Ghostface is. So we, as with the whole film, really wanted to make it feel grounded in reality."