The Evil Dead/Drag Me to Hell director has gotten involved with the slowly developing Poltergeist remake.

Earlier this week, reports were showing up that he was directing the remake. It appears that he is only producing the film under his Ghost House Pictures production company, with his usual cohort, Robert Tapert. Raimi is currently directing Oz: The Great and Powerful. Oz’s screenwriter, David Lyndsay-Abaire has been brought in to work on the new Poltergeist.

We all know that Poltergeist is near perfect as is, but if they feel it needs a remake, at least it is in good hands. I admit that I would be a little bit more interested had Raimi opted to direct, but with that unlikely, who will take the helm?

Source: Hollywood Reporter

How It Wad Done: An actress, Paula Paulson, was dressed in white and shot on wires in front of a black screen. The footage was shot on 16mm, blown up to VistaVision, and composited into the scene.

Richard Edlund on the wire work:

“We hired Paula Paulson, a girl who played Peter Pan, and was an expert on wires. We dressed her in a silken gown and rigged her in a harness. She was on wires for hours. She loves wire work. When she flew down, we cheated reality to an angle so it looked as though she were coming down the stairs in an arc. She would do certain moves which were orchestrated, and the result was an illusion that she was coming down straight, compensating for the angles.”

“It took about two weeks on wire, one of the later sequences to be shot. We used hundreds of thousands of watts of light. Paula’s performance was choreographed so we could print it in reverse.”

Edlund on working with 16mm footage:

“I felt that 16mm would be fast and cheap, and we could save some money.”

“We blew the 16mm footage up to VistaVision inter-positive on a C-clamp printer. That alone resulted in a fuzzy image-which we wanted- and then Bruce (Nicholson) did some more massaging to get the ghostly quality.”

Animation Supervisor John Bruno on animating the sequence:

“One of the problems in shooting Paula was that the camera was running 16 times normal speed. The ghost image at the end had to spiral up into the ceiling. To do that in real life, she would have to be spinning at a thousand rpm’s! Even if it were possible, undoubtedly she’d pass out. So I wound up animating that, starting from the live action and dissolving into the spiraling animation. Steven accepted it as it was, although I still had to put ectoplasmic tails on it. We did twice as many ghost scenes that appeared in the final cut.”

Optical Photography Supervisor Bruce Nicholson on working the 16mm footage into the sequence:

“Shooting in 16mm and blowing up to VistaVision caused all kinds of grain problems. We had to diffuse it like crazy. When you see the ghost on the top of the stairs, there is a light behind it. We dodged that area a bit to cut down on the intensity. But the ghost was also matted. So we had this weird setup on the printer where we had the matte on the rear head with heavy diffusion next to the aerial lens; the background was in the front head with some neutral density in the area where the light was coming from behind, at the top of the stairs.

Plus, there were lots of articulated roto mattes on the stairway so the ghost would appear to come from behind the door. In certain cases, the arms would go behind the railing. There was ectoplasm in there with light animation. Some of the lights the ghost was supposed to go behind also required roto mattes. And with the ghost matted in, it was extremely complex. We didn’t want it so well defined.

The exciting part for us was when you see the arm come out and the ghost comes up and you see part of the face above the doorway. Which was a neat moment, because it finally revealed something. “

The Scene: Steve Freeling is surprised by a massive face that pops through the doorway.

How It Was Done: A clever trick called “force perspective” was used. A “force perspective” shot uses an in-camera trick to alter one’s perception of the distance and/or size of an object, person, or set piece. In this case, a 15 inch-high doorframe was placed in the foreground and was lined up with an actual set, with Craig T. Nelson standing nearly 10 feet away from the miniature. A soft focus, along with a custom lens designed by Richard Edlund,  was then used to make the miniature, full-sized set pieces, and the actor appear as if they were interacting.

Modelmaker Paul Huston spoke of his experiences with building and shooting the head model:

“….I started sculpting this large skull with a bunch of rotting flesh on it to match the rest of the graveyard material. I also made a rig on a track that I could wheel forward and back, keeping it in a really predictable position. It could go in and out from behind the door from the same position every time, so we wouldn’t have a focus problem on different takes.

So I ended up doing it all by hand., using the track as a guide while holding the head and the jaw. It gave me a lot more flexibility, The head had one simple neck joint, to seemingly drop down and lunge at Craig. I left part of it open in the back, exposing the plywood armature, and put an I-bolt there just to grab hold of it like a handle. C02 smoke came out of the eyes. Small light bulbs were also in the eyes and lit  up as the gas pumped through. “

This was actually the second attempt for this shoot. The original concept was designed by Craig Reardon, who spoke of his design with Cinefex:

“Steven’s concept for the head was something like Mr. Sardonicus- a name that was even mentioned a few times- what with a face sporting an enormous, humorless, macabre grin. Steven wanted it to look pale, slightly blue and bloodless, like a face underwater. Dead, but not decayed.

The smile would pull way back and the upper lip would pull away from the gums.  The mouth, which opened very wide in a kind of Lon Chaney ‘Phantom of the Opera’ leer, was made with translucent  backing so that a brilliant light could be directed out through it.”

The original shot differed from the final film version. Instead of the profile shot of the face, it was designed to be a head on shot with Steve Freeling in the foreground. It was an “in-camera” composit shot utilizing a beam splitter to combine two separate images. The camera was in front of a breakaway door and the head, on a track with specific curtains to make the head “appear” and “disappear,”  was positioned to the side, at a 45 degree angle. ”

Steven Spielberg had a change of heart for the scene.  Richard Edlund spoke of this decision:

“Craig had done a wonderful job on the head; but suddenly, it became apparent that it looked too human. Steven wanted it to be scary. But in that original shot, you were looking straight into the doorway and no matter what you did, you were going to telegraph the punchline- because you saw it coming.  As a result, the shot softened whatever scariness a close up would have offered. “

The beam splitter shot was traded in for the force perspective shot because it was quick and effective.

“I have been an admirer of Jerry Goldsmith from the moment I heard his score for The Blue Max and A Patch of Blue. Along with John Williams, these two men have dominated the arena of great movie music for nearly 20 years. Jerry’s scores range from the unforgettable Patton to his Oscar-winning music for The Omen. In between, there came such rousing challenges as Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Great Train Robbery, Chinatown, Papillon, Alien, over 100 scores.

Now with Poltergeist, Jerry has met his greatest challenge- to scare us nearly to tears, and he has been remarkable in his efforts. Cleverly, the moments of greatest tension arise not from his brilliant off-rhythm ostinatos but more from a soothing tonal beauty.

Don’t trust his melodies. Something perfectly unworldly is due to occur the moment you let your guard drop and Goldsmith proceeds to feign and attack with no “apparent” rhyme or pattern. It’s to his great credit that he has plotted every blow and designed a score of such shattering intensity that nighttime is perhaps not the right time to hear this album if you have seen the film. If you haven’t seen Poltergeist, Jerry’s music conjures many classical impressions of ferocious drive and at the same time, cathedral beauty. So…. let the imagination wander. Pleasant dreams.

-Steven Spielberg”

The Scene: “The Beast” appears to Diane in the hallway.

How It Was Done: A 7×5 tank was built with 2 1/2 inch thick glass, which was then filled with water. The puppet, designed by John Bruno and Nilo Rodis, was then placed in the tank. To give the creature its thin look, an anamorphic lens was used to squeeze the image. It was then composited into the shot, while JoBeth Williams’ interaction required rotoscoping.

This, of course, was the second attempt. The original concept was to build the beast with a rig within its body and pump Cyalume glow juices throughout its “circulatory system.”

Craig Reardon on the initial attempt:

“It was wrongheaded only because it could operate in one or two axes of movement. Once the body parts were married to this complicated rig, the whole thing got to be like a washing machine with wings. They do anything but jettison the entire body! All that retained of my sculpture was the head.”

Even though a similar concept  from Reardon was initially rejected, Rodis and Lorne Peterson later came up with the marionette that was used in the film. Weighing in at about 5 lbs. , the marionette’s skin was made of rubber and used plastic tubes for “bones.” It was operated by three men on a scaffolding.