Life is at its best for John Klein (Richard Gere) and his wife Mary (Debra Messing). They are in love and about to buy their dream house. Then, out of the blue, a "vision" causes Mary to swerve their car on a deserted road. Soon after her death, Klein seeks an answer for this horrific moment. But nothing seems to make sense and he tries to go on with his life. Then, two years later, he is mysteriously drawn to a small foreboding town called Point Pleasant in West Virginia where Mary's death bed drawings are only one element in his bizarre quest for answers.

"The Mothman Prophecies struck me as an odd and complicated mystery in the sense that there is no answer to the mystery," says cinematographer Fred Murphy, ASC (October Sky, Stir of Echoes, Dance with Me, Murder in the First, Jack the Bear, Scenes from a Mall). "As I read the script, I realized our visuals would have to deal with several different environments, strange creatures and different points-of-view on their appearances and existence."

When Murphy met with director Mark Pellington (Arlington Road), the two discussed the challenges of mixing so many elements into a single story. Pellington, one of the linchpins of MTV's success, is an image-oriented artist. He had gathered a huge amount of images from paintings, advertising, and other mediums and had begun pinning them on his walls. "Each element had something interesting," Murphy recalls. "Whatever it was gave us a starting point. Something to talk about."

Murphy and Pellington then looked at film styles. Their research began to focus in on films like Philip Kaufman's version of The Body Snatchers and Dante Spinotti, ASC's visuals in The Insider. "Both had an emotional and technical appeal," says Murphy. "The complicated coverage Dante did on The Insider gave me a direction for what we would need on this picture."

Murphy did an extensive amount of testing, beginning with format. Although he wanted to shoot anamorphic he soon realized that the range of elements that he would need to capture would work better with Super 35mm. "There would be too much handheld and rough camerawork," he explains. "Not to mention small locations, various camera speeds and a lot of night work using a zoom lens!

"For a moment, we considered shooting the whole picture on reversal stock but decided against it. Silver retention (ACE) wouldn't be the right thing either. The movie would be pretty contrasty and dark - we didn't need any more help." Murphy settled on using two basic Kodak stocks, 5274 for the day exteriors and 5279 for everything else.

"We also decided to run two cameras (Panavision with Primo lenses) at all times," he explains. "This helped us capture a variety of angles and emotions more quickly. Many of the shots might look simple on paper but we were going to cover them in a very different way. We might go for wide set ups that would quickly intercut with close ups and go to maybe a medium and then back to another unusual angle. We might put the focus in the wrong place in a scene so that it would be disconcerting. And we might often pepper them with changes in stocks (reversal or infrared). We would also be relying on a variety of high speed or even under-cranked shots as well as some inter-velometer elements."

Murphy decided to distinguish Klein's two different worlds with a simple visual technique - keeping the first part of the story warm, shooting all night exteriors with Tungsten lighting (no blue added). When the story moves to the strange town of Pt. Pleasant, he pulled the 85 filters, using an LLD for coldness. "The warm/cold is primitive but useful," he explains. "Shooting without an 85 stresses the print, giving it a little more texture."

Production design and other subtle images enhanced the not so normal element of the town of Pt. Pleasant that seems to be the center-point of this strange "mothman" phenomenon. "Richard Hoover helped us by designing our Pt. Pleasant as almost a carbon copy of the real town but located in Pittsburgh. He gave us a dark look with signs that are either gibberish or just don't make sense. He painted many windows and walls black to give the town a cheerless quality. Even the heroine's house (Laura Linney) is extremely dark, although it was the warmest place in town."

The story spins from two people deeply in love to loss and inexplicable complications when Mary "sees" something coming at her and jerks the wheel of their car causing it to spin out of control, hit several trash cans and finally crash. "It's the first grabber of the film," says Murphy. "A simple accident complicated by many elements and a great deal of shots.

"The lighting was tricky. First, the location was a suburb in Pittsburgh. It was an up-hill location with a lot of brick houses. The challenge was to find people who would allow us to park Condors in their driveway or back yard. When we did find places to put lights, we used 20Ks and 12-light Maxis."

"On the ground, in the background we had Juniors and 5Ks scattered about for a few highlights," adds gaffer Brian Gunter. "We also had several 2K types in the houses for window light. And, the Christmas tree lights on the houses helped with the depth.

"For the down stage acting areas, we had 12K-light Maxis going through 12 by 12 light and full grids," Gunter continues.

"The lighting was the same for when Richard returns to the scene. And, here, on the handheld work I followed with a 12-Volt portable China Ball on a stick to give Richard's face a lift here and there," Gunter adds.

"We combined the live action shots with points-of-view, cameras on the car, blue screen elements where we spun the car on stage, and a crane shot in the end," Murphy explains.

"For me, this led up to some really fun and extensive handheld work," adds operator Jeff Tufano. "Richard Gere's character re-visits the accident scene looking for clues. It was one of the coldest nights of the job and we had to document his movements, following him in every conceivable way.

"We started with a 27mm lens for a 'warm-up' run, then worked our way longer to get the detail work. On this occasion, we probably only went to the 50mm but on other occasions we even put up the 100mm.

"The scene was shot fairly early in the schedule and was one of the first times I saw that Richard was aware of the power of the handheld camera," he adds. "He talked about the different feel (as opposed to Steadicam) and, once he saw a few takes played back, expressed a preference for it. He is an experienced and savvy actor. He was also very kind in looking out for my physical well being when we got into some of the more physically challenging handheld scenes."

Two years after his wife's death, Klein is on his way to an interview when he has car trouble. He approaches a nearby house only to be attacked by the owner (Will Patton). The police are called and he meets Connie Parker (Linney). Klein finds out that he is 400 miles off his course and that he isn't the only one who senses strange things are happening. Parker takes him to meet several different people who have "seen the Mothman."

Klein has no choice - he stays in town to try to unravel this story. He checks into a local motel, "that is the most garish red you have ever seen," says Murphy. "Richard Hoover really helped me here. The real motel office was barely big enough to swing a cat in! By painting it extremely dark red, he gave us shiny and dark. This allowed us to put lights in the small area and in the shot - practicals on the counter or behind something.

"Because Gere's character is stepping into the unknown, we wanted to show this with our lighting. So we rigged a box over Richard's head with a nasty fluorescent effect. It is rough lighting but the blue/green over his head, with everything else warm Tungsten with half CTO, worked for the shot."

"We were constantly coming back to his motel room," adds Tufano. "It was a little larger than the office but just as nasty. The trick when you are spending a lot of time in one particular set is to try to exhaust every possible angle and approach, which we certainly did. We flew every wall with very little down time. We put the camera everywhere it could go and several places that could only be described as excruciatingly painful for the operators. We shot through the ceiling and used every lens in the box. We even used the jib arm in the bathroom and even the medicine cabinet!"

"It was a difficult location built in a place where we had very little room to work," adds Gunter. "We used several practical fixtures, augmented a lot by homemade stuff. When we could move a wild wall not only for camera but to be able to get a big soft light working it was either a 12 by 12 with full grid or bounce and usually a stop or so down. We also used 2K zips rigged as back light as well as our own stuff. And, a few times we poked big Chimeras over the walls as key lights.

"All the lights had grids and were on dimmers," Gunter continues. "To maintain the dark look, most of the light came from behind and the light that was on the faces was kept down in exposure for the dark and creepy look."

The first person who talks to Klein does so in the back of her yard. Murphy shot the sequence two ways - with Linney and Gere in the present during the day and then at night as a disjointed memory recalled by the frightened woman. "Using color infrared (Areochrome II 2443) we lit the location with HMI lights slamming into the house and bounced an 18K into a frame from the side," says Murphy.

"When the camera first approaches the house the exposure is normal. But, as the camera gets into a close up of the woman sitting in her window (in her flashback), we fade up her key light three to four stops over exposed and pull away on a crane. We did this with a 5K with half CTO into a frame with full grid next to her.

"The result of the higher stops on the daylight infrared film with warm Tungsten light is film stock going nuts. By adding a few images shot with infrared film, we had a memory that might be the 'Mothman's' point-of-view."

A second element involving Mothman memories takes place at a quarry, where Will Patton's character is going over the edge as he drives his truck around and around in circles. "Will's character is convinced that he has met the being that is Indrid Cold and he is benign," says Murphy. "He has been drawn to this old cement plant, which was huge, about 1000 feet by 400 feet and 40 feet high."

"Fred had us light this with four Condors, each loaded with two 18Ks and one 12K Par," says Gunter. "We had no color (5000 degrees Kelvin). We also had one or two 12 by 20 light grids with 18Ks behind them lit for the closer shots.

"For the infrared footage of Will driving in, we took the lenses out of the 12K Pars and waved the beams wildly around from the Condors," Gunter adds. "This ended up about two to three stops over.

"I don't know if this shot made the cut but we had a camera mounted on the hood of Will's truck and a small HMI with a small Chimera box rigged out to light him through the windshield, about a stop under. This shot was done with the infrared stock.

"Midway through the shot, with the light from the 12K Pars going crazy, the Chimera box fell off and all of a sudden, Will was four stops hotter," Gunter recalls. "On the infrared, this looked very cool and we loved it! We wish we could have thought of it so we could take credit for it!"

"Will brings the truck to a stop near a nasty looking hole in the wall. As the camera dances around Will, he sees something coming out of a burning light in the hole and we see what could be Indrid Cold," says Murphy.

"When Cold comes through the fog at the cement factory hole in the wall, we back lit the shot with an 18K," Gunter recalls. "No color - at about 5000 Kelvin. He was backlit with another 18K on a Condor. Simple, but it worked."

Creating this "Mothman," a.k.a. Indrid Cold, was fun for Murphy and crew and a testament to how "low tech" can often make for the most interesting and believable moments on screen. "The shots were really rather primitive," says Murphy. "For one version, effects supervisor Robert Grassmere wore a kind of cape and we shot him coming at us in front of a blue screen. We zoomed in like crazy with the camera --and went to CineSite for the finish of this version.

"What people will actually see in other elements is an actor who is just a big guy - with a lumpy body. We put a stocking over his head, gave him a big overcoat with padded shoulders, and shot him walking through smoke with a raging back light. By putting the focus not necessarily on him, but, say on Will Patton, who is in the foreground, the disconcerting feeling works.

"Again, we shot these kinds of elements on Vision 5279 and then cranked to 50 or 60 frames, then shot in reversal or in infrared. By mixing them together we had the feeling we wanted for this being."

Fred Murphy's favorite visual of "visitation" moments in this picture is when two young people, TJ and Holly, are making out in a quarry and the "Mothman" arrives to interrupt. "Klein and Parker take them back to the quarry where they recount their story," says Murphy.

"We had conventional top lighting hung over the top of a cliff for the present time," he explains. "Because the ground on this location was so bad we couldn't use Condors so we opted for Maxi-Brutes 12-lights through a light box."

"It was conventional," Gunter agrees. "For the present time with Gere and Linney we had a Softbox that we constructed on a Condor. It was about 8 by 12 feet with two 120-light Maxis aimed down through it with CTB."

"When we got to the memories of the two kids in the car, we shot on reversal (5285) pushed three stops and done by Sprectra America Labs," Murphy adds. "We started wide and had the camera slowly approach the car. As we got into the car we had Babies and Pars coming into the window then a huge light comes burning in. And we had an electrician walking with a 1200 watt Par (Firestarter) walking closer and closer. The effect on the stressed reversal pushed three stops rated at 400 was a 'kaboom' of light - and I think, the most beautiful shot in the film."

"Of course this happens in a driving rain," adds Tufano. "Manmade this time. We did it handheld and over rugged terrain. It's the type of shot that you can only make at the end of an all-nighter, with the sun peeking over the horizon when you finally have to stop. The A-camera body (a Millenium XL) in handheld mode was really put to the test and came out a winner."

Klein and Parker seem to be the two most level headed people in the town and they work together to try to solve the inexplicable - getting closer to each other personally at the same time. In a quiet moment, Parker (Linney) tells Klein about a strange dream that she has had. "She dreams she is drowning, surrounded by Christmas packages," says Murphy.

"We don't know where this is but it is assumed that she is in the river," he adds. "We shot it in a swimming pool at the motel on our location.

"Our original idea was to put in a CGI background of clouds, so we rigged the pool with a large green screen. We put the screen in the back of the pool and rigged a 60-foot truss over the pool. We added Kino Flos on the green and over the top of this, three 12 by 12s with full grid for four 18Ks that gave us a large back light. We side lit Laura with 18Ks through full grid. And, from under the water, we had red and white Pars.

"A wonderful thing happened as we started to shoot (with Pete Romano under water with Linney)," he adds. "It got very cold and the water began to steam like crazy. Since we couldn't stop, we decided not to use the green screen and turned the background to black. Since steam is impossible for composite photography, we had no choice. But it was the right thing to do. The moment really worked - and looked even more magical when we shot at 60 frames."

The story climaxes in a huge accident on a real bridge over a river in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, combined with huge model work for the bridge breaking and a few CGI elements. "It was one of those things where you go out there and see it for real and say 'how are we going to do this?'" says Murphy. "The bridge wasn't huge - about 1000 yards. But, we had to light it while keeping the lights out of the shot! And, find a solution that allowed us to move the cameras all over the place and be consistent for about two and a half weeks of shooting."

"Fred had us rig about 24 2K Blondes concealed inside bell practical light housings about 16 feet from the bridge road decking, all suspended straight down and rigged to dimmers," says Gunter. "The lamps were pulsed via the dimmers when the collapse starts.

"We also had six Coops that were rigged up high out of the shots that provided top fill in between the Blondes. They were 6K Coops, 1000-watt clear globes, through full blue.

"At all times, we had two Major Muscos (5800K), one on each side of the river, to provide back light on the bridge and our actors. The other Musco light was used to provide front light (two to two and a half stops under) for the opposite side of the river bank in the background.

"On a couple of the shots, especially the ones where Gere approaches the bridge after getting out of his car, we borrowed the Mini-Musco from second unit, to go along with the two Major Musco lights," Gunter adds. "We placed the Mini around the corner up the hill so we could pan from his car all the way around to see the entire bridge with the town in the background on the other side of the river."

Murphy had Gunter and his crew rig the town with about 30 Firestarters from the ground, picking out buildings. The buildings were out of focus, since the focus was on the actors, so the town could be down and dirty. To make it effective, they placed several lamps in prominent windows and asked the businesses and residents to keep their interior lights on all night. "This was a big help, so were the Christmas lights strung up by the art department that outlined the buildings and gave us depth," says Gunter.

"At times, we lit the intersection with several 18Ks (5000K) from a Condor in town. And, for the down stage acting areas, the actors were lit by the down Blondes, the Coops, and supplemental light."

"This light was an HMI bounce into Clay Coat that key grip Richie Guinness found for us," says Murphy. "It is as smooth as bleached Muslin but gives more light.

"To give the effect of cars running, we rigged steam machines under the vehicles, so we wouldn't asphyxiate our actors and crew. If the cars were safely out of range, we let them run, using the headlights to add to our lighting."

Ask Fred Murphy and crew about additional shots on this complicated thriller and they are ready to step in. There are the shots that juxtapose Laura Linney's world (dark but warm) at Christmas with the cold and eerie house Richard Gere once shared with his wife. There are other "Mothman" moments. And a few more memories. "Let's put it this way, we weren't lacking for challenges on this picture," says Murphy.

"Fred had a saying on this picture," laughs Gunter. "We'd walk onto the set freezing, barely able to feel our fingers at times, and ask what was up for the day. His standard answer, with a smile, was 'everything is probable.' How true that was!"

"Whatever Mark and I threw at the crew, they were ready," says Murphy. "Jeff Tufano did amazing handheld work. Buzz Moyer on B-camera and Steadicam was flawless. We where supported by an excellent camera crew. Gaffer Brian Gunter and Richie Gainess and their crew did a phenomenal job as did Tony Wolberg, who DP'ed the second unit."

Yes, the strange and eerie world of what is known to be a true story called The Mothman Prophecies was a major challenge for cinematographer Fred Murphy and crew. And, it was a film that was the polar opposite from his October Sky. It was a challenge Murphy welcomed. Not one to want to be "type-cast," mixing metaphors that weren't always beautiful is just another way to show the broad range of creativity a cinematographer's library can contain.