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The shots Im particularly proud of are the exterior nights.
We wanted specific things from them.
In a conventional horror film, the horror is very often in what you cant see.
When you think aboutJaws,the sea is so wide open and the danger can come from everywhere.
That danger is extremely concrete.
The spaciality, the expanse of it, makes it terrifying in many ways.
Jordan wants to do a very similar thing but with the sky.
The wayNopes terror unraveled, we would treat nights and days kind of the same.
Neither is a safe haven for our main heroes.
So youre very dependent on using film lighting.
Your space only exists within what youre lighting up, and the rest is just darkness.
Its a void, in a way.
What we wanted to do was to create nights that were very vast.
Then he sees something.
you’re free to actually see through the night.
You start to see the glow of the city in the distance and all these kinds of things.
Even on script level, Jordan has specific things that are very important for him.
He very clearly either has seen something or wants to force the audience to see things a certain way.
And sometimes what you see is very odd.
I dont think theres anything strange about witnessing a horror like that and then zeroing in on strange details.
I was thinking exactly about that when I saw video of the Uvalde school shooting the other day.
And when it all was going on, he was sanitizing his hands.
Its always these weird details you pick up on in traumatic situations.
The weirdness or the mundanity of it confirms the true terror of a specific moment.
For me, it was very important that everything felt like it could have been Jupes point of view.
When you film a point of view, youre usually very loyal towards the angles.
When you fixate more, you sometimes go to a lower lensyou dont want to go too long.
Thats why that shot stands out.
Its not just a wink to the old westerns, but its also about creating mystery.
Here, youre in Ems point of view.
You want to imagine it the way that she experiences it.
And to not let the fog clear out.
A true point of view is where you just see enough but are yearning to see more.
We do a few tricks in the film that should work very subconsciously.
That is very much the theme ofNopeitself.
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