by Patricia Thomson, American Cinematographer, November 2005

The mentally ill are an isolated lot. Many are captive in their own delusional worlds and, to make matters worse, shunned by the public. The movie Keane takes the opposite tack: it sticks with one haunted individual for 90 minutes and doesn't look away. It aims for compassion and achieves it, thanks to a nuanced performance by Damian Lewis (as William Keane) and the close-up, handheld camerawork by director of photography John Foster.

The film begins with Keane pacing through the Port Authority bus terminal in New York, shoving a newspaper clipping about a missing girl in front of strangers and ticket vendors. It seems his 6-year-old daughter was abducted months earlier from that very spot, and Keane has since spent his days in the bus station, looking for the girl and obsessively rehashing the chronology of that day. It's evident that the man has an unspecified mental illness, and the trauma of his daughter's disappearance -- compounded by drink and drugs -- has pushed him past the breaking point.

"I have sympathy for the down and out, so the subject matter was very appealing to me," says Foster. "To understand what someone like that is going through is important for all of us." What's more, Keane posed some intriguing technical challenges. When Foster was hired, director Lodge Kerrigan had ambitious parameters in mind. "I knew from the start that I wanted to keep Keane in every shot," says Kerrigan. "I wanted to underscore the idea that people exist in the world who are ill and make morally questionable choices but are still good people and deserve compassion and help."

The "aesthetic of realism" Kerrigan wanted comprised several components: the 33-day shoot would be entirely handheld, the only editing would be jump cuts, and every scene would play out in a single shot. The camera would stay in Keane's orbit, usually lingering on his face in medium close-up, and avoid reaction shots. The production would film in live environments where passersby might walk through a shot and wreck it with a wave or a glance at the camera. "It was a high-risk way of shooting, and people were telling me not to do it every step of the way," says Kerrigan. "They said, 'Get some coverage, or something to fall back on.' But you can't compromise a strong choice." The director also wanted to shoot on 35mm to avoid digital video's "immediacy." He explains, "Because the camera stays so close to Keane, any more immediacy would have been too much."

Impressed with Foster's work on the feature Sunday, Kerrigan hired the cinematographer, who has been a presence on New York's indie scene since he shot Wild Style and Variety in the early 1980s. Foster honed his handheld skills on the reality series Trauma: Life In The E.R. and Maternity Ward. What's more, says Kerrigan, "I knew the collaboration between Damian, me and the cinematographer was going to be pretty intense, so it was important to find somebody who was not only talented, but also very thoughtful and personable, and somebody who could work quickly and unobtrusively. Keane is performance-driven, and I wanted time to focus on the performance."

During rehearsals on location, Kerrigan, Foster and the actors or stand-ins worked out blocking and technical details. As a result, Foster knew in advance how long setups would take; whether his crew would need to add lights, remove diffusers from existing practicals, or temper the Port Authority's fluorescent fixtures with a magenta CC10 filter; and how much he would need to push his film stock, Kodak Vision 500T 5279. (He pushed it one stop and rated it at 800 ASA.)

Foster chose an Arricam Lite because of its superior follow-focus and monitoring capabilities. "In most situations, we were shooting at T2.8 or T2.5," he notes, "and the camera was only 2' from Keane's face and always in motion, as was the character. So it wasn't a matter of saying, 'Okay, he's 2 feet away,' and leaving it at that, because the depth of field was only an inch or two. Having someone like first AC Jeff DuTemple [pull focus] made the difference between the film being watchable and unwatchable; he just has a knack." DuTemple also had a wireless focus device to help when the camera was moving through narrow doorways or Foster was running through Port Authority. "I wanted to use the system that would give JEff the best chance of doing his job," says Foster.

The cinematographer chose Zeiss Ultra Primes as a good compromise between quality and affordability, and he shot almost every scene on a 32mm. "Lodge felt that came close to duplicating what the human eye sees," he says.

One problem the filmmakers encountered was camera shadows on the actors. "Sometimes it's very subtle, and we didn't always catch it right away," notes Foster. Another challenge was reflections, particularly at a hotel close to a major highway in North Jersey. "Lodge wanted to see car headlights out the window at night," recalls the cinematographer. " We all ended up wearing black." The crew also placed 6'x6' blacks on the wall behind them to prevent reflected silhouettes, "but with a 7-foot, 6-inch ceiling; a 6-foot, 2-inch actor and a 270-degree field of view, we were running out of places to put lights." Kino Flo tubes on the ceiling were hidden by teasers made of black-wrap, and two Tweenies were squeezed into the corners of the room. "Lodge didn't want to compromise the blocking for those problems -- we just had to solve them," says Foster.

In most filmmaking, he continues, "there's a natural tendency to think, 'If I screw it up, I'll do it again,' but in this instance, not cutting and having a three-minute shot changed the nature of what everyone did. It was more like recording a live event; when the curtain goes up, there it is." Lewis, a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was used to that, but Foster wasn't, and his role wasn't any easier -- he was often running with a 29-pound camera while trying to stay emotionally attuned to the actor. "It was difficult, but it was doubly satisfying when we pulled off a shot that was really tricky to operate," says Foster. "I'm glad I got to do it."

Caption: William Keane (Damian Lewis) pays an anxious visit to New York's Port Authority bus terminal in Keane.

Caption: In an effort to achieve realism, the filmmakers worked handheld and played every scene in a single. In this shot, Keane struggles with the authorities.

Caption: Director Lodge Kerrigan (left) and cinematographer John Foster line up a shot of a character in a taxicab.