How The Hunter's Cinematographer's Night Created His Haunting Visual Style

The set for "The Night of the Hunter" was built by Hilyard Brown, who also designed the sets for "Cleopatra" and "Creature from the Black Lagoon". "Now we had some of the river footage with the kids and Hilyard Brown did a hell of a job for us building the river and the houses from Stage 15 to Pathe," cinematographer Stanley Cortez recalled in a interview with American Cinematographer. He acknowledged how strange the man-made landscape was on film. "The only way to earn points was to style it," he explained. "The sky was all artificially lit and although it was black and white, it had an eerie phosphorescent quality to it."

Rather than be upset by the unnatural quality of the film's setting, Cortez chose to lean into it. "Before the picture started, I did some tests with the Tri-X film to see what the film would do not just from a speed point of view but from a dramatic point of view, which for me is more important,” he continued. "The technique is one thing and the dramatic concept is another. In my book, the dramatic aspect is much more important, because through the dramatic concept, the communication is made to the audience and that is the crux of everything. "< /p>

Using Tri-X elevated the weirdness of "Night of the Hunter". This made the artificial texture of the set seem intentional, rather than a budget restriction. Cortez lets the viewer know that he's not being asked to suspend his disbelief. In the words of Harry Styles, the film "feels like a movie" (via Fred Film Radio).