The way Dennis Lehane wrote Shutter
Island, to the screenplay adaptation by Laeta Kalogridis, the story is very
visual oriented. In order for this story to be recreated for theatrical, there
would be a lot of key information lost. It would not be an easy task for the
staging team for creating different scenes. Just the scene of the cliff where
Teddy is attempting to scale down and the camera is able to be at the top of
the cliff looking down on his face so the audience can see the fear clearly
expressed. This is not something a theater can recreate or something you would
find at the Globe Theater. It would be difficult to say the least. The director
chose that camera angle for a good reason; to show Teddy’s fear and to show the
height and shape of the cliff and its dangers below. For the film in
particular, numerous sets were created. I would assume they had to put in a lot
of work for the asylum’s jail. The whole building was built in small scale by
hand. The lighthouse scene where Teddy enters the base to view the vast amount
of stairs, was actually only a portion of the stairs with a green screen on the
top in order to reproduce the stairs spiraling up. The cliff when Teddy and
Chuck are scouting the island, was actually about 6 feet tall next to a parking
area (or concrete pad), where blue screen was laid at the base and the end of
the tree line. Additionally, the costumes used were all dated 1950s attire. The
US Marshall’s suits and hats, not something you see in this day of age, almost
a mafia style outfit with the flat brimmed hat. For those who worked for the
island, white pants and white shirts, a very common theme seen in many movies
featuring an asylum (for example, One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest). The
actors do retain their natural looks though, as there is very little makeup to
alter their appearances.
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