How the film "Cube" was filmed: 15 interesting facts (13 photos)

Seven actors, one set and 270 thousand American dollars... That's all that Canadian director Vincenzo Natali needed to shoot the science-fiction thriller "Cube", which has long become a classic.





1. The idea to create a film on the theme of isolation came to director Vincenzo Natali back in 1990, when he worked in one of the Canadian studios as an assistant animator. But he managed to finish the first version of the script only 4 years later. True, over time the script was rewritten several times.

2. Being a fan of Greek mythology, Vincenzo Natali wanted to make his project in the spirit of the Minotaur’s labyrinth, and even launch a certain monster into the cube that would follow the main characters.



Vincenzo Natali author and director of the film "Cube" (1997)

But in the end, due to a lack of budget, Vincenzo decided to make the film more realistic, so he assigned the role of the monster to the heroes of the film themselves, or rather, mostly to one of them. If you watched the film, then you will probably remember that only two characters died from the traps of the cube, namely the loner at the beginning of the film and the escape artist Ren, who also died at the very beginning.

We had a limited budget. This pushed us to be more creative; to more concise and precise special effects. And also to the fact that we need to rely more on human history.

(c) Vincenzo Natali, author and director of the film "Cube" (1997)

3. When Vincenzo Natali was asked why he chose the theme of isolation, he gave two reasons:

But the cunning Vincenzo didn't want to shoot the film purely in one room, so he decided to create the illusion of a large cube measuring 26x26x26, which is 17,576 rooms.

But only one 14-cubic-foot room was built for filming. And to create the illusion that the rooms were different, each of them was illuminated in a different color, and some rooms were stuffed with a variety of traps.





True, it was initially planned that the cube would have 6 colors for rooms (the cube has the same number of faces), but again, due to budget savings, it was decided to reduce the number of colors to five. By the way, there are also only six main characters in the film, if you don’t count the one from the beginning of the film.



4. As I already noted, only one room was made for the filming of “Cube”. Of course, it was originally planned to make 7 rooms, namely one central and six extending from the faces of the cube. But there was not enough money even to make two full rooms.

Therefore, in order to show the next room, only one wall was used, made in the likeness of the walls of the main room. This wall created the illusion that there were at least two rooms. And by the way, the functioning door was also a single copy. All the other doors were props.



5. In order to stay on time, scenes were shot in color order. That is, at the beginning they filmed scenes in rooms of the same color, and then moved on to filming scenes in rooms of a different color. This saved a lot of time. True, the actors themselves admitted that it was difficult for them psychologically to constantly adjust to different emotions.



6. To support the creation of the film, the digital technology studio CORE Digital Pictures did all the special effects for the film absolutely free of charge.

7. The main characters got their names not by chance. All of them are named after one prison or another. Moreover, the direction of these prisons reflected the character of the characters themselves.



8. The total budget of the film “Cube” is 700 thousand Canadian dollars, but the author received approximately half of it on a non-refundable basis. But it all paid off in a big way, as the film earned almost $9 million at the worldwide box office.



9. The floor on which the main characters walked constantly creaked, which caused some discomfort. Therefore, in those scenes where there was no need to show the floor, sheets of plywood were laid out and covered with blankets, so that it would be more comfortable for the characters to walk and so that there would be no unnecessary noise.

10. Initially, Vincenzo wanted to place some edible substance similar to moss on the walls of the cube, but in the end it was decided to abandon this idea so that the heroes would have an incentive to quickly get out of this terrible place.



11. Vincenzo Natali filmed a short scene showing what was outside the cube, but in the end he decided that the scene would be unnecessary, so he permanently deleted it.

12. The film crew was very uncomfortable, as there were a couple of dozen people in a small room measuring 4.3 x 4.3 meters (14 square feet). And so on for 20 days. Due to the small size and large occupancy of the room, most scenes were filmed using a handheld camera.



13. Actor David Hewlett, who played Worth, got into the film almost through connections. He was friends with director Vincenzo Natali in high school, and Vincenzo himself directed him in his first short film. And by the way, it was David Hewlett who recommended actor Andrew Miller for the role of Kazan, since they had already worked together before.



David Hewlett as Worth

14. Nicole de Boer, who played the mathematical genius Levene, admitted in an interview that she is an oak in mathematics, and that she even failed this subject at school.



15. The actors themselves admitted that they felt most comfortable filming in a white room, while in the red room they experienced terrible discomfort.