Scream 6 Cinematographer Explains Why the New Film Looks Different Than Its Predecessors (Exclusive)

Scream VI arrived in theaters earlier this month and quickly broke box office records for the long-running horror franchise. The new entry delivered the biggest opening weekend box office in Scream history, all while taking the story to New York City and making Ghostface more ruthless than ever. Scream VI has a lot of the trademarks of the beloved franchise, but it sports a different look than all the films that came before it. Cinematographer Brett Jutkiewicz spoke to ComicBook.com to explain why, saying that this script called for a grittier, more realistic eye than the previous entries.

“For me it really started with the new location, getting excited about New York,” Jutkiewicz told us. “So I started thinking about ways to both embrace what is particular about New York and the feel of New York, but also ways to heighten the experience of both this new setting and this more aggressive Ghostface character.”

In order to achieve that new look, Jutkiewicz made a major change to the camera he used for Scream VI. The first five Scream films were shot with anamorphic lenses. Scream VI was the first to be shot with a spherical lens, the same one Jutkiewicz used for Ready or Not, to make the film look more grounded.

“So the combination of those two things that I pitched to the directors early on in prep was to change the lenses from the previous film,” Jutkiewicz said. “All five previous Scream films were shot on anamorphic lenses and this film was the first to be shot on spherical lenses. And the anamorphic lenses have a particular kind of softness and texture to them that people consider kind of filmic, and has this quality of the way that it renders the image in a very textured way. But the spherical lenses are more a little more clean, a little more true to the eye sees the world.”

“For me, the spherical lens is basically stripping away a little bit of the layer of artifice that exists between the lens and the world it’s photographing,” he continued. “It’s a little more true. I thought that was a good way to give the movie a different feel.”

What did you think of the new look in Scream VI? Let us know in the comments!