Domestic Disturbance (2001)

With the cast in place, the production began filming in Wilmington, North Carolina, at the Screen Gems Studios, as well other locations around the city, which included Hampstead, Bergaw, downtown Wilmington and Southport.

Producer Donald De Line notes that "Wilmington, North Carolina proved the perfect place to double for Southport, Maryland, where our story is placed, and was ideal for filming "Domestic Disturbance." Our hero is a kind of Everyman, and since he's a boat builder and our story is set on and around the water, we needed a waterfront town." Becker envisioned this mythical Maryland town as the perfect setting for "innocence being invaded, the real stuff of our story, and the real stuff of a good thriller!" De Line adds, "Wilmington is a historic town that is beautiful, bucolic and slightly idyllic, and we wanted our town to have a bit of the feeling that the rest of the world had passed it by." Krane stat ed that the three of them scouted much in the South East, starting and ending with Wilmington. De Line praises Director of Photography Michael Seresin. "He's brilliant with light, creating mood and real atmosphere. That's very much part of a thriller, because the look of the film is a 'character' in and of itself."

Seresin explains his challenge as "the fundamental interpretation of the script into a visual form, which began with my his first conversation with the director. "Words on the page of a script are abstract; what we're doing is something pretty concrete. My job is to interpret that written word, to give it an overall feel and texture, to bring it to life on the screen. I tend to gravitate towards the shadows by nature. Thrillers tend to play with light and shade, to get darker as the story progresses. Harold agreed with the progressive darkness that occurs at a pivotal point in the film."

Production Designer Clay A. Griffith discusses his unique challenge. "We were relegated to a temperate locale, and had to create the feel of a fictitious coastal community in Maryland. Wilmington has an extraordinary feel to it. In some ways, time has passed this town by, so in the town itself, and beyond the greater Wilmington area, you can find almost everything the script called for. That which wasn't provided on practical location, we were able to create on the stages at the Screen Gems Studios."

Director Harold Becker relies tremen dously on the visual, design look of a film to sup port the tension of the thriller. "Harold was very specific with me and my team," Griffith continues, "and in collaboration with him, Donald De Line and Michael Seresin, we came up with some unusual locations and sets that maximized all of the story points, and that run the gamut from the seedy Shady Tree Motel in Southport, Rick's his toric mansion in suburban Wilmington, to the site in Hampstead that we used for Morrison & Son, nestled beautifully and intimately on the Intracoastal Waterway, to the rugged location found for Kelly's Brick House to the lake Bergaw where the complex and climatic finale of the film was shot. We even shot opening title sequences in the pristine community of Southport, North Carolina."

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