Jeff Cutter and Dan Trachtenberg are no strangers to residing in larger franchises. The cinematographer and director, respectively, have collaborated on feature films set in the worlds of “Predator” and “Cloverfield,” featuring the best of the cast along the way.
And both also offered unique challenges: For Hulu’s “Prey,” the stylish and exciting prequel to 2022’s “Predator,” the duo harnessed the great outdoors in massive scope. While his 2016 film “10 Cloverfield Lane” was based on a virtually entirely indoor pressure cooker set in a bunker run by John Goodman.
“We were probably 95 percent on location,” Cutter said of filming “Prey,” noting that “they only had three or four stage days where we used sets for campfire scenes.” He and Trachtenberg shot the prequel with anamorphic lenses for nearly 60 days. in Calgary, preparing the latest project featuring the time-traveling Predator (played here by the 6’8″ Dane DiLiegro) as he wreaks havoc on a Comanche tribe in the 18th century. A hopeful warrior named Naru (Amber Midthunder) steps out standing up for his family against all odds.
“We had this amazing ceremony at the First Nations where they blessed us before filming,” Cutter said of the surprisingly free filming process. “We were very lucky with the weather and all that. The land is so untouched, and it’s an amazing place because there are no power lines, no roads, and no Starbucks around the corner. You are pristine as far as the eye can see.”
“Prey” is an anomaly in the realm of modern action, as it’s a tight 99 minutes, including an end credits sequence inspired by ledger painting. While other contemporary action actors are drowning in exposure, the filmmakers wanted this project to be in the spirit of the no-nonsense original 1987 film directed by John McTiernan and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Similarly, it keeps the audience guessing what the Predator actually looks like.
“There were the phases where the Predator was revealed. [in the 1987 film], it’s like some kind of invisible hooded creature, and you’re like, ‘OK, that’s interesting,’” Cutter said. “Then it’s revealed when he’s repairing himself and he takes off his camouflage, then a little bit of armor and then you get to the final reveal where he takes off his mask. That was something Dan really wanted to honor and respect.”
Despite the technological advances of today’s filmmaking, Cutter and his team also did not want to constantly rely on post-production to achieve their visual goals.
“Like the original film, we filmed the actual heat vision with thermal vision cameras, and then used the 3D rig where we could simultaneously film the thermal vision: Predator POV,” Cutter explained. “And we shot with a traditional motion picture camera, capturing the exact same image so that in post-production we would have both options or could overlay them.”
The unique aspect of “Prey” is that it’s the first “Predator” movie to premiere on a streaming service, which Cutter says was always the plan. “It was never going to get a theatrical release, we knew that from the beginning,” he said, emphasizing that they still wanted to “make the biggest, most cinematic movie that we can.”
