Night Eyes

The Making of Night Eyes

Première Los Angeles & Hilversum slideshow

Short impression world première interview in Hilversum

Full interview world première in Hilversum

I saw an image before my eyes. I imagined that behind that last corner – which I still had to take – my own car would already be there, in my familiar spot. The image was so strong that I was almost afraid to actually take the turn. When I did, it was a relief that my own spot was free. There was no car there.
This strange thought did linger and eventually became the story Night Eyes. A short version of it was first published in 1991 in ParaVisie magazine; a longer version later appeared in my story collection Night Eyes, titled after this story.
After that, for a long time, nothing special happened as far as this story was concerned. My career, on the other hand, was going very well. I also started writing novels and they were published in one language after another and are currently read in much of the world.

My latest novel is titled Zone. It is an airplane thriller set aboard a Boeing 747. Flight 582 takes off from LAX in Los Angeles, bound for Sydney. What happens on that plane is stuff you don’t want to experience yourself, I assure you. But to be able to write this story I had to brush up my knowledge about airplanes in general, and what goes on in a cockpit in particular. Without the help of Jan Cocheret, Boeing 777 pilot at Emirates, this novel would not have seen the light of day. Jan has an interesting life. Not only does he have a cool job, he is also married to Cilly Dartell – best known for the TV program Hart van Nederland that she hosted for years – and together they have two sons. One of them, David, lives and works as a film director in Los Angeles. Once when I was in Dubai, the base of Emirates and therefore also the home of Jan and Cilly, we talked about David. I can safely say that the seeds for the Hollywood adaptation of Night Eyes were sown in that bustling metropolis in the desert.

David Cocheret is an energetic young fellow and he was looking for the right story to film. My Night Eyes was to his taste. Together we worked on the script and the decision was made to go ahead with the filming. The filming took place in December 2012. On the gray morning of December 8, I boarded a KLM jumbo, for an eleven-hour flight to LAX. There is a nine-hour time difference between Amsterdam and Los Angeles. Although the Boeing had taken off just before ten in the morning, I stepped out of the terminal in sunny California just after noon, under a blue, cloudless sky.
I had been given an address where the set was located and I drove there in a rental car. It took some getting used to the wide and busy streets of Los Angeles (in America everything seems to be bigger than we are used to). Suddenly I was driving along Sunset Boulevard and a little further I crossed Santa Monica Boulevard. Then I reached Hollywood Boulevard, passed the Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theatre. Just past the Chinese Theatre, the navigation system told me to turn right. I did and suddenly found myself in another world.
No more wide streets, no more glitz and glamour. I was suddenly driving in high mountains – the canyons of the Hollywood Hills – on a fairly narrow road. Because that’s what Los Angeles is, too. You’re in a metropolis, and yet near pristine wilderness, which you can literally find in the middle of the city. Less than three miles from the Walk of Fame, I reached the set.

A house, somewhat cube-shaped, built against a steep canyon, was the destination according to the navigation system. That I had been led to the right address I deduced from the half-open tent in front of the house, in which a lot of film equipment was set up. A small army of film crew was busy with all sorts of things.
Thus began my three days on the set of Night Eyes. If you don’t know better, it seems like making a film isn’t that big of a deal and you sometimes wonder why a production has to cost so much money. But then when you see with your own eyes what is involved, you start to understand a bit better.
For starters, the set for each scene must be built, including all the props that are needed. A lot of attention is also paid to getting the lighting right. I still don’t know all of the jargon that a crew uses, but among other things, you see large screens always being placed around the set to brush away image-polluting shadows. And for a scene that takes place in the dark, but is shot during the day, every trace of daylight is carefully taped.

Naturally, the actors rehearse every scene they are about to play. There is a moment in Night Eyes when Larry knocks Michael down with a chair. That scene has been rehearsed so many times that Steve Wilcox, the actor who plays Michael, was almost smashed to a pulp.
After the rehearsals, the big moment approaches. The cameras are brought into position, the microphones adjusted – those big horns that sometimes appear on screen when you watch the bloopers of a film production process. The people responsible for lighting are ready. The make-up artist is putting the finishing touches on the actors. The director and his assistant take their seats on the high folding chairs and they see on a small screen what the camera is recording.

Then the caller announces in a loud voice that everyone on the set, about thirty people altogether, must be quiet from now on and he always ends with the cry: ‘Rolling!’ Then the director shouts: ‘And… action!‘ Then someone else in front of the camera briefly shows the board that has the scene number and the number of the take – the professional term for it is clapboard – and when he has closed it, the shoot has finally begun.
A scene is short. A film is cut up into lots of puzzle pieces, and each piece usually lasts less than half a minute. Not infrequently, many takes are taken of each scene. The man who will later do the editing is also already on the set. He puts each take in order, and by order he means the arrangement of scenes as described in the script.
Because a film is not shot chronologically, the whole puzzle of scenes is divided into groups that are most convenient for the production process. What happens at the end of the film may have been shot on the first day of production, so to speak.
So it’s quite a task not only arranging all the takes logically, but also of deciding which of the many takes is really the best.
It was a cheerful bunch on the set. A lot of young people, who were having fun. But at the same time they were doing their work in a very professional manner.
It all came together. Precisely because of that contagious enthusiasm with which Night Eyes was made, which I will always remember. Cast and crew were great, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. And I sincerely wonder if I will ever meet such an inspired director as David Cocheret again.

The best scene I’ve seen myself being created? Definitely the one where Linda arrives at the house and sees her own Jeep Liberty, the one she’s sitting in that very moment, parked already there at the house.
Because that’s how this all started. A quarter of a century ago it was just a rather silly thought that occurred to me. But on that evening in December 2012, exactly that image became reality. And isn’t that part of the magic of Hollywood?
Every story has an epilogue. Almost two years later, in September 2014, I traveled again to Los Angeles. I met the film crew again, not on a set this time, but in a beautiful movie theater in Hollywood, where for insiders and a few guests from the film world, the very first premiere of Night Eyes took place.

The next day I drove back to that cube-like house in the Hollywood Hills, where filming had taken place two years earlier in December.
I stood there for a while. I looked at that distinct home, at the rugged canyons – barely more than a stone’s throw away from the Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame – and all the wonderful memories of the shooting of the movie floated to the surface. The atmosphere, the experience, the passion of everyone involved in the production of Night Eyes.

I relived the recording days again, as if I could experience them one more time. It was a bit like the experiences of Linda Raines.
I am so glad I got to meet that brave young woman.

Somewhere in that wonderful place, the infinite world called Imagination.