We’re in the front room of a typical house in a quiet Burnaby suburb. But in the kitchen, it’s the farthest thing from normal you could imagine.

A man is about to feed bits of his dismembered mother into the waste disposer.

Somebody call the cops!

The front door opens slowly and in steps craggy-faced Frank Black, followed by a posse of FBI agents.

It’s the sort of dark, grisly scene that’s become an integral part of Chris Carter’s new hit series, Millennium.

The show stars Lance Henriksen as a cop with the psychic power to see murder scenes through killers’ eyes.

As director Tom Wright sorts out some last-minute details, North Vancouver’s Rob McLachlan goes quietly about his job, making sure the scene has the look and light it needs.

A LOT OF FILMS

McLachlan is director of photography (DOP) on Millennium and has just won the top award from the Canadian Society of Cinematographers for his work on the TV series.

He won it for the first episode of the series, Gehanna.

“It’s the biggest award in Canada for a cinematographer” says McLachlan. “For me, the best part was that it won over the series pilot, which had triple our budget and 19 days to shoot to our nine days. It’s satisfying because money and time, more than anything, show up on the screen and you have to be fairly good to overcome those.”

Watch McLachlan on set and it’s sometimes hard to see exactly what he does.

“I have done a lot of film and worked with a lot of DPs and this guy is totally involved,” says Henriksen. “He’s a painter of light, he really is. I’ve never seen it done like this on TV. When I first saw The X-Files, I thought, ‘They’re doing something special with that show.’ When I saw Millennium, I realized we’re taking it a quantum step farther.”

Henriksen has done a slew of big-budget pictures, including Aliens, The Terminator and The Right Stuff.

“I totally trust him,” says Henriksen of his DP. “I have the kind of face that’s not intended to do beauty shots. It would take a trowel to fill in the lines on my face. I never ask questions.”

“When I see it when it’s done, I say, ‘so that’s what you were doing.’"

Color and light play a major part in the show.

When Millennium hero Black is at home with his family, the scenes are bright and colorful. But, as he gets closer to violent crime and death, the scenes become darker and the color is turned down.

McLachlan says his job is a bit like being captain of a ship. He doesn’t own the ship or decide where it’s going to go but, on“I totally trust him,” says Henriksen of his DP. “I have the kind of face that’s not intended to do beauty shots. It would take a trowel to fill in the lines on my face. I never ask questions.”

“When I see it when it’s done, I say, ‘so that’s what you were doing.’" board, he’s the boss.

“I’m lucky I have such a good crew,” he says. “I can make sure everybody knows what we’re trying to accomplish. Once I’ve roughte out what I’m shooting, for mood and atmosphere, they take it from there and I can step back and keep a light hand on the wheel.”

McLachlan says the darker scenes have to be lit as if they were shot in black and white.

He says one problem is that sometimes when the show hits cable, “some faceless technician” might decide that it’s too dark and crank up the levels.

“The picture goes all to hell because the blacks get muddy and the highlights no longer glow.” he sighs.

McLachlan says a tough thing about series TV is that he doesn’t get to see the locations ahead of time. “We bring the actors in, see what they’re going to do and then the set’s handed over to me,” he says. “As quickly as I can, I have to find the most efficient way to make it look as good as it can and create the right mood to tell that story.”

Mclachlan, 41, got his start in 1978, making a documentary about an asparagus canning factory for Woodward’s.

He made commercials and documentaries for 10 years before switching to TV in 1988.

He won a Canadian Society of Cinematographers award in 1994 for the low-budget Vancouver feature, Impolite.