12:45 A.M. on a rain-slicked byway outside Springdale, Arkansas, Bobby Webber's Ford Thunderbird turns off the road and up a long country driveway to a farmhouse cloaked in darkness. Chained to the porch, a grey dog barks vainly at the stranger. With a .357 Magnum tight in his right hand and another hidden behind his back, Webber steals quietly into the house. In an unlit hall, he waits for Mr. Nesmith to rouse from his bed and come stumbling into view. When a thin band of light reveals his prey, Webber pulls the trigger again and again. At point-blank range, the blasts are jolts of flame and death. He then walks calmly into the bedroom, takes aim at Mrs. Nesmith and fires again.

Webber's brooding, nightmarish world is pitch black, punctuated only by short, fiery flashes of violence. Terrifying glimpses of knife blades and blood-soaked walls speed by so fast the image is blurred. He walks a landscape of relentless dread, one that is stark and bleak, menacing and mesmerizing.

It was Robert McLachlan who created Webber's hellish nocturnal world. As director of photography (DOP) on the acclaimed Fox series Millennium, he chose to plunge the villain into a maze of shadows, obscuring his face and keeping him vaguely off-centre. The effect leaves viewers on edge, uneasily straining to see what happens next. It's vintage McLachlan. Hungry shadow and subtle menace.

Through the play of light and camera angles, McLachlan conjures up the claustrophobic atmosphere that has become Millennium's trademark. He decides what the viewer sees: the close-ups, the camera angles, the filtering and the colour contrasts, the dark visual overlay. The Vancouver-born McLachlan likens it to being a ship's captain: "You don’t own the ship, that would be the producer. You don’t decide where the ship is going, that would be the writer and director; but on board, your word is law."

So far, no one is complaining.

The Webber episode garnered McLachlan the top prize at the Canadian Society of Cinematography Awards in March. It was the sixth time the 42-year-old cinematographer has been honored for his work in film and television (The Beachcombers, MacGyver and The Commish). Lance Henriksen, craggy-featured star of Millennium, says McLachlan is in a class by himself, always searching for that extra detail or angle that would enhance the scene.

Despite the accolades, McLachlan’s immediate future remains uncertain. With ratings consistently lower than its sister show The X-Files, Millennium may not be around for much longer. But for McLachlan, uncertainty and risk have long been part of the game.

McLachlan’s start came in the basement of Woodward's department store. Working in the food court to pay his way through SFU's film school, he convinced the late Chunky Woodward to finance a 7-1/2 minute promo about an antique peanut butter machine machine destined for the scrap heap. The short was quirky enough to capture a B.C. Film award and start McLachlan on his way.

In 1978 he took a chance and started Omni Film Productions. It was his only way to get behind the camera. "Back then there was maybe one Hollywood feature here a year and The Beachcombers. And they certainly weren't looking for young film grads."

Starting with low-budget ads for local furniture stores, McLachlan gradually progressed to Greenpeace nature documentaries and short anthologies for CBC. An entrepreneur as well as an artist, he kept the rights to all his farm features, peddling them to school boards across the country.

His first big break came in 1985 with Abducted, a horror flick about a crazed mountain man filmed at the top of Mt. Seymour. As director of photography, McLachlan’s job was to tame the twin terrors of glaring snow and blinding sun. "It was a good challenge, a dreadful movie, but a definite learning experience." (Indeed. His camera ingenuity was considered the film’s only redeeming feature.)

The exposure led to an offer on the TV series Sea Hunt in Victoria. With it came his ticket into IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Union) Local 669: the holy grail for any camera jockey seeking work in television.

continued . . .