Sam Raimi - Recurring Trademarks, Motifs, and Partners

Recurring Trademarks, Motifs, and Partners

In his film and television projects, Raimi's brother Ted Raimi and his friend Bruce Campbell often appear in on-screen roles, though these appearances are often just cameos. The trio have been working together since their college days. Both Ted and Bruce have appeared in all three Evil Dead and Spider-Man movies, as well as Hercules: the Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, which Sam produced. In the Dead films, Campbell plays the recurring star role of Ash, while Ted played various small parts every time. In the Spider-Man films, however, Ted plays Daily Bugle advertising manager Ted Hoffman, while Campbell has played different roles every time. In Hercules and Xena, Ted and Bruce played the recurring roles of Joxer and Autolycus. Raimi occasionally appears on-screen in his own movies, usually in similar fashion to the cameos made by his idol Alfred Hitchcock: A silhouette behind a projection screen (Spider-Man, in the wrestling scene), a passer-by with some kind of physical interaction with the film's protagonist (Spider-Man 2, as the student whose bookbag hits Peter Parker in the back of the head), a hitchhiking fisherman accompanied by Robert Tapert in The Evil Dead. Raimi also wears a suit with white shirt and tie on-set in another homage to Hitchcock. An adept fan will also notice Raimi's recurring usage of soda crackers as a back prop.

Raimi often works with film editor Bob Murawski, a fellow Michigan State University alumnus; among Raimi's films edited by Murawski include the Spider-Man movies, The Gift, and Army of Darkness. He also frequently collaborates with composer Joseph LoDuca, another acquaintance from Michigan who has provided the scores to most of his films. Raimi has included a 1973 yellow Oldsmobile Delta 88 automobile (nicknamed "The Classic") in every film including The Quick and the Dead ("Somewhere...somewhere hidden. Only I know. I'll never tell"). Bruce Campbell, at Comic-con 2005, revealed that a special covered wagon frame had covered the vehicle to maintain the motif of the film. The yellow Oldsmobile also appeared in Drag Me to Hell, driven by the elderly gypsy woman. A bottle of Maker's Mark also appears regularly in his movies.

Other Raimi screen-framing trademarks include:

• A distinctive camera shot where the camera follows a moving object (such as an arrow or a projectile weapon) at high speeds creating a first-person point of view from the object itself;
• A rapid dolly shot to bring a far-off object suddenly into the center of the shot or to pull back from the main focal object to show what is happening around the perimeter (sometimes called "push-pull");
• Montage sequences with overlapping close-up shots to establish a set of similar actions over elapsing time.
• Extreme closeups using a wide angle lens.

In the Making The Amazing documentary on the Spider-Man 2 DVD, both Tobey Maguire and Bruce Campbell jokingly describe Raimi's penchant for "abusing" actors: In order to get realistic closeups of a character getting hit by debris, Raimi usually stands just off-camera throwing items, swinging tree branches, etc., at the actor who is at the center of the shot. Scenes from the documentary show that Raimi is the one throwing popcorn at Peter Parker during the walk to the wrestling ring in Spider-Man and tossing gold coins around during the bank robbery scene in Spider-Man 2.

In many of Raimi's movies, the camera itself is part of the action onscreen. One of Raimi's most famous sequences involves a POV shot of actor Bruce Campbell being chased through a cabin by an unseen evil force.