Treacherous Angles: Design and Camerawork
Twohy imagined an ambitious shooting schedule when he wrote A Perfect Getaway.  From Cliff and Cydney's entry into the reef lagoon of Ke'e Beach to their dangerous walk across a narrow trail aptly named "Crawlers Ledge," re-creating the terrifying island getaway set on the pristine expanse of Pacific would prove challenging to all involved.  To lens the thriller, the production would travel from Puerto Rico to Jamaica and on to Kauai for certain aerial and cover shots.

Design
Originally, Twohy planned a guerilla-style shoot for the film.  Since the majority of his suspense thriller was to be shot in exteriors, he wondered if he even needed a production designer.  But when the production eventually landed in Puerto Rico, production designer Joe Nemec came in to help Twohy re-create Kauai, one of the most beautiful and distinct places on earth.
Puerto Rico's El Yunque National Park was a rich stand-in for the lush Na Pali Coast State Park, home to Kauai's rugged hikes and the crescent-shaped beach that spoons the emerald coastline at the end of the 11-mile trail. 
"Since the script takes place predominantly in the jungles of Hawaii, along the Kalalau trail, my first thought was that there's not really a lot to do here as a production designer," recalls Nemec.  The challenge was to "take this existing place and make it interesting for the audience, make it feel like they're going on a journey."
The volcanic range that the Kalalau trail follows has dramatic cliffs that can reach almost 4,000 feet high.  The production used visual effects to top off the Puerto Rico vistas to turn them into Kauai.  Nemec counts almost 50 sets that his crew created during an eight-week shoot that spanned the entire island. 
While some locations stood on their own, such as a bamboo forest or the slippery valley spillways that hikers cross, others demanded complex greens installations or large scale builds.  A portion of the trail that forces intrepid adventure-seekers to their knees, the mythic Crawlers Ledge, was, as Nemec explains, "one of the larger builds that works in concert with matte painting."
Though the story constantly moves along the waterline, the characters zigzag throughout the inland and then return to the coast.  The cat-and-mouse game outlined in Twohy's script gave the production many opportunities to interweave different landscapes--from forests and cliffs to rock walls--and gives the audience a sense that it is only a matter of time before another murder happens.
Some of the locations were incredibly treacherous, and it was impossible to bring ATVs and gators (four-wheel drive equipment) directly up to the set.  The grip and camera departments often had to lug their gear to places that were difficult to reach.  "The crew was constantly exposed to the elements, and what we did in the time we did it was pretty incredible," says Brenner. 

Camerawork
Twohy felt director of photography Mark Plummer's interest in shooting in a wider format would work well with the story's expansive Hawaiian vistas.  The perspectives they were able to capture are breathtaking.  "I'm happy to see small actors against a big, dangerous backdrop with craggy mountains and great rock formations," says the director. 
He and DP Plummer discussed ways to use a fascinating camera technique while lensing A Perfect Getaway.  "One of my favorite films is I Am Cuba," says Twohy.  "Russian filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov shot it almost entirely on infrared black and white film.  For our film, we created this extended flashback sequence where it is all shot on digital infrared film, black and white, using the RedCam. 
"Infrared sees below the surface of the skin, so actors' faces can take on this creamy, sultry, burnished look," he continues.  "It can be spectacular, but it can also give you some surprises.  You can see straight through sunglasses, to the point where they look like they're reading glasses.  We had to put our actors in welders' glasses when we wanted it to look like they were wearing shades."
Some of the most difficult sequences for the director, Plummer and cast to film were the kayaking scenes in which Cliff and Nick are out in the ocean.  "No matter how many times they tell you it's tough to film on water, you cannot appreciate it until you actually get on water," laughs Twohy.  "It's one thing to get the actors up to speed in kayaks; that takes a little time.  We went out there with all kinds of image stabilization equipment to keep the horizon steady and to keep us [on camera boats] steady…so people wouldn't throw up in the theatres."  When the elements didn't sync up for the production, he remembers, "we had to go old school, basically throwing the cameras back on our shoulders and using our legs as gyro-stabilizers.  It was hell."
That said, calmer days on set included the scenes in which the director was able to concentrate on the actors' performances without the distractions that visual effects scenes can create.  "When you shoot action, you chop things up into small pieces and then build the scene in the editing room," Twohy notes.  "But the scenes I'm most fond of in A Perfect Getaway are those where I could just be an actor's director.  The idea that I could stage Steve and Milla in a foreground tent and let them speak for almost three pages of dialogue?  While Kiele skins a goat behind them?  I love the staging of a scene like that, and I love that I can let it all play out in real time."

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