SCANNERS

PEOPLE IN THE RECORD

Braedon Keller / Lawrence Dane

ConSec’s executive is also Revok’s collaborator. The conspiracy was made more explicit through additional scenes written and filmed during editing.

Copie Zéro no. 10, entry 5124, p. 40 · Cronenberg / Harkness, p. 11 (PDF 4)

PEOPLE IN THE RECORD

Trevellyan / Mavor Moore

Trevellyan belongs to ConSec’s boardroom leadership. He is distinct from the demonstration Scanner played by Louis Del Grande, whose head explodes. The period catalogue lists them separately as Trevellyan and Scanner 1.

Copie Zéro no. 10, entry 5124, p. 40 · Screenplay, printed pp. 10–14 (PDF 11–15)

PEOPLE IN THE RECORD

Arno Crostic / Adam Ludwig

Pierce’s gallery representative explains the artist’s public career. In the screenplay, he represents Pierce despite never having met him in person.

Screenplay, printed pp. 34–37 (PDF 35–38) · Copie Zéro no. 10, entry 5124, p. 40

PEOPLE IN THE RECORD

Dr. L. Frane / Victor Knight

A general practitioner at the end of the RIPE trail. The screenplay places his medical practice inside his house and specifies a sign directing patients to the side entrance.

Screenplay, printed pp. 84–88 (PDF 85–89) · Copie Zéro no. 10, entry 5124, p. 40

PEOPLE IN THE RECORD

Mary Beth Cantor / Karen Fullerton

The period cast list gives the patient a full name. The screenplay’s patient-list dialogue spells the surname Canter. These are two documentary forms of the name.

Copie Zéro no. 10, entry 5124, p. 40 · Screenplay, printed p. 88 (PDF 89)

PEOPLE IN THE RECORD

Flick / the record-store attacker

The screenplay names the attacker Flick. Later credits associate the record-store killer with Géza Kovács; the period catalogue instead lists Geza Kovacks as Scanners 6. The records preserve different levels of identification.

Screenplay, printed pp. 57–60 (PDF 58–61) · Copie Zéro no. 10, entry 5124, p. 40

PEOPLE IN THE RECORD

Courtney / Graham Batchelor

The Psychic Gym technician is spelled Cortney in the screenplay. The period catalogue prints Graham Bachelor as Courtney; the later French institutional credit uses Graham Batchelor.

Screenplay, printed pp. 24–26 (PDF 25–27) · Copie Zéro no. 10, entry 5124, p. 40

PEOPLE IN THE RECORD

Dieter Tautz / Fred Doederlein

The Psychic Gym uses the yoga practitioner to demonstrate voluntary control of bodily processes. The screenplay specifies chest and temple electrodes. The period catalogue spells the character Deiter Tautz.

Screenplay, printed pp. 24–26 (PDF 25–27) · Copie Zéro no. 10, entry 5124, p. 40

PEOPLE IN THE RECORD

Jim / screenplay identity

The script places Jim and Craig in the front of the escaping van. Jim Kaufman appears in later institutional cast listings as a Scanner, but the shared first name does not establish that he played Jim.

Screenplay, printed pp. 55–56 (PDF 56–57) · Cinémathèque française, cast

PERIOD CAST

The Dornhoff and Reiss names

The catalogue credits Elijah Siegler as Martin Dornhoff; Mikhail Berkut as Mr. Dornhoff; Danny Silverman, Louise Draper and Bob Peters as the Reiss boy, mother and father; and Don Buchsbaum and Dave Patrick as squash players.

Copie Zéro no. 10, entry 5124, p. 40

SCREENPLAY IDENTITIES

Meryl, Flavia and Patch

The draft gives Meryl and Flavia distinct actions in the Halfway House attack: Meryl is shot; Gaudi pulls Flavia from the fire. Patch accompanies Braid through the house. The names describe characters on the page; the surviving records do not securely map all three to performers.

Screenplay, printed pp. 52–55 (PDF 53–56)

PRODUCTION DESIGN

A division of physical work

Carol Spier headed the art department, with Claude Benoit assisting and Tom Coulter credited as sculptor. The period roster separately identifies Delphine White for costume design, Renée April as dresser and Peter Bray for set dressing. Ron Sanders edited the film.

The corporate marks, Pierce’s sculptures and the special-makeup heads belong to different kinds of design work. A department credit alone cannot identify the designer of a particular logo.

Production roster, p. 23 (PDF 4) · Copie Zéro no. 10, entry 5124, p. 40

MARK IRWIN / CINEMATOGRAPHY

Wide lenses and clear air

In Donald Martin’s 1984 interview, Mark Irwin specifically names 14mm and 20mm lenses for Scanners. He explains that blocking established the coverage and that the location helped determine the lighting. His discussion of Jennifer O’Neill’s photography also describes Cronenberg’s preference for crisp images over fog filters or rooms filled with smoke.

The resulting tension is visible in the spaces: the lens can make a room feel unstable while its surfaces remain sharply legible.

“Let there be light,” March 1984, p. 7 (PDF 2)

SPECIAL MAKEUP

The makeup workshop

Lois Siegel’s contemporary report names Chris Walas, Tom Schwartz and Stephan Dupuis as the makeup-effects team, with Dick Smith credited as consultant. Its photographs and interviews describe life impressions, plaster positives, rubber molds and gelatin heads. Applied hair, eyes and internal assemblies completed the doubles.

Siegel, “artists of illusion”, p. 24 (PDF 5) · Fabrication account, p. 25 (PDF 6)

THE DEMONSTRATION SCANNER / LOUIS DEL GRANDE

One effect, two locations

In his 2021 ASC interview, Irwin recalls filming the demonstration in a suburban Montréal lecture hall, then moving the backdrop to a waterfront warehouse for the insert. Five cameras covered the prop, including a Mitchell Mark II at 36 fps. He remembers Cronenberg rejecting the visible sparks from internal squibs.

Irwin attributes the successful explosion to Gary Zeller’s shotgun and describes its load as salt. In his account, subsequent replacement attempts were rejected and the first successful shotgun take remained in the film. These are the cinematographer’s later recollections of the shoot.

Iain Marcks, ASC, 5 November 2021: “Scanners (1981)”

GARY ZELLER / PHYSICAL EFFECTS

Fire, prosthetics and the hand

Siegel reported from the Old Montréal apartment-fire shoot and photographed the effects work. The same article describes a foam-rubber hand appliance for the dart effect.

A surviving dart was later catalogued by Propstore: an aluminium body, pink-fur fletching and a dull needle attached to a flesh-coloured mounting piece, measuring 8 × 2 × 2 cm. The dimensions describe that auctioned object, not every version made for production.

Location report, p. 21 (PDF 2) · Dart appliance, p. 25 (PDF 6) · Propstore, catalogue 78, object 18460

PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographs with an archival address

The Cinémathèque québécoise’s Scanners photograph series is catalogued as 1995.2482.PH. The online record credits Denis Fugère across the sequence and Thérèse Bérubé for 1995.2482.PH.18. Siegel’s published production photographs form a separate photographic record.

Cinémathèque québécoise, photograph series 1995.2482.PH · Pierce on location, p. 26 (PDF 7)

HOWARD SHORE / SCORE

Making the inside of a mind audible

Howard Shore described the final duel to Terry Gross as an experiment combining orchestra with electronic sounds he created through recording and tape manipulation. He traced the method to the musique concrète techniques he had explored with tape recorders and splicing as a young musician, and recalled hearing Toru Takemitsu’s work early in life.

His explanation concerns the score’s materials. Gross’s comparison with animal growls is a listening impression in the interview, not an identification of a particular animal recording used in the film.

Fresh Air, 18 March 2002, transcript: discussion immediately after the Scanners duel excerpt

COMPOSER’S ACCOUNT

A score built in the studio

In his 1998 Cinesonic conversation, Shore grouped Scanners with his early experimental Cronenberg scores and compared its studio-built approach with Videodrome and Crash. He also described a collaboration that begins with the script and develops through conversations, a director’s cut and a spotting session.

That account helps distinguish the creation of recorded musical material from the later act of placing it in a finished film. The electronic component is part of the composition, not simply an adjective for its mood.

Philip Brophy, Cinesonic, 1999; conversation delivered in 1998, questions on collaboration and Crash

MONDO / HOWE RECORDS / 2015

The score as a record

Mondo’s January 2015 release with Howe Records paired Scanners on side A with The Brood on side B, with artwork by Sam Wolfe Connelly. Its nine Scanners tracks provide a useful listening index. Album durations are not film timecodes.

1. Main Title1:37
2. Vale Captured4:09
3. Ephemerol1:21
4. The Ripe Program2:52
5. The Injection2:50
6. Dirge for the Assassins2:38
7. Vale’s Lonely Walk1:03
8. The Dart1:34
9. Scanner Duel5:48

Mondo, 12 January 2015: release announcement and side-A track list

EDITION RECORD

Listening across editions

Second Sight’s standard 4K edition, 2NDBR4243, includes LPCM mono 1.0, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Shore’s Mind Fragments interview.

Second Sight, Scanners 4K UHD: special features, catalogue number and audio

THE U.S. ONE-SHEET

Joann Daley’s theatrical image

Posteritati’s record 24972 identifies the 1981 U.S. 27 × 41-inch one-sheet and credits Joann Daley. Its central image belongs to the theatrical campaign; later artist prints and home-video packaging have their own makers and publication histories.

Posteritati, record 24972

POSTER / TRAILER / RADIO

237 in the campaign, 236 in ConSec’s list

The campaign’s 237 Scanners became part of the film’s public identity. Keller’s screenplay dialogue instead refers to a list of 236 known Scanners. The difference is between promotional copy and an in-world count, which need not describe the same thing.

The timed 10 / 15 / 20-second escalation and the tagline “Their thoughts can kill” turn psychic power into a sales proposition.

Screenplay, printed p. 12 (PDF 13) · 1981 one-sheet · Criterion: trailer and radio spots

CAMPAIGN FORMATS

Publicity photographs and exhibitor paper

The saved research distinguishes the Avco Embassy SCA photographs, the advertising manual, standard lobby cards and miniature cards. Each is a different publication format: the manual directs exhibitors; the cards and captioned stills circulate selected images.

The recorded SCA sequence contains thirteen identified photographs between SCA-1 and SCA-14, with SCA-13 absent from that documented group.

Object register: publicity, pressbook and lobby cards

PRINT ADAPTATION

Leon Whiteson’s novelization

Tower Books published Leon Whiteson’s Scanners novelization in 1980, based on Cronenberg’s screenplay.

WorldCat: Scanners / Leon Whiteson

PUBLISHED FRAME REFERENCE

ConSec / Continental Security Inc. Corporate Identity

A coherent fictional corporate identity system built around the ConSec mark and the scripted company name Continental Security Inc.

Fictional Brands Archive, ConSec record 14 · View reference image

PUBLISHED FRAME REFERENCE

ConSec Employee Badge

A landscape-format ConSec credential with portrait and corporate mark is visible in the published reference frame. Its small lettering and physical measurements cannot be read reliably from this image.

Fictional Brands Archive, ConSec record 14 · View reference image

PUBLISHED FRAME REFERENCE

Biocarbon Amalgamate Corporate Identity

A complete fictional industrial/pharmaceutical identity system centered on a blue flask-like symbol, with distinct interior lowercase and exterior uppercase lockups.

Fictional Brands Archive, Biocarbon record 15 · View reference image

PUBLISHED FRAME REFERENCE

Ephemerol Vial / Packaging

Ephemerol pharmaceutical packaging carrying the Biocarbon symbol.

Fictional Brands Archive, Biocarbon record 15 · View reference image

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

Ephemerol advertisement / story date 1947

The screenplay specifies a June 1947 LIFE page showing the drug advertisement. Its publication language turns Ruth’s medical experiment into a domestic promise. The date describes the story; the physical magazine’s issue has not been securely identified.

Screenplay, printed pp. 92–93 (PDF 93–94)

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

RIPE / the scripted terminal exchange

The screenplay identifies RIPE as the ConSec-controlled program, stages a refused access request and introduces internal-monitor code IM 863. The display then produces paired doctor and female-patient names and addresses.

Screenplay, printed pp. 78–81 (PDF 79–82)

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

Crane Psychiatric Institute / record #32407

The script specifies the institute, reference #32407, January 4, 1967 and Darryl Revok, age 22. That description ties a medical image to an institutional identifier and date.

Screenplay, printed p. 27 (PDF 28)

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

Dr. L. Frane / lawn sign

The screenplay specifies the doctor’s name, general practice and an instruction to use the side entrance. It also describes a white three-storey brick Victorian residence with a turret and curved verandah. This is a scripted object and setting, not a measured reconstruction.

Screenplay, printed p. 84 (PDF 85)

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

Materiology / the group’s van

The screenplay names the escaping group’s vehicle the Materiology van.

Screenplay, printed pp. 55–56 (PDF 56–57)

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

Benjamin Pierce: Recent Works Exhibition Material

The screenplay describes the starting point for reconstructing Crostic Gallery ephemera and a future Benjamin Pierce mini-retrospective inside Cronendrome.

Screenplay, printed pp. 34–37 (PDF 35–38) · View reference image

PUBLISHED FRAME REFERENCE

Biocarbon Tanker Livery

A fleet-level application of the Biocarbon identity proving the fictional brand extends beyond signage and packaging into transport design.

Fictional Brands Archive, Biocarbon record 15 · Tanker reference frame

PUBLISHED FRAME REFERENCE

Biocarbon Industrial Transport Cart

A mundane factory vehicle carrying an oversized Biocarbon symbol, useful evidence that the art department maintained the corporate identity across background machinery.

Fictional Brands Archive, Biocarbon record 15

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

Benjamin Pierce Giant Fiberglass Head

The screenplay describes an immense walk-in fiberglass human head with an interior environment of simulated veins, sinus cavities and brain structures.

Screenplay, printed pp. 39–41 (PDF 40–42)

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

Benjamin Pierce Glass-Enclosure Self-Portrait

The screenplay describes a plaster-cast figure of a terrified man strapped to a chair inside a glass room, bearing Benjamin Pierce's own face.

Screenplay, printed pp. 33–34 (PDF 34–35)

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

Pierce’s anatomical forms

The script describes glossy plastic shapes resembling spleens and kidneys, in blood-red lighting around Pierce’s den. The language describes the envisioned environment; it is not a complete inventory of photographed sculptures.

Screenplay, printed p. 39 (PDF 40)

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

Benjamin Pierce Exhibition Catalogue

The screenplay describes a potentially fabricated exhibition catalogue for Pierce's show. No surviving copy has yet been located in published sources.

Screenplay, printed p. 34 (PDF 35)

SCREENPLAY OBJECT

Revok’s assault van

The screenplay stages an unmarked black van whose side panels open to expose shotgun muzzles and fire a broadside at the Scanner group’s vehicle. Its mechanism and narrative function belong to the scripted action.

Screenplay, printed pp. 55–56 (PDF 56–57)

CATALOGUED PROP

Cameron Vale’s dart prosthetic

Propstore catalogued a surviving dart with an aluminium shell, pink-fur fletching and a flesh-coloured mounting piece. The published dimensions, 8 × 2 × 2 cm, refer to that specimen. Siegel’s contemporary report separately describes the hand appliance used for the effect.

Propstore, catalogue 78 / object 18460 · Siegel, dart effect, p. 25 (PDF 6)

THEATRICAL POSTER

Joann Daley Theatrical Campaign Artwork

The principal illustrated Scanners campaign artwork by Joann Daley, reused across multiple formats and territories while typography and copy changed around it.

Posteritati, record 24972

PUBLICITY OBJECT

Avco Embassy / SCA publicity photographs

The earlier research records thirteen captioned photographs, with SCA-13 absent from the documented SCA-1–14 group. Keep the group description separate from a claim about the complete original issue.

Heritage Scanners catalogue search · Campaign context

EXHIBITOR PAPER

1981 advertising manual

The exhibitor advertising manual’s cover carries the campaign title and visual identity.

Saved advertising-manual listing, item 354171724358

PUBLICITY OBJECT

Lobby cards / theatre display

The saved research distinguishes standard 11 × 14-inch cards and miniature 8 × 10-inch cards. The pictured cards preserve a publicity photograph inside a campaign border; they are printed objects, distinct from film frames.

Heritage Scanners catalogue search · Campaign context

PUBLISHED FRAME REFERENCE

ConSec document folder

The published frame records the mark applied to office paperwork, extending the identity from architecture to an object handled in a meeting.

Folder reference frame

PUBLISHED FRAME REFERENCE

ConSec helicopter marking

The helicopter frame extends the corporate identity onto another vehicle.

Helicopter reference frame

SOURCE RECORD

The 1979 Final Draft

David Cronenberg; FilmPlan International copyright 1979. 97 PDF pages: title leaf plus 96 numbered screenplay pages. Printed p. 1 is PDF page 2. The word “Final” describes this document’s title, not the completed film.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Copie Zéro no. 10

Cinémathèque québécoise, Annuaire longs métrages Québec 1980, published 1981. Scanners is entry 5124, printed/PDF p. 40: technical information, crew and character names.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Lois Siegel: “artists of illusion”

Cinema Canada, March 1980, pp. 20–27. PDF p. 2 / print p. 21: Old Montréal effects location; PDF p. 4 / print p. 23: production roster; PDF pp. 5–6 / print pp. 24–25: makeup fabrication and dart; PDF p. 7 / print p. 26: Pierce production photograph.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

John G. Harkness: “Brilliantly Bizarre”

Cinema Canada, March 1981. Interview with David Cronenberg, printed p. 11 / PDF p. 4: writing during editing, Toronto Revok–Keller scenes and reshooting the ending.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Donald Martin: “Let there be light”

Cinema Canada, March 1984, pp. 6–9. Mark Irwin interview; printed p. 7 / PDF p. 2: 14mm and 20mm lenses, blocking, location lighting and clear photography.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Iain Marcks: “The Darker Side of Mark Irwin, ASC, CSC”

American Society of Cinematographers, 5 November 2021. Section “Scanners (1981)”: lecture hall and warehouse, five cameras, rejected squibs and the shotgun take. Later firsthand recollection.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Howard Shore with Terry Gross

Fresh Air, 18 March 2002. Transcript discussion directly after the final-duel audio excerpt: orchestra, electronic sounds, tape manipulation and musique concrète. The audio and transcript belong to one interview.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Howard Shore: “Composing with a very wide palette”

Conversation delivered in 1998, transcribed and edited by Philip Brophy; published in Cinesonic, AFTRS, 1999. Questions on collaboration and the studio-built score. The 2011 reprint is the same interview lineage.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Scanners / The Brood LP

Mondo, 12 January 2015 announcement for the 13 January release with Howe Records. Side A lists the nine Scanners tracks and their album durations; Sam Wolfe Connelly is credited for the cover art.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Scanners production photographs

Cinémathèque québécoise, series 1995.2482.PH. Individual photographic records name Denis Fugère; item 1995.2482.PH.18 credits Thérèse Bérubé.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

ConSec and Biocarbon frame collections

Fictional Brands Archive, ConSec record 14 and Biocarbon record 15. Published visual references for the photographed marks and their applications.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

1981 U.S. one-sheet

Posteritati record 24972: country, year, 27 × 41-inch format and attribution to Joann Daley.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Cameron Vale’s dart prosthetic

Propstore catalogue 78, object 18460. Object description, measurements and photographs; seller attribution to Scanners.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Criterion: Scanners

Criterion’s edition lists a 103-minute film, director-supervised restoration, Michael Lennick’s The “Scanners” Way, interviews, a trailer and radio spots.

Open source

SOURCE RECORD

Second Sight: standard 4K UHD

Catalogue 2NDBR4243. Edition listing includes mono 1.0 and 5.1 audio, Mind Fragments with Howard Shore, The Eye of Scanners with Mark Irwin, and effects interviews with Stephan Dupuis and Chris Walas.

Open source