Here, There and Back Again: The Cube

The structure of Cube.

Cube is a system of 17576 rooms (26 rooms in each axis), fitted into exterior facade.

Some rooms periodically change their location in the system. The rooms are located in some distance from the facade. And only one of them sometimes connects with it – the bridge.

Each room represents a cube, with a door-airlock to the next room in the centre. Behind the airlock set 3 three-digit numbers, that define the room – position in the system.

The walls bear many geometric figures, some of them are traps. Metal bars in the walls work as stairs.

Cube was shot on a Toronto soundstage.

Only one cube, measuring 14 by 14 by 14 feet, was actually built, with only one working door that could actually support the weight of the actors. The colour of the room was changed by sliding panels. Since this task was a time-consuming procedure, the movie was not shot in sequence; all shots taking place in rooms of a specific colour were shot one at a time. It was intended that there would be six different colours of rooms to match the recurring theme of six throughout the movie; five sets of gel panels plus pure white. However, the budget did not stretch to the sixth gel panel and so there are only five different room colours in the movie. Another partial cube was made for shots requiring the point of view of standing in one room looking into another.

An episode of the original The Twilight Zone television series, "Five Characters in Search of an Exit", was reportedly an inspiration for the movie.