it, tracks backward in front of them as they walk up to it towards the room around two corners and then turns again to let the actors pass, pan right and follow Karen as she goes to the door. It was necessary first to build a specialized chair for the camera operator on a track along the ceiling, then the grips had to move the camera in sync with the actors without causing any bumps. It was then necessary to light the scene while avoiding any crew shadows, which they did with photofloods and striplights through overhead muslin. "If I were to do that shot over again, I would probably underexpose a bit more to accentuate the shadows, but, all in all, the shot worked very well" said Roizman Filming and locations The film's opening sequences were filmed in and near the city of Mosul, Iraq, a country with which the U.S. did not then have diplomatic relations, and was also experiencing civil unrest that later grew into civil war; Warners feared that Friedkin and his crew might not be able to return. Friedkin negotiated filming arrangements directly with the local officials of the ruling Ba'ath Party. He was allowed to shoot only on the condition that he hire lots of local workers as crew and teach some classes in filmmaking to interested residents, primarily in how to create and use fake blood. The archaeological dig site shown is ancient Hatra, south of Mosul. Temperatures during the days filming took place reached , limiting shooting to the early mornings and evenings. After shooting William Kaplan, the film's production supervisor, was held under armed guard in Baghdad as a check from Warners bounced. Although the film is set in Washington, D.C., many interior scenes were shot in various parts of New York City. The MacNeil residence interiors were filmed at CECO Studios in Manhattan. Principal photography began in mid-August 1972 with Karras's confrontation with his uncle over his mother's care, shot at Goldwater Memorial Hospital (since demolished to make way for Cornell Tech) on Roosevelt Island in the East River between Manhattan and Queens; the scenes with Karras's mother in the hospital were filmed at Bellevue. The scene where Father Karras listens to the tapes of Regan's dialogue was filmed in the basement of Keating Hall at Fordham University in the Bronx. where O'Malley, who plays Dyer, was an assistant professor