Ideas and Development

Fargo.

For my production, I've decided to make mine a remake of Fargo. I like the style that it's made in, how the action is played out and the strong story line. I also think the characters are detailed but there are less of them, which will make my producing job a bit easier.

My Chosen Scene

I've chosen the Pearl death scene. In this scene, Lester murders his wife Pearl after she pushes him emotionally. He calls a hitman, Lorne Malvo that he met in a doctors office and asks him to help, and when Lorne arrives he finds Lester being held at gun point by an officer, Vern Therman, who had come to question Lester on the death of Sam Hess and in the process discovered Pearl in the basement. Lorne shoots Vern in the back and then disappears in the basement. To avoid being caught, Lester knocks himself out on a wall in the basement next to his wife.

My Ideas

Initially, this scene seems complicated, but I've broken it down and I think it's going to be fairly doable. I may have more expenses than usual at the end of this as I'm possibly going to have to hire a house in the Medway area using Airbnb, and also hire a gun from a prop store. 

It's very unlikely that I will find a house with a basement so as a compromise I've decided I'll just have Pearl in a different room, with her feet sticking into view (or something similar). This really broadens what I'm searching for house-wise as I don't have to go to the specifics of finding a house with a basement.

One issue is that Lester kills Pearl because she critisises him after he fails to fix a washing machine. In the programme, the washing machine is very clearly broken, running very loudly and shaking a lot. It's going to be hard to find the effects to do that, so I'm considering starting my scene just after Pearl has died, maybe just before Vern arrives. I need to refine what parts of the scene I'm including as I'm not 100% sure on this as the actual scene is 11 minutes long and ours needs to be 5-6 minutes long, so I'll need to be cutting parts out. Also, if I'm cutting parts out I'm going to need to include enough details so that the viewer understands how and why Lester got himself in this situation.

If I do in fact start the scene after Pearl has died, I may get one of my friends to play the dead body as it would seem a waste of an actress's time to come and just play a dead body. However, if I include the moment Lester kills Pearl, then I will get an actress for it just so it's done properly. I will need to get 3 male actors and 1 or 2 female actors. This is quite a lot of people to arrange and ensure no drop outs but I'm going to have to hope and keep in contact with all of them so everyone stays in-the-know.

I am going to have to get police uniforms for this project. I will try and find them from a prop store along with the gun. I considered changing the gun to a knife to make this easier to find props but I don't want to change too much of the scene. I think using a gun rather than a knife will be more powerful emotionally. I'm hoping a police uniform will be fairly easy to find. I'll need to inform the police of all of these things so that they're aware of me filming on location with a prop gun, but the whole scene is shot indoors so hopefully we won't run into too many problems.

Update 22/01/18

I am continuing on with the scene I've chosen, despite it being slightly tricky. I have ordered a toy handgun that's arrived and it looks very realistic (surprisingly) and I also have a toy shotgun which I'm not sure about how it will look but I've got black matte plastic spray to make it more realistic. I'm glad I was able to keep the shotgun in the script as this makes Vern's death less personal to any other characters, whereas if Lorne stabbed him this would have been more of a connected personal death like a revenge death, which obviously doesn't fit Lorne's character. I think I'll be getting someone I know here to be playing the role of Pearl as she is just a dead body.

Update 29/01/18

I am finding this project hard but I'm still trying to stay confident and get back on track as I'm a bit behind now. As shoot week is approaching rapidly I will need to work hard to make sure everything is going to be in order. I have 1 actor so far and need 2 more so I need to send some messages out to get people on board, and I also need to get my pre production work done.

The shotgun I ordered was no good, but the same day I found one in a toy shop that is small but realistic enough to be in a long shot (hopefully the size won't be too obvious). I still need to figure out who can play Pearl and I am maybe considering getting an extra but I feel it will be all too much for just someone lying on the ground. If I can get someone that's available, I'll use a classmate. 

I know I am lagging behind and have a lot to do but I am still confident, and hoping I can pull this all together in time.

Update 06/02/18

On very little sleep due to excitement and nerves, tonight will be the first shoot, with all three actors playing Lester, Vern and Malvo. I'm excited for it, as everything has come together and with a few sacrifices (of time and money) I am so far on track for the shoot to be successful. I just have to hope that the actors have done their part in learning their lines as there is a lot to learn and it was in a short amount of time, and I maybe chose a scene with too many lines. I'm excited and nervous, like I should be, and only days ago I was very worried I wouldn't be able to pull it together and I didn't believe in myself, but now I am on set and seeing the location and the way the action can be blocked I'm definitely more happy with how it's going to play out. I think tonight will be the most stressful shoot but if we get everything done that I want to then hopefully tomorrow will be much easier with just 1 actor's shots. The location we chose is on a beautiful rural farm, and the house is a small quaint apartment. They have real wooden floors which was a concern for me as I was worried that using the fake blood was going to cause damage, so for the shot where Vern is lying on the ground and bleeding, I bought a small rug that i will lay out with bin bags underneath so that I can pour the fake blood onto Vern and the carpet without any damage being caused. 

The shotgun I chose turned out to just be too small, so instead I am changing the shot to Vern being stabbed by Malvo, which is easy enough to plan and easier to shoot without so many special effects needed. I do need to be more careful with the health and safety of this however, taking real care when using it in shots to keep on eye on how it's used. It's a shame I didn't find a gun I could use but I think this will be just as effective and much easier to shoot. 

Update 15/02/18

It has been a week since the shoot and I have been editing the footage to make up a rough cut. As for the shoot it went very smoothly and all the actors arrived and left when they needed to. We also got to shoot a behind the scenes which was great fun and nice to look back on. It was a great experience to work with and direct actors and I felt that we were all on the same page which I know I was lucky to find. There were only a few instances where I had to give some extra persuading to get the characters out of the actors more, but they were all very good and I felt like I had made the right decisions with casting my actors. After I looked back at the footage I felt that I could have asked for more from Dean, who played Lester, to give more fear into the character as sometimes he came across more arrogant than afraid. I did mention this a couple times but I perhaps should have stressed it more.

Chris, who played Malvo, was perfect for the character, and in editing the way he delivered some of the lines still gives me chills. He played the perfect amount of creepiness without being melodramatic, and did well with the minor stunts they performed. He was great to work with on set.

Lee played my policeman, Vern. I was happy with how he portrayed Vern as it was very different from the original, which I liked. I wanted mine to be different, to be my own take on the scene rather than a copy. I didn't watch the scene for a long time on the run up to the shoot to ensure that I didn't take too much inspiration from the original. This is something I really wanted to do and I'm glad I did as the product that came from my own input was very much how I wanted it to be.

The editing took me a while because of a technical mistake where we forgot to record sound from the camera so it was hard to link up the Tascam sound with the camera footage but after some strategic filing of the soundtracks I was able to make some educated guesses and syncing it just by looking closely at the footage. Although after about 4 hours of filing and syncing, this is a mistake I won't be making in the future.

There are some shots I wish were different i.e. the angle we got them from didn't quite give the right impression of the character. For example, this shot is too low of an angle making Lester look like he's more powerful, whereas if it had been a higher angle more above Dean, this would have given a better impression of how Lester is feeling in this moment. Also, it also seems too casual and if the shot had been higher it would have been more unsettling. 

However I feel I have got the shots I wanted even if they aren't all perfect, with some more refining I think I'll be able to make them all flow together a bit better and I'm very excited to see the finished product.