Director's Statement

Director's Statement.

In this post I will be outlining how I got to the final product via the creative decisions that I made.

I have used my research into directors and the way that they work as inspiration for how I directed my own project. I tried to maintain my own creative style by not taking too much inspiration from the original piece, but what did inspire me?

In order to get a better understanding of the script I was undertaking, I took what we did in the lesson with Steve Finn and analysed and annotated my script as much as I could, so that I knew I was getting as much as I could from it in order to interpret it properly onto the screen. I wrote down the emotions that the characters were feeling, and this ultimately would help me understand what emotion I wanted my viewer to be feeling. This also helped largely with the character profiles. Steve Finn showed us how to properly analyse a script and at first it was difficult to look so deeply into the use of the words, but I think I got the hang of it and I annotated my own script as best I could.

Although I avoided the actual scene that I recreated, I did research the director, Adam Bernstein and his work ethic to get a better understanding of what I should be looking to do. One thing that I was particularly inspired by was how he chose his crew. His cinematographers were all previous gaffers, and although I was unable to do this myself, it reminded me to be careful with who I choose to take the roles in my productions. I wanted crew and cast that I knew I would be able to get work done efficiently, but also wanted to be able to have fun with the project. My crew were people I knew would be hard working, but I could also get along with really well, and I think this is important and if it's possible, then it will greatly improve production if you can do it in a positive environment.

I avoided my chosen scene by Bernstein because I wanted to make it my own, as much as possible. I wanted it to be visually different to the original, and although there are definite likenesses between the 2 as I needed to be following the action, I feel that some of the choices I made put my own stamp on the scene. For example, I chose to use a knife instead of a shotgun as Malvo's weapon. Although this choice was partly for practicality, I did choose to do it because of the change it made to Malvo's character. It makes it more of a personal attack, as Malvo is closer to Vern; but the way Malvo reacts to Vern dying is the opposite to this. I loved the idea of these conflicting aspects, which takes me onto the music.

All of the music I used in my scene came from the Fargo series, including Patsy Cline's Sweet Dreams. I edited this song over possibly the most violent scene in my opinion. You could say the most violent scene is Vern's death, but you don't actually see him dying, just hear it; another decision I will delve into. I believe this scene is the most visually violent, as you see Lester shamelessly planning to murder Malvo for his own crime. Although he makes mistakes with the knife, like human beings do, you can see his intention, and the simple fact that he is practicing is enough to make the viewer uncomfortable. So how do you make the viewer more uncomfortable? I chose to put a lovely song over this scene. I also think the lyrics stand out, as although they don't directly relate, they still hint towards Lester's thoughts: 

Sweet dreams of you
Every night I go through
Why can't I forget you and start my life anew
Instead of having sweet dreams about you

My interpretation of this was that Lester was dreaming about a perfect wife (which Pearl wasn't, but we only know this if we've seen the original scene, so I see this song as a nod to the original and not the stand-alone story in my recreation), he wants to forget his wife and move on but he can't, and he knows this murder will linger in his memories forever, whether he gets away with it or not.
The other songs I used were for building atmosphere and tension. I didn't like the idea of silent scenes (without speaking or music) as it seemed flat and boring without. With the music addition, it created an emotion to the piece that you might not have drawn from it before, but the music guides the viewer to what they should be feeling, and when to start feeling tension.

For my production I used Mandy, Starnow, and Facebook to cast my actors. I started with using Mandy as it seemed to be the most common option, but then I struggled to find people on Mandy that wanted to take part in a student film. This is where I found Christopher McGowan, who plays the role of Lorne Malvo, and in order to cast him I approached him via his profile, as this seemed to be the more professional way to do it and I wanted to be as professional as possible with people who are real professionals in the business. I didn't get any other responses for the project on Mandy so I moved to using Starnow which I found to be a lot easier. I got a lot more responses through Starnow and through this I cast Dean Jones, who plays Lester Nygaard. I was running out of time so in order to cast the last role of Vern Thurman, I posted on Facebook groups searching for people local to the area with acting experience if they would be willing to take part, and through this, I cast Lee Walsh.

I chose Chris as I wanted a gentleman who was a little older for Malvo's role. I felt that the kind of man to fit the role would be 45-60, and someone who had something unusual about them. In the original, Malvo's character has a very unusual haircut, and although I didn't look for someone with an unusual haircut I wanted someone with strong features so that I could use lighting to accentuate this. I also didn't want someone who looked too stern as I imagined the character to be a bit of a trickster, for want of a better term. As an example I directed Chris to be finding it a little funny that Lester has just killed his wife. I feel that I cast Malvo well and I was happy with Chris' performance.

I chose Dean because I needed someone who looked old enough to be married, but as Esme was playing Pearl he couldn't be too much older as this would look like a very odd pairing on screen. I considered casting Dean as Vern at first, but he had tattoos on his hands and neck and I didn't feel this fit with the role of the policeman. I also felt that his younger appearance could make him look more vulnerable on screen, but due to camera angles, as Dean was quite tall, this didn't come across as much as I wanted it to.

To play Vern Thurman I cast Lee Walsh. I cast Lee through Facebook and gave him the role of Vern as I felt he had quite stern features, and a shaved head, which in my opinion was most like a policeman between Dean and Lee. There were thoughts of swapping them but I didn't because of this. I chose Lee because of his appearance but also because he is a student at UCA. I thought it would be interesting to work with someone on another course, and he had been to acting school. I was concerned that Lee's acting skills wouldn't be expansive, however he was very good, very professional and although he didn't learn his lines he was still able to perform after running through them.

I chose the location of the house in Cranbrook because of the style of the house. A lot of the houses available on AirBnB were very feminine, which although may have suited Pearl's character to be in control, within what I included we wouldn't have known this. I chose the house because it looked like a home, not just a holiday home. It was spacious and it wasn't too expensive for the budget, and the visual style of it was how I imagined, with wooden doors and flooring giving a warm and homely vibe. I paid in joint with Ebony as she also shot parts of her scene there, so we were glad to have found a location that suited both of us.

I was concerned about the wooden floors, because I knew I would be using fake blood on the floor in some of my scenes and I didn't want to damage the floors. To solve this issue, I bought a small rug and laid it down with a bin bag underneath in order to protect the flooring. I also wasn't sure where to place Esme in the scene but I chose the bathroom as this way we were able to clean the floor of the fake blood easily, and we could also get the shot of Vern stood with her in the background. This is something I particularly wanted to get, and I was able to frame this shot with the archway.

I only needed one location and so this worked out well for me. It made it cheaper for me and Ebony, and we could also have the rest of our crew stay with us at the house.

We weren't able to perform a recce of the location so we had to go by the photos on the website. I liked the style but we didn't know the layout of the house which could have turned out for the worse but it went well. I think in the future however, we will choose a location closer to Rochester, and maybe more North West of Rochester to make it easier to get access to location, as the rural farm we were on did pose some confusion with trying to find it for the actors.

As for costume design, I wasn't able to afford much, and so for this reason I chose things that I thought the actors would likely have themselves. This was not any different from what I would have chosen had I had a larger budget. I wanted the police uniform to be as realistic as possible, and although it was expensive to buy the walkie talkie, coat, badge, belt and gun, it means that I now have this kit for any future projects, within which police may be involved. I wanted to keep the production British so I chose to buy a British police uniform, and I did this to make it easier for the actors so that they wouldn't have to put on a Minnesotan accent. I asked Dean to wear a button-down and simple trousers or non skinny jeans. This is because I felt that I didn't want him to look too young, and skinny jeans may be representative of this. His button-down shirt was perfect as it wasn't too smart or casual. I didn't want him to dress smart because this would be inappropriate for the situation Lester was in (at home, waiting to kill someone) but I didn't want him to be wearing a t shirt for the majority of the scene because I felt that this would be too casual as Lester is an office worker. It just didn't seem right to me, and I think it's because I didn't want the situation to feel casual; I wanted to accentuate how Lester is feeling uncomfortable and up-tight in the situation, he wants to impress the police officer and although Lester doesn't know the police officer is coming, it would seem to casual and comfortable if Lester were to be wearing a t-shirt later in the scene.

As previously mentioned, I wanted there to be something a little unusual but not too unusual about Malvo. I chose to do this through his clothing. Chris had a large coat and I thought this would be perfect for the role, as it shows that he's a private person, and hides away generally. I felt that it made his character creepier, especially as it was a dark colour and I was sure I wanted Malvo to be wearing dark colours as long as it wasn't all black, which I felt would look cliched.

With the camera approach I knew I wanted to be drawing in to the emotions of the characters. I also wanted to be focusing on Lester a lot as he is the main character and is his emotion is what I want the viewer to empathise with the most. I did want to get higher angles on Dean and more eye level angles on Vern, to make Dean seem more like a victim to Lee to show how Lester is feeling towards Vern being there and seeing his wife. However, this didn't happen as Dean was taller than Lee. This is somewhere where I think their roles should have been swapped. It would have been better to have a taller police character and shorter Lester as this would make the policeman seem more dominant to Lester.

I also really wanted to draw in on the Malvo character since he doesn't feature much but he is also very important. This is why a lot of his shots are very close up, because I wanted the viewer to see that he lacks compassion for anyone.

I really wanted to amplify the drama with dark shadows, which is how I colour graded the project. Dark shadows also add a sense of unknown/parts of the scene that you can't see, which makes the viewer sense danger. The grade is also quite blue and green which makes the shots look dramatic and unsettling. I darkened the reds to make them more noticeable in the blood so that it stands out a bit more. 

I wanted to give a sense of unknown, and of dread. This was difficult to achieve but this is why I used the music and the colour grade, to give this impression. Before the colour grade and music, the film is very dull and not exciting, you understand the story but you aren't drawn in. However after the colour grade and music, this is hugely improved, and you can tell the difference in the mood of the scene. This is the rough cut, before the colour grading, where you can really see the difference. 

I'm happy with how the edit turned out in the end, but it was a terrible process to get there. I tried to edit on my home computer which can cut clips fine, but when I started to colour grade I wasn't able to do anything. I also tried to export the film but the program said it was going to take 8 hours to export. I have had to transport the film from home to uni and back, which is difficult as my editing software updated whereas the university's software isn't and so I'm unable to edit on the university computers without exporting my film each time as an XML file type. When I brought it to uni to finish off, all of the colour grading had disappeared. I chose to edit on my home computer because I was hoping it would be an easier and quicker process but it turned out to be a lot harder to edit than I thought it would be.

I chose to make the knife practice scene a montage as it almost makes it comedic, which the original show can be at times. It never goes out of it's way to make the audience laugh, but some lines or mannerisms of characters can come across as comedic. For this reason I felt like I was able to use this montage as I felt like it would be similar to the original. Lester also does the same thing with a gun in the original, in less of a montage fashion. I felt that a montage would show just how Lester is losing his mind after meeting Malvo and how he has encouraged him to do things that he would never do.

Overall I'm happy with how pre production, production and post production went and I'm happy with the final product. I'm not over-the-moon with it and there were certainly places I could have improved but I feel that it's an improvement on my last project and I am definitely happy with this.