This is the fourth installment of SHOOT's continuing series on the Academy Awards. This week we connect with a variety of nominees spanning the Best Motion Picture, Directing, Editing, Animated Feature, Production Design and Live-Action Short Film categories.
Talk about an auspicious feature film directing debut. Benh Zeitlin saw his Beasts of The Southern Wild garner four Oscar nominations–for Best Picture, Director, Leading Actress (Quvenzhane Wallis) and Adapted Screenplay (Zeitlin with Lucy Alibar).
While he finds the nominations gratifying, Zeitlin is more charged up about what they represent in terms of a positive, inclusive message for directors–particularly those who aspire to be part of the filmmaking community at large. Zeitlin is hopeful that the nominations reflect the Motion Picture Academy embracing new voices and new ways of making films.
Beasts demonstrates, said Zeitlin, that "there is talent all over America–talent where people aren't looking. In order for that talent to be found, directors need to be empowered and free. We wound up casting nonprofessionals from South Louisiana for Beasts of the Southern Wild. And the world of South Louisiana is an active ingredient in the movie. We allowed South Louisiana and its people to breathe, to speak and naturally change anything that arrives there or that it comes in contact with in the film. That's not an easily financeable concept. Yet I believe if more directors weren't relying on having to cast stars and dealing with the restraints that go into corporate filmmaking, there would be more discoveries, more stories about places you don't normally see."
Zeitlin embraced the people of South Louisiana, inspired by their strength in the face of difficult, at times dire circumstances. He cast a pair of locals–Dwight Henry, from a New Orleans bakery, and Quvenzhane Wallis, from Honduras Elementary School–in the lead roles of the hero characters, a father and his six-year-old daughter.
Wallis' character Hushpuppy is a special little girl. She lives in a forgotten, impoverished yet fiercely independent bayou community isolated by a sprawling levee. Her imagination and sense of place and purpose at a young age enable her to deal with daily life as an adventure, until her reality is changed by a raging storm and her father's failing heart. The drama plays like a fable, following Hushpuppy as we see the world, her reality, through her eyes, sparked by a sense of discovery.
"This is a film that didn't have famous people or anything famous about it. No one famous made the film. When you're in that position, you don't even know if you will get the chance to make another film. It's a precarious place to be," observed Zeitlin. "Still, we did this film in our own way. To have that accepted and celebrated with the Academy Award nominations is amazing. It says you can keep on making movies on your terms. It makes you feel like you're on the Yellow Brick Road."
Ben Affleck Earning seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, was the Ben Affleck-directed Argo. Affleck was also a producer of the film and its lead actor. Argo has already won Best Picture and Best Director honors at the Golden Globes and Critics' Choice Awards. And Affleck is a DGA Award nominee on the strength of the film.
SHOOT interviewed Affleck before a live audience after a special screening of Argo for DGA members at The Landmark theater in Los Angeles. During the course of that session, SHOOT asked Affleck about his choice of William Goldenberg, A.C.E., and Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC, as editor and cinematographer, respectively, on Argo.
Affleck said that the first feature he directed, Gone Baby Gone, was cut by Goldenberg who helped him immeasurably. For his next feature, The Town, Affleck wanted to work again with Goldenberg who couldn't due to a scheduling conflict. While he had a good experience with his editor on The Town, Affleck again turned to Goldenberg for Argo.
Affleck quipped that he can operate an Avid which gives him the illusion at times that he can edit. He added that Goldenberg's biggest fault is that sometimes he is too deferential; Affleck recalled making suggestion after suggestion in the edit room to Goldenberg who entertains each thought. After Affleck is done, he noted that Goldenberg then comes up with a much better idea or approach, which Affleck said he should have just come out and said in the first place to save time.
Testament to Goldenberg's talent is that he has two Best Film Editing Oscar nominations this year–one for Argo, the other shared with Dylan Tichenor, A.C.E., for the Kathryn Bigelow-directed Zero Dark Thirty. Affleck proudly noted that Goldenberg is only the third editor ever to earn two nominations in the Editing category in the same year–the others being Walter Murch (in 1991 for The Godfather Part III and Ghost) and Michael Kahn (in 1988 for Empire of the Sun and Fatal Attraction).
Affleck and Prieto met as actor and DP, respectively, on State of Play directed by Kevin Macdonald. Affleck was struck by Prieto's collaborative nature and his inspired and inspiring cinematography on such films as director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu as Amores Perros, Babel, 21 Grams and Biutiful. Affleck said he is in "awe" of Inarritu's work and sense of realism.
Affleck and Prieto worked on different looks within Argo encompassing Iran (actually shot primarily in Los Angeles with additional lensing in Turkey) which called for a more grainy hand-held documentary style; CIA headquarters with its fluorescent lit hallways and offices; and Hollywood moviemaking in the 1970s. Affleck said that Prieto was instrumental in bringing these distinctly different looks together in one uniform film.
Twice blessed Editor Goldenberg feels blessed–and not just because he earned two Oscar nominations this month for Achievement in Film Editing. "I am so lucky to have been involved with these two scripts [Argo, Zero Dark Thirty] and these two directors," affirmed Goldenberg. "Even if there were no Oscar nominations, working with directors Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow would rank as the most incredible professional experiences of my life. They are simply great collaborators."
Zero Dark Thirty marks the first time Goldenberg has collaborated with Bigelow. Argo is the second film he has cut for Affleck.
"Even though Gone Baby Gone was Ben's first feature [as a director], it already felt like he was a seasoned filmmaker," recollected Goldenberg. "He spent so much time working on movie sets as an actor, observing, asking questions, learning. Right away you could see he knew what he was doing as a director. He was not floundering around. It was clear he had found his voice."
Next Affleck directed The Town (2010) and then reunited on his third film, Argo, with Goldenberg. As for how Affleck has evolved as a director since their first collaboration, Goldenberg observed, "He has an even better grasp of how to tell a story with the camera. He had that from the first film but it's even more advanced now. He has the confidence that comes from experience and as a result, things become more instinctive. And he's a joy to work with as a person. Everything you see about him in public is the way he is–generous, intelligent, funny, politically minded and caring, a hard worker with incredible attention to detail. At the same time, he makes the work fun. He spent a lot of time next to me at the Avid in the editing room and while we did a ton of work, I felt almost guilty because we were also having a good time."
From an editorial perspective, Goldenberg said the biggest challenge posed by Argo was "dealing with the different tones contained in its storytelling. Part of the reason people have enjoyed the movie so much is that there are comedic elements, human drama, suspense, action, political elements. We had to take all these elements and make them feel like one fluid movie. That's what Chris Terrio did in his screenplay and Ben embraced it, getting us all working towards doing justice to that multi-faceted story."
As for Zero Dark Thirty, editor Tichenor was already on the film when the call went out for a second editor. "Kathryn had shot 320 hours of material, some two million feet of film. To finish that with one person would to my mind have been impossible," said Goldenberg. "They reached out to me and asked if I was interested. I jumped at the opportunity to work with a great filmmaker like Kathryn and on such important subject matter. She was on location in Jordan and I talked to her on the phone for about 15 minutes. Then I had a half-hour phone call with [writer] Mark Boal. The first time I met Kathryn in person was my first day on the job. She is a lovely, dignified person and quietly brilliant. When we won the Best Editing Award from the L.A. Film Critics, I was thrilled to get the chance to tell the world how great Kathryn is. She knows how to zero in on problems and when I say she's 'quietly brilliant,' it's often that she comes up with a simple solution and when you look back later and fully see what she did, you realize what a great idea or approach she came up with. She's a genius."
Goldenberg's two Oscar nominations this year double his career total. He was first nominated for a Best Editing Academy Award for The Insider (2000) and then four years later for Seabiscuit.
In addition to the pair of Oscar noms in the Editing category, Argo and Zero Dark Thirty earned Goldenberg editing nominations from the BAFTA Awards and the American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards.
Gratification Director David O. Russell saw his Silver Linings Playbook earn eight nominations–Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay (Russell), Editing (Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers) and all four acting categories: Lead Actor (Bradley Cooper), Lead Actress (Jennifer Lawrence), Supporting Actor (Robert De Niro) and Supporting Actress (Jackie Weaver).
Shortly after the nominations were announced, Russell shared, "I am beyond grateful today, especially for our actors, for our story and anyone who connects to it–and my god, among the other films and filmmakers this year, I'm humbled. This film took five years to get made and we are blessed to have made it."
Also grateful for the flurry of nominations, 11, his film received was director Ang Lee whose Life of Pi scored in the Academy Award categories of Best Picture, Director, Cinematography (Claudio Miranda, ASC; see separate Cinematographers Series feature story in this issue), Editing (Tim Squyres), Original Score (Mychael Danna), Original Song ("Pi's Lullaby"), Production Design (production design by David Gropman; set decoration by Anna Lynch-Robinson), Sound Editing (Eugene Gearty, Philip Stockton), Sound Mixing (Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill, Drew Kunin), Visual Effects (Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer, Donald R. Elliott) and Adapted Screenplay (David Magee).
"I am deeply honored and frankly a little overwhelmed," said Lee, "by all of the nominations that Life of Pi has received…So many talented people gave everything they had to this film, both in front of and behind the camera, and to see all of them receive this kind of recognition is something I am incredibly grateful for."
Echoing those sentiments was production designer Gropman who is now a two-time Oscar nominee, the first coming for The Cider House Rules in 2000. Gropman said of the 11 nominations earned by Life of Pi, "It's nice not to be walking into that ceremony yourself but with so many others who made that film. We had a tremendous team. So many people considered this movie impossible to make. Even after it was greenlit, people were curious if it would all work out. So much went into the making of this film and the commitment on part of everybody–none more than Ang. To see the film work so well and be so appreciated and honored worldwide at the end of our long road is wonderful."
As for the challenges Life of Pi posed to him as a production designer, Gropman related, "I approach every film I do very pragmatically, trying to figure out what the reality of the world is that we are going to represent. I try to pretend that design doesn't matter, almost as a way to deny decor or design so that we can just create a real and accurate environment. There was such a range of challenges on this movie. On one hand, you had the island to create–for which you can only go so far with research. You rely on the novel, David Magee's script and Ang's direction to create that world. At the opposite end of the spectrum was Pi's apartment in Montreal, demonstrating when you have to hold back. In a film so full of imagery–from India to the wide open magnificent Pacific Ocean–the apartment was like a blank page which we couldn't fill too much yet had to make it seem real and lived in. We couldn't tip off Pi's personal life so we had to be careful about what we showed in his apartment. It had to have an anonymous feeling yet seem like his place. For the creative success of the film, a production designer has to understand and accept the worlds the story is told in."
As for surprises he encountered, perhaps the biggest came in the form of certain artisans. "In terms of the art department, we had a core crew from the U.S. and England," related Gropman. "When we were in India, the rest of our crew was from there just as the rest of our crew was Taiwanese when we were in Taiwan. I was a little concerned going in about how that would work out. It seemed daunting going in and picking up with all these crew people we hadn't worked with before, but happily my concerns were unfounded. The crews were great in both places."
Visual effects
Life of Pi is regarded as a leading contender for the Visual Effects Oscar, underscored by the film's strong showing with multiple nominations in the Visual Effects Society (VES) Award competition.
Also among the big nomination getters at VES are two other Visual Effects Oscar-nominated films, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Avengers.
At the 11th annual VES Awards ceremony on Feb. 5 in Beverly Hills, Life of Pi director Lee is guaranteed to walk away with at least one honor. He will receive the VES Visionary Award, which honors an individual who has uniquely and consistently employed the art and science of visual effects to foster imagination and ignite future discoveries by way of artistry, invention and groundbreaking work.
Stop motion
It's a go for stop-motion animation as the discipline is most prevalent in the Best Animated Feature category, accounting for three of the five nominated films. The trio of Oscar-nominated stop-motion animation films are: Frankenweenie directed by Tim Burton; The Pirates! Band of Misfits directed by Peter Lord; and ParaNorman directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler. The other two nominations went to CGI pictures: Brave directed by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, and Wreck-It Ralph directed by Rich Moore.
This is the first time that as many as three stop-motion films have been nominated since the category was created in 2001. "For three to be nominated is amazing," observed Chris Butler of animation studio LAIKA, which produced ParaNorman, a zombie comedy marking his feature directorial and writing debut. Butler directed the film in tandem with Sam Fell. "What the three nominated stop-motion films say to me is that people really do love and appreciate the stop-motion discipline," continued Butler. "All animation is beautiful and hard to do. The difference with stop-motion, though is the tactility of it. In a 2D movie, what you're seeing is a drawing of an object on the screen. In a CG movie, you're seeing a digital model of an object. In stop-motion, you're seeing the actual object–the shirt is made of fabric. There's something about that tactile aspect that makes people want to reach into the screen and touch it. Stop motion connects with people on a nostalgic level. Imagine your toys coming to life. Stop-motion can be slightly weird. Inanimate objects coming alive can be almost creepy and that encourages dark stories sometimes. But people see stop motion and connect with it. It will always be viable. In fact, you can look at CG animation from 20 years ago and instantly see it's dated. By contrast, you can look at stop-motion animation done in the 1920s and it still looks beautiful."
Butler has come up the ranks, serving at LAIKA as a storyboard artist on Corpse Bride (directed by Tim Burton) and storyboard supervisor on Coraline (directed by Henry Selick; this was the first feature made at LAIKA). Butler wrote the script for ParaNorman during his own time in between other projects over a 10-year span. He presented the first act of the script to LAIKA CEO Travis Knight during the making of Coraline. Butler recalled, "Travis said straight away, 'Yes, we're going to make it and you will direct it.' And it went straight into development."
The size and scope of the project necessitated another director and Butler felt fortunate to team with Fell. "It also made sense to bring on someone with directing experience for me to work with. This was the first time I met Sam though we had worked on the same film. [Butler briefly storyboarded The Tale of Despereaux before Fell came on as director.]. Sam read the script for ParaNorman and liked it. He got the references, he got the era I was winking towards. He had a love for the same movie that I wanted to make. We were joined at the hip on the film. "
As for what the Best Animated Feature nomination means to him, Butler shared, "This is the first movie I've directed, the first I've written. To be such a newbie and to be rewarded with an Oscar nomination means a great deal. Having said that, though, I don't think anyone who works in animation does it for the awards. Animation is generally quite an anonymous, passion-driven type of career. You have to love entertainment, film, telling stories but you don't necessarily want to be in the limelight doing all of that. You just work very hard for three or four years to make a film."
There's some serendipity to the nomination for Butler who regards his big break being when he got the chance to work on Burton's Corpse Bride. "The most amazing thing about this Oscar stuff is that now I'm nominated alongside this guy [Burton] I idolized, whom I worked with years ago. This is very rare and special for me."
Coming up short
Director Bryan Buckley of Hungry Man saw his film Asad earn a nomination for Best Live Action Short film. Asad was first screened for the advertising/commercialmaking industry at large during the SHOOT Directors/Producers Forum in May 2012 at the DGA Theatre in New York. Asad centers on the title character, a 12-year-old lad in a war-torn fishing village in Somalia who must decide between falling into the pirate life or rising above it to choose the path of an honest fisherman.
The project was sparked in part by a United Nations short documentary, No Autographs, which brought Buckley and his Hungry Man producer Mino Jarjoura to refugee camps in Kenya and Sudan a couple of years ago. Buckley and Jarjoura encountered Somalian refugees in Kakuma, Kenya. "Their stories and their outlook on life haven't been fully told and haven't gained the exposure they deserve," related Buckley. He noted that media have a fascination with the Somalian pirates and to a lesser extent with the Al-Shabaab [terrorist] group in the Southern territory of Somalia but as a result the spirit of the everyday people themselves gets overlooked.
Buckley wrote a script in an attempt to do justice to the humanity of the Somalian people. In that lensing in Somalia would have been too dangerous a prospect, the short was shot entirely in South Africa, spoken in Somalian (with English subtitles). The cast consisted entirely of real people, including two refugee boys–the title character and a younger sidekick. Neither spoke English and both were illiterate so Buckley had to deploy a translator and the youngsters had to memorize their Somalian lines sans a script or written point of reference. Buckley noted that for the kids to be able to do that shows their high degree of intelligence yet at the time there was no school open to them. Since then, Hungry Man has helped the boys to get schooling, which began in March. "They went from zero grade and are now in the fourth grade in South Africa," said Buckley. "They've advanced so in such a short period of time. They're so bright. All they needed was the opportunity to get an education."
Asad won top honors at Tribeca, Rhode Island and Austin, all Oscar-qualifying film festivals. Asad also was honored at Michael Moore's fest in Traverse City, Mich., which has a track record of having a short annually make the Oscar derby.
But even after winning Oscar-qualifying festivals with Asad, Buckley said the odds remained long for a nomination. "There are so many deserving shorts out there. When I heard we were nominated, it was amazing. Nothing can prepare you for that."
What makes the nomination special for Buckley is that it will result in more attention for Asad and its subject matter. "We want to bring the two boys in Asad out here so that they can be interviewed by the press and hopefully walk up to the podium [if Asad ends up winning the Oscar]. Then we'll make the most of those thirty seconds on stage. We're good at doing a lot in thirty seconds."
Win or not, Buckley said that "just being nominated means more people will see the film and people will become more aware of the refugees and what they can accomplish if they just get the opportunity."
A key vehicle for such viewership is the release of The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013 in more than 260 theaters across the U.S., Canada and Europe on Feb. 1. This is the eighth year of The Oscar Nominated Short Films theatrical release. Last year's was one of the top 50 grossing indie releases in North America.
For The Road To Oscar, Part V, click here.
For The Road To Oscar, Part III, click here.
For The Road To Oscar, Part II, click here.
For The Road To Oscar, Part I, click here.
And for Oscar season related profiles of directors and DPs, click on David O. Russell, Ang Lee, Juan Antonio Bayona, John Toll, ASC, and Ben Richardson.
