By Robert Goldrich |Road To Oscar Series, Part 8

LOS ANGELES --

Two close collaborative relationships yielded the opportunity for production designer Jack Fisk to work for the first time with Oscar-winning (Birdman) director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the project being The Revenant  (20th Century Fox) starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. Connecting Fisk with Iñárritu were Academy Award-winning cinematographer (for Birdman and Gravity) Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki and producer Steve Golin, founder/CEO of Anonymous Content, one of the production companies on The Revenant.

“I’ve known Steve Golin for 20 years; he had the rights to the project,” said Fisk. “And I worked with Chivo on six films. I got introduced to Alejandro because of Chivo and Steve. I met Alejandro in his office about two years before we made the film. I realized he was a passionate artist. He doesn’t just want to make a movie. He wants to make something very special. And I wanted to help him do that once I learned more about the film and saw what he is about.”

The Revenant is indeed special, an epic story of survival and transformation on the American frontier in the 19th century. DiCaprio portrays legendary explorer Hugh Glass who survives a bear mauling and then the betrayal of a member of his hunting team, John Fitzgerald played by Hardy, who was supposed to protect the seriously injured Glass but instead left him for dead–after killing his son. Alone and seemingly on the verge of death, Glass refuses to succumb, driven by sheer will and love for his late Native American wife and son. Glass undertakes a grueling 200-mile odyssey through the vast and untamed West on the trail of Fitzgerald. What begins as a relentless pursuit of revenge becomes a heroic quest to return home, resulting in a personal, spiritual saga of redemption.

Iñárritu also co-wrote the screenplay and served as a producer on The Revenant. He turned to Fisk to help capture the world as it was in 1823. Fisk is experienced in epic productions, with credits that include Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (shot by Lubezki) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. The latter earned Fisk a Best Achievement in Art Direction Oscar nomination, a Best Production Design BAFTA Award nod, and an Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Award in the Period Film category.

The time period in The Revenant was new to Fisk but he was up to the challenge, capturing the rawness and grit of the era and the life of fur trappers back then. Perhaps more importantly, Fisk had to do justice to the continual battle between man and nature, the struggle to endure and survive juxtaposed with the inspiring power and beauty of the wilderness. “Finding the landscapes was the biggest challenge,” assessed Fisk. “We had to create the proper sense of scale with the landscapes. Man is so small compared to the majesty and power of the wild. Alejandro wanted this to be an outdoors film.”

Additionally Iñárritu and Lubezki wanted to use only natural light, which necessitated locations that would get the right light at the right times of day. Fisk and location scout Robin Mounsey drove an entire summer in search of the ideal locales. Their quest had them sojourning up the Skeena River in Northern British Columbia, over the Rockies into Alberta (where Fisk served as art director for Malick’s Days of Heaven, a 1978 release). “We found some spectacular locations,” related Fisk. “Alejandro and Chivo joined us some weeks later. We showed them what we had found. Everytime that we found a location that Alejandro responded to, I knew we were on target. We kept looking for those locations that sparked him and Chivo. The locations also had to have the proper evolution so that Glass’ journey made sense. When he got washed down the river, back onto flatland, he would have to hike up to get back to the mountains. We wound up shooting primarily in Alberta, Some of the locations would be 120 miles apart so we spent a lot of time driving. We built a fort [in Spray Valley Provincial Park] near Canmore, Alberta.”

Fisk’s team built the Fort Kiowa set using materials and designs from the 1820s, utilizing all found lumber. It was a fort that was rough-hewn and inhospitable to correspond to what these men experienced in real life at that time. Fisk also designed dream-like elements, including the towering mountain of buffalo skulls and the husk-like ruins of a European church.  Another atmospheric setting is the trapper’s camp attacked by Arikara warriors in the opening battle. As the scene begins, the camp is dressed with makeshift tents, lean-tos, campfires and busy trappers skinning beaver and bundling pelts. Fisk even built a period keelboat, which becomes a major part of the action.

Fisk credited his many collaborators. “Chivo is a genius with light. Jackie West’s costumes were omnipresent, like portable settings unto themselves. The power of the locations, the use of the camera, props, wardrobe immersed us in the time period.”

These artisans too experienced the harsh weather and environs much as those trappers of yesteryear had. That served to further strengthen the bond among crew members. As for his connection with Iñárritu, Fisk shared, “We have a great appreciation for each other. I got a note from him the other day as a matter of fact. We feel like survivors of this battle. I have so much respect for him as an artist. As harsh as the conditions were, it was continually exciting. It was something to enjoy, realizing we will likely never work on a film like this again, shot in continuity across difficult locations. It was hard to get too frustrated. My wife sent me a note which was along the lines if you ever get frustrated, just watch Birdman. So true. It was a joy dealing with such a great artistic mind in Alejandro; a rich and rewarding experience.”

He Named Me Malala
Cinematographer Erich Roland’s collaborative relationship with documentarian Davis Guggenheim spans such films as It Might Get Loud, Waiting For Superman, docu shorts for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012, and this year’s Fox Searchlight Pictures release, He Named Me Malala. The latter is one of 15 films (from 124 entries) to advance in the Documentary Feature category’s voting process for the 88th Academy Awards.

But the connection between director and DP extends beyond this filmography on familial and chronological fronts. Roland first worked with Guggenheim’s father, Charles Guggenheim, a noted documentary filmmaker in his own right. And that decade-long relationship led to Roland connecting initially with Davis Guggenheim, eventually leading to their forming a working bond. Both Charles and Davis Guggenheim are Oscar winners, the son’s coming for the feature documentary An Inconvenient Truth in 2007.

He Named Me Malala tells the story of Malala Yousafzai, the courageous teenager who stood up for girls’ education in her native Pakistan. Malala’s efforts got her targeted by the Taliban for assassination. At the age of 15, she was shot in the head, sustaining serious injuries which necessitated her being airlifted to the U.K. for medical care. But the bullet that nearly ended Malala’s life thrust her into the limelight. She continues her campaign as an advocate for children everywhere–for refugees, kids in war zones, for all children who lack access to schools or an education. With her father Ziauddin and Shiza Shahid (her friend who was also shot in the Taliban attack), she co-founded The Malala Fund which advocates globally for girls’ education. She wrote a best selling book, “I Am Malala” (with Christina Lamb), gave a rousing speech at the United Nations and began traveling the world as an eloquent, inspiring voice for children’s rights.

In December of 2014, in the midst of the making of Guggenheim’s documentary, Malala at the age of 18 became the youngest person in history to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She received the award jointly with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights advocate.

“She’s an inspiration for all youngsters, especially girls out there,” said Roland of Malala. “Every day I felt I was working on something important when we were doing this documentary. There was a sense of purpose and that’s why I ultimately decided years ago to focus on documentary filmmaking. I’ve been working around 40 years–not all in documentaries. I’ve done movies, TV. But the documentary field was my ultimate choice, where I want to be. There’s much more dimension to what you do. You tell real-life stories of interest and can use your craft to advance those stories.”

Roland went with the Sony F55 digital camera to shoot He Named Me Malala. “It’s one of the best platforms, is lightweight and robust,” assessed Roland. “It was my camera choice. It can pretty much do it all.”

Meshed with the live action lensed by Roland was animation to help tell Malala’s story. The animation was supervised and designed by Jason Carpenter who assembled a team of 15 artists, animators and producers, building an in-house animation studio for the production from the ground up. Eleven animated sequences were created, totaling more than 25 minutes of content for the nearly 90-minute documentary. Guggenheim deployed the animation to delve into the past as told by Malala and her father who recalled their lives in Pakistan before the Taliban. It was like a fairytale, a beautiful and charming experience from yesteryear that lent itself to animation, doing justice to Malala’s story.

The animation provides insight into Malala and Ziauddin’s father-daughter relationship and what she saw as a child, growing up in the at times idyllic Swat Valley in Pakistan. One sequence takes us all the way back to Ziauddin’s childhood when he was bullied for his stammer. He slowly finds his voice, depicted in artful animation as swirls and flames flicker and dance when he speaks. His determination to speak when it might have been easier to be silent shows a family trait passed on to Malala, named by her father after an Afghani Pashtun female warrior who was killed for speaking out in the 19th century. Ziauddin gave his daughter not only the name but the love, sense of purpose and the courage to speak her mind and heart, delivering a message which has resonated worldwide.

“The animation began midway through our filming. We filmed at least a year, maybe a year and a half,” said Roland. “The production was very efficient, and later in the process we saw how the animation fit in to best tell the overall story.”

All the while, there was minimal back and forth between Roland and Guggenheim. “We’ve worked together for so long. There wasn’t a lot of discussion frankly,” related Roland. “We have a comfort level and go about our jobs. Once in a while there will be a little nudge, to look out for this or that. The verite is the verite.”

Roland’s work has also garnered awards recognition over the years, including a pair of primetime Emmy nominations: one (shared with Frank-Peter Lehmann) for Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming in 2013 on the strength of Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden; and the other for the docu-short One Survivor Remembers (shared with DPs Andrzej Jeziorek and Buddy Squires) for Outstanding Individual Achievement–Informational Programming in 1995. Directed by Kary Antholis, One Survivor Remembers won the Oscar for Best Short Subject Documentary.

This is the eighth in a multi-part series with future installments of The Road To Oscar slated to run in the weekly SHOOT>e.dition, The SHOOT Dailies, SHOOT’s January print issue (and PDF versions) and on SHOOTonline.com. The series will appear weekly through the Academy Awards. The 88th Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Thursday, January 14, 2016. The Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network at 7 pm ET/4 pm PT. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

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