As the year draws to a close, we thought it appropriate to highlight a message of cooperation and collaboration—which both figure prominently among this season’s Oscar contenders. Many such examples have emerged in our The Road To Oscar series of feature stories.
Consider Boyhood, the remarkable movie Richard Linklater wrote and directed which presents successive episodes in the life of a boy named Mason, starting at age 6 and tracking his growth and development until he enters college at 18. Ellar Coltrane portrays Mason in this fictional story which carries a heavy dose of chronological reality in that Boyhood was shot over a 12-year span, maintaining the same cast throughout and reuniting them every year or so to shoot scenes. Thus we see Mason and his parents evolve and mature before our eyes.
Linklater noted that Boyhood brought a new dimension to an already strong creative collaboration he enjoyed with editor Sandra Adair. “It’s so rare that you get to edit your movie and still be making your movie. We’re writing, directing and shooting this movie while editing it,” noted Linklater. “You work with an editor as you never have before. We talk and consider if we need a little more of this or that—and we can deliver this or that because we’re still making the movie. Sandra meant so much to this film. I’ve been working with her for 22 years. I know and trust her.”
Similarly for Exodus: Gods and Kings, director Ridley Scott touched upon his affinity for production designer Arthur Max. “I first met him [Max] in London and gave him a go on a Pepsi commercial,” said Scott. Their working relationship now spans 30 years and 11 feature films.
And Wild director Jean-Marc Vallée said of cinematographer Yves Belanger. “I love his courage and humility…The images he gets aren’t forced or staged. Again, it’s an approach that captures actor performances in the best way possible. He’s never trying to create images for his demo reel. With his work, he’s never saying ‘look how clever and creative I am.’ His focus is on the storytelling.”
Vallée and Belanger go back some 22 years. “I met him on a commercial in Montreal and he later went on to shoot commercials for me for the past 15 years here and there. We talked about doing a feature together but that didn’t happen—until Dallas Buyers Club.”
