Pre-producing a Massacre Story
Each team researched information and contacted area scholars and authorities on these subjects and began organizing interview questions for taping sessions. The teams then moved into production in conducting and recording the content expert interviews and finding historical documents and photographs to support key information from the interviews. After traveling from St. George to Rexburg shooting fourteen hours of interview footage, the tapes were transcribed and catalogued to begin the editing process.
In the meantime another team began pre-production on the recreation sequences of the massacre and the execution of John D. Lee. Over one hundred hours were put in to cast twelve principles and 68 extras, arrange costuming, procure the services of a wrangling team that provided wagons, horses, weapons, and properties, find a suitable location for the recreations, and arrange the production equipment, film acquisition, and processing. No small task for first-semester motion picture students.
The team went into production with three photographic units to tell the story, a 16mm film unit, a DV Steadicam unit, and a DV unit for audio acquisition. The recreations were shot in two days during Spring break involving over one hundred people including Dixie State College theater students, local actors, professional wranglers and the Motion Picture Production Class students. At the end of two days and 20 hours of production, a recreation of the massacre and the execution were in the can.
The documentary went into a second phase of post-production where the interviews were organized along with the written narrative and the recreation footage to create a production script. The production design was taking shape with the producers and the graphic artist who designed the documentary’s look and feel.
The final narrative sequences went into pre-production where Marvin Payne was cast to host and narrate the program. Another production team then produced narrative sequences. More historical photos and documents were filmed to complete the telling of the story.
Once all the visual and audio information was acquired, the media went into the editing phase of production. Over three hundred hours of editing produced a program that has stirred audiences at special screenings at the Eclipse Film Festival and over venues in St. George.
Collaboration
Even the best and most famous production designers are constrained by the collaborative work environment of the typical movie production. While charged with creating the physical world for a movie, the designer usually has little control over how the design is lit or photographed, or how actors will be positioned in relation to his or her sets. The look of a film is really achieved in collaboration at least with the director of photography (DP), who in turn answers to the same master, the director.
At the simplest level, this collaboration dictates how much of an environment the designer has to create. In a brute, literal sense, a production design always ends exactly at the edge of the frame. Thus the designer must have a sense of how much of a set or location a director or DP wants to show, which in turn is determined by the photographic process (academy ratio vs. widescreen, or anamorphic widescreen vs. matted) and lens choice (does the director prefer wide angles, or have a fondness for close-ups?)
Also, different film stocks may have particular sensitivities that discourage the use of colors in a given range, or be particularly poor in resolving objects in shadow. At a more sophisticated level, the designer has to consider technical issues, such as whether or not the DP wants some kind of "practical" (i.e., visible) lamps on the set to serve as the (illusory) lighting source. Will the characters enter a dark room at night and turn on the light that will become the "key light" (primary illumination) for the scene? If so, the production designer will not only have to find or make a lamp that fits into the design concept, he or she will also have to be certain that its placement will not interfere with the lights on the set that are the true illumination.
Similarly, when working with a director who plans to use a lot of camera movement, the designer and DP must be certain that some walls can be rolled out of the way quickly to accommodate the camera crew as it moves with the action, that there is sufficient space for the camera and crew regardless of where the camera is pointed and where it is moving, and so on. Sufficient space for camera and crew is one of the major considerations in deciding whether or not to use a sound stage. If the director insists on elaborate camerawork, and a location set cannot accommodate camera and crew, a sound stage is a must.
Beyond such technical considerations, there is the subtle, ineffable, but necessary question of what simply feels "right" for a particular design. While designers may have a lot of say in creating or finding these details, it is ultimately the director who decides what is included or excluded from the frame. And because it is ultimately the director who makes such decisions, it is also ultimately the director, not the designer, who determines the final visual style of a project.
At the simplest level, this collaboration dictates how much of an environment the designer has to create. In a brute, literal sense, a production design always ends exactly at the edge of the frame. Thus the designer must have a sense of how much of a set or location a director or DP wants to show, which in turn is determined by the photographic process (academy ratio vs. widescreen, or anamorphic widescreen vs. matted) and lens choice (does the director prefer wide angles, or have a fondness for close-ups?)
Also, different film stocks may have particular sensitivities that discourage the use of colors in a given range, or be particularly poor in resolving objects in shadow. At a more sophisticated level, the designer has to consider technical issues, such as whether or not the DP wants some kind of "practical" (i.e., visible) lamps on the set to serve as the (illusory) lighting source. Will the characters enter a dark room at night and turn on the light that will become the "key light" (primary illumination) for the scene? If so, the production designer will not only have to find or make a lamp that fits into the design concept, he or she will also have to be certain that its placement will not interfere with the lights on the set that are the true illumination.
Similarly, when working with a director who plans to use a lot of camera movement, the designer and DP must be certain that some walls can be rolled out of the way quickly to accommodate the camera crew as it moves with the action, that there is sufficient space for the camera and crew regardless of where the camera is pointed and where it is moving, and so on. Sufficient space for camera and crew is one of the major considerations in deciding whether or not to use a sound stage. If the director insists on elaborate camerawork, and a location set cannot accommodate camera and crew, a sound stage is a must.
Beyond such technical considerations, there is the subtle, ineffable, but necessary question of what simply feels "right" for a particular design. While designers may have a lot of say in creating or finding these details, it is ultimately the director who decides what is included or excluded from the frame. And because it is ultimately the director who makes such decisions, it is also ultimately the director, not the designer, who determines the final visual style of a project.
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