- My name is Rodrigo Prieto and I'm the cinematographer for "Killers of the Flower Moon." (upbeat music) (explosion booms)
(Mollie screams) It was an ongoing process,
figuring out how we were gonna shoot this movie, what
it was gonna look like. Sometimes interesting with Scorsese, how things are very intuitive. You know, we're very technical and we're very careful with our choices and our decisions, but then sometimes things
are just a feeling, you know, the gut feeling and I find that exciting. So I show him many ideas, many tests. We throw them up against the wall and see what sticks, you know, and some things just fall to the ground. We tested infrared, we tested pinhole
photography, things like that. In any case, it was
something that kept evolving, and it's always very exciting to do that with Scorsese. Since the script was
changing and evolving, that also meant that we
kept thinking of new ideas and how could we better
represent each character and their emotional arc, the
Osage nation and their people, and the moments when they're on their own. And then we wanted also to evolve the look as the movie progressed. So we tested many, many
things, and even right up to and during production, even,
when we started filming, we were still testing things
out and figuring it out. And even new scenes were being written. Since we had already established this idea in the film that
we were using photography and color photography as a basis of representing the different groups. For example, the white
settlers were photographed with an emulation of
autochrome, which is one of the first color
techniques that was invented by the Lumiere Brothers. So that was an import from Europe. So that's why it felt
appropriate to use that for the, you know, Ernest and their family, 'cause they're imported from Europe. And the Osage we
photographed as naturalistic as possible in terms of color. The scenes were there alone and their rituals and that sort of thing. For the most part, we
used Arricam cameras, and I've always loved those
cameras for film negative. Arricam LT and Arricam ST. They're amalgamation of
the older Arriflex cameras and movie cam. So they adapted the best
of both of those cameras, which I used both of them. Lenses was another interesting thing because early on, decided we
wanted to shoot the anamorphic because of the very horizontal nature of the landscapes in Oklahoma. But at the same time, I didn't want the modern anamorphic look, but I didn't want it to be the old glass distorted,
you know, any of that. Talking with Dan Sasaki at Panavision, he adapted the T series lenses and detuned them ever so slightly so that they're a little bit less sharp, so that the flares wouldn't be
the characteristic blue flare of anamorphic lenses. They become white flares. And this was important because we incorporated
the sun into several shots. When I was talking to the Osage
during our research process, I learned the importance
of the position of the sun for their different rituals,
even for the building of the towns and villages. The orientation has to do with the travel of the sun. So I decided we needed to see the sun when
Mollie is praying at dawn. So I knew that we needed to have lenses. I would photograph this in a
way that I would find appealing and not modern. (Mollie speaking in foreign language) Color grading is an essential
part of cinematography, and I love it, and I try to prepare for it as much as possible
beforehand, in pre-production, especially with a director like Scorsese, who is really, editing for him is such an
important part of the process, and he takes his time
with Thelma Schoonmaker. They spend months editing. They'll be looking at an image, and they get used to that, and they fall in love with
what they've been working with. And there's a certain emotion
that they've been feeling with the images, the way
the dailies were made. Since then, I've been
very keen on making sure that the lookup tables are,
even shooting on film negative, they're completely designed and we know that the
dailies will at least have the color saturation, the contrast, and the color that, or similar color to what I
want it to be at the end. - [Mollie] Whose house is it? - It's Bill and Reta's!
- It's Bill and Reta's house! - An important part in this
story is when Mollie's sister, her house explodes. She's murdered along with her husband, Bill, Bill and Reta. We thought that we would
see the house exploding. So we started discussing with visual effects and special effects. What do we do, what miniature, how do we do this house exploding? But as things were evolving,
I remember Scorsese saying, "No, we don't need to
see the house explode. We're with the characters. I wanna see it happening
through their experience." Which I thought was very effective. Scorsese is a very brave filmmaker, no doubt, in every sense, and his use of the camera, he makes a decision and he sticks by it. So in the case of the scene,
the moment of explosion, first of all, deciding we're
gonna be with the characters and this decision of the shot to be kind of at a distance. I think what we did, we started with them getting into the
bed and just pulled out and then saw the window, the bed, sort of a wide, peaceful shot. Which we're not feeling
peaceful as an audience. We know that there's
something brewing, right? So that adds tension to the moment. The fact that he's not going
to a close up of Ernest and the shot of the window and the house and, you know, the person putting the bomb under the house, you know, that would maybe be the
traditional way of doing it. Scorsese chooses not to do any of that, just to be peacefully far away. And I think that's actually very powerful. We didn't even have a B camera, and we're talking about,
you know, glass breaking, the main actors are right there. And typically, you'll have another camera for protection, right? Scorsese said, "This is the shot. This is what I'm trying to say, and this is the angle that I want. So why add a B camera?" And I find that refreshing. And I do remember when we're
shooting it, holding my breath. I think everybody, you know, and for most of us there
it was, yeah, the safety of the actors at the moment. But for me it was also, will the flash of light happen at the correct moment? Will it all be synchronized? Will the camera be okay? Will it shake, will
the operator, you know, there are all these things
that you're worried about. And fortunately, it worked on take one. (explosion booms)
(Mollie screams) - Oh Lord!
- What was that? What was that? - We shot it in an airplane hangar in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. We had air cannons with some debris, and the glass was, you know, candy glass. And we had a lightning
effect to synchronize to the moment of the breaking glass. Then after that, when they go downstairs, then the next piece is
actually in Fairfax. So it's a steady cam shot that
goes around the characters, and it's just this kinetic
moment that we choreographed, and it really is meant to feel the chaos of a moment like that and
the fear and the voices, and what do we do with Cowboy,
the baby, and what do we do? Where do we go? You know? And Ernest, go, go find out, and he leaves the house. So the camera's just circling all around. Then it's from a night interior, it becomes a night exterior. In the same shot, we go out the door and we see Ernest going out. And these night exteriors around Fairfax were lit by the residents
with strings of light bulbs that they called 'fraid lights, because they were scared
of what might happen. You know, all these
people are being murdered. Nobody knew who was doing it. So they just put up these lights. We made these rigs that were hung from construction cranes or condors. And we'd fly these over the scene and that would give this warm glow that would definitely match
all these 'fraid lights. And then we cut to a street where we find the house
has been destroyed. So this is a house we picked as a location because it was going to be destroyed, it was gonna be torn down and something else was gonna be built. Then we went to film other scenes while the art department
destroyed the house, dug a hole in it, and made a sculpture,
basically, of the destruction with the pieces of the original house. And then from a lighting standpoint, the surrounding streets
are lit with these cranes with these light bulbs around them. But the fire itself,
or the house in flames, we very strategically
placed the different fires with gas burners and stuff. And I lit the whole place
with 20 by 20 frames with silver lame. Silver lame is a material
that's silver. It's loose. We weren't tied onto
the edges of the frame. We let it be loose, just tied on the top, so that way the grips could move it. And when you're bouncing a
light into it with a gel, the reflection is kinetic. It's like fire. You know, you have bright
moments, you have dark moments, the shadows on the face move. And on those frames, just out of shot, I was bouncing 10ks and 5ks and I think maybe even a
20k with different gels, orange gels, CTO, CTS, different types of warm gels. And we had a few grips
just moving the silver lame and that created this warm
light representing fire. The whole scene has this
hellish, orange look to it. - [Child] Mommy! Mommy, Mommy! - Now we have to do him coming back. And Scorsese had designed a shot, which was a steady cam shot
through the doorway of the, in the porch, going into the house and finding Mollie and the kids and the nanny somewhere. When we're about to do it, Scorsese asked Lily, "Where would you be?" But of course he meant, "Would you be here or would you be there," right? And she said, "I would have
gone down to a cellar." And I start panicking
because I know Scorsese. Now we're looking for a cellar. You know, he's not gonna tell
her, "Oh, no, no, no, I mean, would you be here or here," right? He's like, "Okay, a cellar." He really listens to the actors
and he'll adapt to the shoot and the shots to what they're feeling and
what they're needing. We hadn't scouted for that. So someone, the location
manager said, "Oh, if you go into the kitchen, there's a door down
there, that's a cellar." So we went there and
indeed we opened that door. Okay, there's this stair going
down, staircase going down. Well, that's where. So then we redesigned
the shot to go, you know, through the living room,
pan into the kitchen, and then through the opening of the door and finding her on the
bottom with everyone else, which became a very powerful moment because, well, for me, from a
practical perspective, it was, "Okay, now I need to light that. What would be a light source down there?" And I'm asking, you
know, the set decorators, "Bring me an oil lamp." Which we didn't have, we didn't need it for that location, right? So they went, ran to find one. In the meantime, I thought, "Okay, let's say there will be an oil lamp, and I started hiding some
lights behind a beam where that would represent the
light from the oil lamp. So oil lamp arrived, we were
able to shoot it that way. So what happens in the shot
is the camera is moving through the living room
and you're hearing, 'cause their microphone's
down in the cellar, you're hearing the kids crying. And it became such a powerful moment, rather than just going in through the door and seeing them there. That would've worked. But the symbolism also
of her being down there and seeing Ernest upstairs and that interaction from a distance, he just shakes his head and
she knows what happened. And she yells and screams. I mean, my whole body, you
know, I just felt it to my core. So it's a kind of thing where, as a cinematographer, you're thinking of all these technical aspects and creative aspects of how to make the perspective work and the lighting and the
atmosphere and the mood and you're thinking of all these things. And then the shot happens
and the emotion explodes. And that's my favorite
things when that happens in films that I'm shooting. - [Child] Mommy, Mommy! Mommy! (child cries)
(Mollie screams) - Pretty complicated scene to shoot. It was one of those hectic, you know, really difficult night exteriors where you don't have enough time and you're just running around
trying to get each shot. And also dangerous. Even though this was made
by the art department and we previously said, "Okay, this is the path that
Ernest is gonna walk." Still, it was actually,
felt pretty dangerous. At a certain point, you
know, there were nails, they were like, "Oh, careful with that." There's a scene, I'm very proud of it, and it really felt powerful
when we were shooting it and I'm hoping, I think
that came up, you know, to the screen.
(upbeat music)
