Joining me in the Apple Original Films portion of Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees were several Oscar nominees for Martin Scorsese’s epic Western Killers of the Flower Moon, and since the film has been nominated for a whopping 10 Academy Awards it was a good cross-section of artisans who made this very big film come to life.
The panelists included cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, production designer Jack Fisk, set decorator Adam Willis, producer Daniel Lupi and Original Song nominee for “Wahzhazhe ( A Song for My People)” Scott George.
Lupi, a multiple past Oscar nominee, was tasked with helping bring the production the kind of authenticity that can only happen if it is shot where the true story really happened. “When I got involved, the film was always going to be shot in the Osage Nation. There was never a doubt that that’s where we were going to go,” he said. “It was interesting in the days of rebates and people shooting films in different parts of the world, but Marty was adamant. I mean, when he met with the chief and the elders in the years before I got involved, it was the only place to go.”
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“All these things were challenging. Just, you know, it wasn’t locations that we picked because of the facility for equipment or lighting or any of that. It just gave it a special meaning for us and for the actors. And so we had to figure it out.”
Prieto, who also shot Barbie this year, was thrilled with the location choices in Oklahoma and the Osage Nation where these events took place 100 years ago. “Well, it certainly made a huge difference, just emotionally for all of us as a crew to shoot there in Oklahoma, in Osage country. And be able to not only be, physically in the place, but also have access to the descendants of the people who lived these stories. So it just gave the whole design of the film, I think, a different spin,” he said.
For veteran production designer Fisk, research was a key way into it all. “I knew that Marty wanted to make a film that is truthful and natural to the Osage for the Osage as possible. And my favorite approach to filmmaking is almost a documentary style, something that’s really natural,” he said. “And shooting in Oklahoma allowed us not only access to the environment, but to the Osage people. And some of it through research and being in same physical places that the story took place. And working with the ancestors on both sides of the equation, the white settlers and the Osage natives, created a very real organic environment to make a film in. Then when we built our settings out on location you could look around 360 degrees and not see anything that to tell you you weren’t in 1920 in Oklahoma except maybe a camera or two, but even that was minimal.”
Willis, his set decorator, went into great detail about finding all the perfect items that were basically in the hands of collectors. He said it was quite the hunt all over the territory to get everything they needed — and more.
For George, he is the first Native American to have an Original Song nomination since Buffy Sainte-Marie became the only Native American to win a competitive Oscar for the song “Up Where We Belong” in 1983. George’s song is purely authentic to the Osage people, the first of its kind to ever land a nomination.
He said he and the Osage Tribal Singers Drum Group perform at many ceremonial dances in the area, and that was a key reason they are in the movie.
“During the filming one time we had noticed Lily Gladstone had showed up and a lot of people were rightfully star-struck by her and wanted to meet her and talk to her. And then a little later on, we noticed that Martin and Leo had been … to our dances,” he said. “So we were sitting there, I was the head singer for the Brave Horse, and so I’m sitting around our ground and surrounded by all of our dancers, and I could see up in the stands, and I saw him up there, and I said, ‘I think that’s Martin Scorsese up there,’ so we got the feeling that at some point you know they may ask us to sing a little bit [in the film]. In the very beginning of the movie [production] we were kind of hesitant to get involved because all of our music and all of our dances are ceremonial aside from just a power hour or gathering, and so we we were kind of hesitant to get involved in it.”
Fortunately he did get involved, and now he is going to the Oscars.
Check back Monday for the panel video.