PRODUCTION
OH, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNIN’ DOP Carolina Costa embraced the sun and heat typical of Oklahoma
ENDLESS SUMMER Fancy Dance is set in the Oklahoma summer – a hot, harsh place but one with gorgeous landscapes. Costa wanted to get the lighting just right, leaning into the direct sunlight at times and finding refuge in the shade. “One of the things we decided from early on – with no disrespect to movies like this – was we didn’t want this movie to be all at magic hour, and always have this beautiful light at the end of the day,” she explains. “We picked specific sequences that we felt were tonally fitting for the movie but, in general, we tried to stay away from it and embrace the sun and the heat that you get in Oklahoma.” For interior shots and night scenes, Costa did her research, observing life on the rez to see what lights people used. “With a lot of the day interiors, I noticed when you go inside tents, they were a little darker – that’s where you hide from the heat in the middle of the day,” she details. “For our day interiors, there were no sources or bounces inside the house; everything was through the windows or off to the side of the set. All the actors could interact freely,” she continues, allowing the camera to ‘dance’ with them. “A lot of the streets in the rez are not lit, so we used various scarce sources of light for the night exteriors,” Costa explains. She mimicked the ‘little lights’ on front porches, recreating the blue and green hues so ‘it felt realistic for the environment’. For other sequences, the moon served as a light
source: “We picked four or five scenes when we decided it was important to have moonlight for the story,” says Costa. “In general, we were trying to keep honest with what happens, but also resourceful and trying not to pollute the floor with so many sources.” Costa recounts one night scene – “one of my favourite sequences,” she admits – that proved particularly challenging. Jax and Roki run into a cornfield, getting into an argument before splitting off in different directions. “That scene was emotionally hard for everyone, for both actors to get there. It was hard to light, the ground was not level, we were using handheld and Steadicam,” Costa recalls, though “the performances Isabel and Lily deliver make it all worth it.” There were other challenges, too – the main one being heat. “I never expected it to be so hot,” Costa admits. “When it’s 110°F (43°C), your crew will get tired. Your days won’t generate the same amount of work as in a soundstage with air conditioning. It does a different thing to people’s bodies.” Luckily, Tremblay has a knack for working with people, according to Costa. “She’s such a confident filmmaker,” she beams. “You’re dealing with someone who has life experiences and relates to every situation based on actual human connections and lessons learnt. Because we trusted each other so much, our on- set communication was easy.” Fancy Dance is currently streaming on Apple TV+
FANCY DANCE IS A STORY OF womanhood, A YOUNG GIRL COMING OF AGE without her mother ” “We wanted to shoot in large format,” Costa begins. “I wanted these young women at the centre of the frame. With the large format, when you do a close-up it almost feels like people are larger than life.” With the ARRI LF and Signature primes, “the characters pop out of the screen but you can still see the world.” Costa also made a conscious choice to primarily shoot handheld. “Again, this was the influence of Andrea Arnold and a sense of freedom and immediacy of the moment, letting go of a little bit of control,” she divulges. She wanted the viewer to feel “everything was almost on the edge of changing, keeping that sense of – not fear – but that things are not set in stone.”
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