PRODUCTION NICKEL BOYS
THE PERFECT SPOT One shot demanded a special location, which was found in the mirrored ceiling of an old train station
we even got started on production. By the time the script came to me, almost all the archival assets we see in the movie had already been written into the script, each scene having a hyperlink that would take you to the exact clip used in the edit. The movie felt very free-floating, almost like jazz, but we forget that jazz isn’t defined by improvisation. First and foremost, jazz is music – it’s part of a practice that is heavily regimented and patterned but has moments of improvisation within it. Nickel Boys emulates this, in that RaMell and I meticulously planned our shot list beforehand to orchestrate the elements we wanted to see in the order we wanted to see them.” The film was shot over roughly 30 days, with a few days lost due to Covid-19. Fray opted to shoot with the Sony VENICE and Panavision VA lenses, custom designed and built by Dan Sasaki at Panavision. Only one shot in the entire film actually depicts Elwood and Turner together, which required lots of planning. “The shot is simultaneously complicated and deceptively simple,” explains Fray. “Since prep, RaMell had been talking about wanting to capture this single image in which we see Elwood and Turner at the same time; he wanted it to be in a reflection. RaMell, production designer Nora Mendis and I were doing a location scout in New Orleans. We were
standing outside of this old train station, the three of us looked up and there’s a glass portico. We looked at each other and realised that’s the location we had been searching for. “The shot consists of a few composite elements pulled together. To start with, we put the camera on a remote head on a dolly and hung it above the actors. We moved through the space, capturing their performance from above, then from there we brought the camera down to eye level and shot into the portico itself. We worked with The Artery VFX studio
to help achieve the shot, and they were incredible collaborators. “Working with RaMell was truly a dream,” concludes Fray. “He’s such a brilliant leader and director that showing up to work was a joy. You’re sure to be inspired in every single interaction and you will be asked for the impossible. The set had this energy where everyone felt like they were doing something they had never seen before, no matter how many years they’d worked in filmmaking. There was a real excitement and joy in the air because of that.”
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