From storyboard to screen - lessons learned
- Alex Bustamante
- May 11, 2019
- 5 min read
The primary influence to how The Road to Nowhere was shot was Nebraska.
Nebraska was responsible for some of the core character relationship concepts that were put into the script. Stoicism and emotional isolation are even stronger in this film. It follows a father and a son on a road trip, which already was a fantastic starting point for our inspiration. It eventually lead us to choose the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. After watching Fish Tank (2009, directed by Andrea Arnold) with a 4:3 aspect ratio, we understood that it was an effective tool to keep the film claustrophobic, always isolating the protagonist. It was an interesting idea, but it’s something that wouldn’t quite work for our story.
I think the reason why it was so effective in that film was because of the way the protagonist is always in every single shot, which helped to solidify the idea of isolation. Joe is certainly isolated in the film, but is eventually not alone. The surroundings are also a big part of the story and are almost a character in their own way, which is what Nebraska brings to the table.
The landscapes in Nebraska are actually fairly bleak, especially when you factor in the black and white grade, but end up as visually impressive due to the context of the characters and story. In the image above is such a vast and expansive landscape, but ultimately it doesn’t really have anything in it. I think the reason that it comes across as stunning is because of the characters themselves. It’s the idea that the son is humouring his father (spoilers) by taking him on a trip across Nebraska to claim an obviously fake lottery winnings makes this vast and bleak landscape something to behold; it’s part of their long journey, and ultimately the lottery ticket is basically a McGuffin, the physical and emotional journey are connected so well that the goal at the end essentially doesn’t matter (as the son always knew). So I think a lot of the film’s visuals are beautiful just because the story is; it turns the unappealing and insignificant into something special.
The ratio works very well for car scenes as well, there are pretty much always at least two characters on screen and plenty of the surroundings can be seen, and the framing compliments it by sticking to thirds very nicely. This is essentially what we tried to recreate in The Road to Nowhere, although attention was obviously paid to the massive difference in setting. We were limited by road safety regulations when it came to using the car rig mount we hired, and could only get shots from the bonnet where it wouldn’t increase the width of the vehicle. This means a few side-on shots I wanted couldn’t be filmed, and were restricted to filming from the bonnet and the back seat (when driving, the stationary car scene was obviously a lot more freeing).
Luckily for the Nebraska team, sunlight and landscape were on their side in terms of lighting. As mentioned we only used a few LEDs but no amount of sun can change the dull weather. Although the weather was very appropriate for the film, it made the car scenes harder to film and in the end, they didn’t look as good as what we had hoped for. The reflection was helped massively by a filter but it’s still fairly blown out, and the surroundings can barely be seen which is a shame.
In one of Tristan’s tests with the car rig it shows that we weren’t limited by the technology, we could have gotten the result we wanted, it’s the weather that really did the damage. If I was God and could change the weather I would have made it dull but not drizzling, I think the extra greyness from the rain clouds pushed it over the edge. If it was full on sunshine it wouldn’t have matched the correct tone of the film (dull weather matches the dullness of everything else). So really this scene had a high chance of being doomed from the start considering the weather had to be so specific to make it work.
If we had a flexible schedule it may have worked since we could just switch days depending on the forecast, but obviously our location count was off the charts and we had very specific access times. Either way, comparing what we have to some of Nebraska’s imagery I think we managed to get a rough sense of what Nebraska manage to achieve with our own unique themes and of course the twist of the British setting.
Despite the film’s problems, I think it does capture some of that “empty but significant” feeling Nebraska manages to achieve, especially in the pier where Joe and Frank’s journey essentially culminates.
I think the biggest regret in terms of how the film was shot is the café scene. We were completely ill-prepared for that day, and it was mostly my fault. We had found a closed down pub location a few minutes up the road from the café and I thought we could somehow cheat everything and mix the two locations together seamlessly. It was only until the morning I realised it just wasn’t going to work. Originally the café wasn’t going to purely focus on Joe and Jennifer like it does now.
We simply had to focus on the two and use creative sound design to try and convey what Joe was feeling. These two shots were on the shot list originally, but in the end, we were forced to use only these, and a single wide to cover some of the action. I think it breaks the realism that we aimed so hard to achieve. It goes into more of a psychological drama rather than the upfront and realistic style the rest of the film has. It’s not terrible; it works. But it’s definitely not what we intended. Out of every scene in the film this is definitely the least accurate. Although the number of locations we needed to get in the short amount of pre-production time that we had was partially responsible for my lapse in judgement (because the shot list could only be finalised when we had them all, some of which we didn’t get until a few days before the shoot) I definitely think this was my fault. It wasn’t a simple mistake to make, it seems I really hard to try hard not to use basic logic and somehow made the decision.
We were very fortunate to have access to a bar next to the café. Fortunate is probably an understatement, it was a miracle. We were allowed to make it look closed down, and Mehdi’s quick production designing got the look it needed. The scene definitely wasn’t ruined and after a while of mourning for lost splendour I can allow myself to be proud of it still.
To end this section of a positive note, I think the car trashing scene worked fully as intended. Tristan and I both thought it was a very fun idea to do one long shot of following Joe as he ruins Shaun’s car with Frank.
It was a way to get more movement into the film after Joe has essentially ended his old way of life - which was static in a way - and get a feeling that the audience is there with him. I think it was a nice way to show off the unusually impulsive act and get people more immersed in the most fun scene in the film.
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