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 For the HBO historical film VENDETTA, the artists at BFTR had the opportunity to recreate the bustling port city of New Orleans in the 1890s. It was an ambitious task; using as a point of departure the creative eyes of HBO's accountants (through which the obviously best place to shoot and recreate New Orleans was in Ontario, Canada), BFTR supervisor Van Ling worked closely with screenwriter and director Nicholas Meyer to find a way to convey the sense and scale of the period on a minuscule effects budget. "Ostensibly, it was going to be tougher to recreate old New Orleans in actual, present-day New Orleans because so much has changed and would have to be redressed that you lose the benefit of actually being in the real place," notes Van. "Of course, the favorable exchange rate in Canada might have been a factor as well..." Thus began BFTR's part in an exploration of the treatment of immigrant workers, local protectionism, national outcry and the business hypocrisy of taking with one hand and scolding with the other. But let's talk about the film...
Banned From The Ranch transformed locations in Kingston, Canada into turn-of-the-century New Orleans. Click here to see a larger image. |
VENDETTA, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by author/historian Richard Gambino, dramatizes one of the darkest moments of racism in America: the largest documented lynching in U.S. history, which was not of blacks as one might expect, but of Italian immigrants. In 1891, amidst the political and economic machinations of a ruthless white businessman (Christopher Walken) and city leaders, a group of Italian dockworkers were tried and acquitted for the murder of the local chief of police, but were then savagely executed anyway by an angry mob whipped into a xenophobic frenzy by tales of a "Mah-FEE-ah" conspiracy. Banned from the Ranch, as the sole visual effects house on the film, was responsible for creating emotionally-charged images reflecting both the bustling land of opportunity seen through the hopeful eyes of the immigrants and the overwhelming brutality of their fate. In all, BFTR did some two dozen shots for the film, ranging from not-so-simple wire removals to kitchen-sink shots into which we managed to stuff nearly every single effects technique, from miniature photography and 2D paint work to 3D computer-generated water, wakes, smoke, and animation.
As is often the case on such projects, historical accuracy took a backseat to both financial realities and the preservation of emotional truths. The New Orleans harborfront of the period consisted predominantly of a wide beach-like area that sloped gradually into the water where the ships were, creating a large open staging area for goods being loaded or unloaded. Needless to say, staging entire scenes in such a see-everything configuration was not feasible within the scope of the budget, so production designer David Chapman and the production opted for a more compressed but immersive environment. "They quite rightly put most of their efforts into production design and the costuming, in order to give them more opportunities to get film coverage for the scenes. As a result, the scenes by necessity took place in either confined or enclosed sets; this ultimately was to the story's advantage in many scenes. But it then became our job at BFTR to open the film up a bit, extending the scope of the live action and the sets and adding all of the period ships and harbor buildings and warehouses in specific shots." continued...
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