Freeze Frame
Alar Kivilo’s Simple Approach to...A Simple Plan
By Pauline Rogers

When I first read the script for A Simple Plan, I was fascinated by the relationship between the two brothers and the story of what greed does to people,” says cinematographer Alar Kivilo (Gotti, Rebound, The Invaders). “My first instinct was to make the look simple, allowing the characters to tell the story. Outwardly, the film is a thriller, but at the heart of it, this is a dark psychological drama of one man’s descent into hell. I knew the camera would have to take a back seat.”

Kivilo’s first reference for visual images was the movie In Cold Blood. He watched the picture several times, before meeting with director Sam Raimi (Darkman, Army of Darkness). “I brought a book of Robert Frank photos with me for our initial meeting,” Kivilo recalls. “Sam pulled out color Xeroxes of the locations that had already been scouted. Shot in overcast light, the starkness and simplicity of the images struck me. I saw white fields and black trees and hardly any other colors. It was a Japanese aesthetic, woodcut prints. A real departure for Sam, who is known for his campy films and extreme camera moves.”

The two discussed shooting the medium budget picture in anamorphic, briefly. But budget, schedule and the extreme cold of the Midwestern winters were a problem. “I wanted to carry two complete sets of lenses,” says Kivilo. “This way, we could have one set for inside shots and one set for outside shots. This would eliminate waiting because of condensation problems.

“Knowing the scarcity of anamorphic lenses and being less than three weeks from the shoot, I opted for straight 1:85. Bob Harvey and the Chicago office of Panavision were very helpful in putting together our package at such short notice.”

The key decision for helping Kivilo achieve the stark look of the movie was film stock. “I looked at Kodak’s 5274, 5279, 5245, 5246 and 5277.

“One thing became apparent very quickly. Because of the time of year, the days would be short,” he continues. “That immediately eliminated 5245 and 5274. I needed a stock that would maximize the day. Although 5277 is fast, it lacked the hard contrast that I was after.

“In the past, I have used 5279 for a whole picture. It was my original thought to do the same for this one. However when I saw what the 5246 daylight 250 ASA stock did in snow, I decided to go with two stocks. My final choice was 5246 for exteriors and daylight interiors and 5279 for night exteriors and inside the location studio.”

The picture was set to be shot in and around Minneapolis, Minnesota. Supposedly, this was the snow capital of the country. Unfortunately, as Kivilo’s plane was landing in Minneapolis, all he saw outside the window was brown. El Nino had struck. Minneapolis was having a somewhat snowless winter.

“So, the contingency plan went into place,” he recalls. “We moved production to Ashland, Wisconsin. Here, we could shoot the snow scenes. It was necessary not only for the whiteness of the location, but also for our schedule. Actor Billy Bob Thornton had a cut-off date. We had to finish his shots in a definitive time period.”

To make the schedule, in Ashland and in Minneapolis, production had a full snow unit on hand. “Even when we were shooting in the minus 40 wind chill factor of Ashland, we had blowers and snow machines and all the equipment necessary,” Kivilo recalls. “The snow had to be protected all the time. Once we did a take, the snow crew would run out with rakes and air blowers and get rid of the footprints.” The need to eliminate footprints and move equipment in a somewhat circumspect route, avoiding making marks on the locations, became another schedule challenge.

“Of course, there were times when we needed very clear footprints in the snow,” Kivilo adds. “The paranoia about someone seeing their footprints leading up to the downed plane was a very real fear for our characters. Because I’d opted for contrast in my stock, the footprints wouldn’t always show on the screen. So, when we needed them, the prop man walked in the actors’ footprints (backwards) spraying the natural shadow side with gray paint.

“Luckily most of our shots were done in overcast light,” Kivilo continues. “This allowed me to eliminate the need to bring in heavy movie lights for the exteriors, complicating the logistics even more. Because the light would bounce off the snow, I would use big solids for negative fill to shape the light, adding just a bit of shiny card for the actors’ eyes. I wanted to keep the snow very hot and retain a contrasty and stark look.”

While prepping for the picture, Kivilo grappled with the problem of how he could maintain an overcast look for the whole show. “I requested we carry a large crane with a huge silk, should we encounter direct sun,” he says. Although he explained that smaller silks on flat land would not give enough coverage, the larger equipment just didn’t fit into the budget.

“Thank heaven for the powers of CGI,” he says. “At one point, we had a scene on a small country road bordered by two snow fields and a super hot sun above. We had no choice but to shoot the scene in the sun and to try to eliminate the blue sky in post. Since the schedule never allowed us the luxury of waiting for light or weather, we just had to keep on shooting. CGI also helped to even out inconsistencies caused by the amount of snow falling from shot to shot,” he adds.

Since A Simple Plan is a cautionary tale of greed and relationships, with a few twists and turns and Hitchcockian moments, Kivilo and Raimi used the camera to enhance the story with simplicity. “Our opening sequence starts with quiet, poetic landscapes. White snow. Black trees. A black crow flying off.

“Symbolically, these are very fitting images,” he continues. “The crow is a symbol of greed and becomes a strong reoccurring visual theme later in the film. The choice of black and white foreshadows the battle between the conscious and the unconscious, which is such an important element in our story.”

“We then show evocative images of an abandoned farm, Hank (Bill Paxton) and Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton) Mitchell’s family home. A red tractor is parked in falling snow. A torn curtain flapping in the wind. These are innocent shots, before their world falls apart.”

Alar Kivilo realized early on that the most powerful images in this picture would be those where the camera was very far away, showing figures in a landscape or right up close, registering the powerful performances of the actors. A scene that provided the opportunity to do both takes place in a feed mill where Hank is shown doing his mundane job of filling feed sacks day after day and hour upon hour.

“We start with a close silhouette of Hank,” he recalls. “He then steps into the light and close to camera as he seals the bag with an industrial sewing device and then takes another bag and starts all over again. We were using a 40mm Primo and tracked laterally back and forth with Bill Paxton to produce this rhythmic, almost circular feel to the shot. When this shot is repeated at the end of the movie, it is a very powerful moment to see the pain and anguish in Hank’s eyes as he goes about this repetitive, almost hypnotic activity.”

“We then put the short zoom on a remote head, high on the Enlouva crane, and shot straight down at the tiny figure of Bill Paxton doing his tedious job. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, we crane down and zoom in, closing in on Hank and his world. We had to track in at the same time to maintain our dead overhead view.”

Before Kivilo shoots a picture, he captures visual references of the location on a video camera and then prints out interesting angles to study. While scouting this mill, he noticed how the natural light enhanced the beauty of the location. “I wanted to duplicate that light for our shots,” he says. “So, to get strong North light through the loading bays, we punched 18Ks through double silks outside. Inside, for the tighter shots, we used HMI Pars through double bleached Muslins. Simple and effective.”

Even when doing important exteriors, Kivilo opted for simplicity. At times it was tough to keep that simplicity when moving inside. “The pivotal point in the story is when the three men discover the downed plane containing several million dollars,” he says. “Our downed plane was placed in a natural bowl outside of Minneapolis.

“This was a perfect 360 degree cyc,” he continues. “The staging area was shadowed, giving us the required overcast look. At one point Sam wanted to do a very high, down angle tracking shot of the men walking through the woods showing black crows perched on branches in the foreground. We scouted the nearby roads at the top of the bowl, which would give us easy access to set up a long track and a high crane.

“Unfortunately, the scrubby sides of those roads didn’t have the right look,” he adds. “I had gone through great pains throughout the picture with the help of my operator Monty Rowan and the prop men to trim and prune all vegetation so that it would be in line with our sparse ‘Japanese’ look. Finally, I found a location with twisted black trees and dead limbs that had fallen into the snow. Perfect for a bird’s eye view, but it was deep in the heart of the bowl and only accessible by foot. When I turned to my key grip, Joey Dianda, he said, ‘no problem!’ He and his crew did a wonderful job of building a big platform in the middle of the woods, so we could do a series of wonderful tracking crane shots with the Enlouva and the Cam-Remote.”

When the three men find the downed plane, Hank thinks the pilot might still be alive. He crawls into the plane, which is balanced on a fallen tree. “Inside, we have a Hitchcockian shock moment,” says Kivilo. “There are two crows inside the plane and they attack Bill Paxton.”

To shoot these sequences, production had two full planes. There was one that was placed into the forest during preproduction so it would be covered in snow and another plane with a finished interior for the stage. The stage plane was attached to a gimbal, about five feet off the ground. “As Bill crawls to the front of the plane, it tilts down. When he moves toward the back, it tilts in that direction.

“Since we were using an actual plane there was a limit to how much of the plane’s walls could be removed before it became structurally unsound,” says Kivilo. “It was a very small, cramped shooting space.”

Kivilo needed to match these interiors to the footage already shot in the forest. The art department built a set with real trees and a painted backdrop. “We hung white griffolyns in the ceiling and bounced two 18Ks and a bunch of HMI PARs off of this to match our overcast look,” he explains.

“At first, we wanted to see the breath coming from our actors’ mouths. Finding a refrigerated place was out of the question. So, we tried leaving the doors open and using HMI and fluorescent lights to keep the temperature down, but the weather in Minneapolis was too warm!”

Kivilo had to be satisfied with frosted windows, dark silhouettes, and sketchy lighting. “We shot most of Paxton’s attack on a 150mm Primo. At one point, we had two real crows, one behind Paxton and one in front. They were tapping at the trainer’s hand. With Bill flailing his hands and the compression of the long lens, it appeared as if they were really attacking him.

“We then did shots of puppet crows attacking a real Bill Paxton, and then real crows attacking an animatronic Bill. Cut together, we have a very horrific moment, right out of The Birds.”

The real horrors were still to come. As soon as the men decide to keep the money, things start going wrong. “I think one of the most difficult weeks on the picture occurred when we shot a long, tension-filled night scene where Hank forces Jacob to trick his best friend Lou into confessing on tape to a murder that Hank had committed. When Lou realizes his best friend has betrayed him, he goes berserk. Jacob ends up killing Lou and Hank blows away Lou’s wife. This scene had everything,” recalls Kivilo.

“Incredibly intense performances…..weapons being dis- charged…..blood…..makeup applia-nces…..exploding props…..shotgun blast.....stunts with a double. A real smorgasbord.”

They shot in an old abandoned house which Patricia Von Brandenstein and her team had converted into a “wonderful set,” praises Kivilo. “It was dark and dingy. It was also bloody cold. We had to use propane heaters between takes to heat the house. Once the violence erupts, the scene spills out onto the porch. This forced us into split days.

“We tented the porch and all the windows so we could shoot certain shots during the day and then we would have to pull the tents away when we shot night for night. At one point, we shot a fairly wide master towards the house and the porch during the day, but inside the tent. To achieve a blue moonlight ambience for that shot, I just lifted up one corner of the tent and let a little bit of the daylight ambient light in.

“Most of the lighting came from shallow soft boxes mounted into the low ceilings. We used two cameras throughout. The scene was such an odd mixture of dealing with dark human moments and very detailed technical considerations. Very draining for everybody.”

In the aftermath of the shooting, Billy Bob Thornton’s character hides in the cellar. He is devastated. Jacob starts out as a gentle, not too bright, innocent soul. As the picture progresses he starts to lose his innocence and finds himself in a world that he really doesn’t want to live in. “This scene is a pivotal moment in Jacob’s character arc,” explains Kivilo. “We only shot two shots for this scene. A very wide master showing Jacob sitting on the steps in the dark cellar. A light is turned on and Hank comes down the steps and crouches before Jacob and starts to coach him on what to say when the police arrive.

“We then start a very slow 180-degree dolly shot with a 50mm Primo that starts with Jacob over Hank’s shoulder and slowly works its way around to Hank over Jacob’s shoulder. Then it slowly pulls focus to an ECU of Jacob’s rim-lit profile.

“The lighting setup was very elemental,” Kivilo continues. “Basically, I used a daylight half-corrected KinoFlo through a frame to key Billy Bob and rim Paxton. Paxton’s warm key from a double bounced 9-Lite initially functions as Billy Bob’s rim.

“I think a shot like this is pure cinema,” he says. “Everything has been distilled down to it’s barest elements and in doing so, exposes the true and raw emotion behind the scene. In ECU, Jacob starts to repeat after Hank what to say to the police, but in his face, the lighting and the composition, we see that he isn’t going along with Hank anymore and that he has reached an emotional crossroad.

“I think economy in the imagery is very important,” Kivilo adds.

One of Alar Kivilo’s favorite shots in the film involves a scene where Jacob sits at the bar mourning Lou’s death. “The shot in itself is nothing special,” he says. “We simply track down the bar and get progressively closer and closer to Jacob. There is no dialogue. Only music. What we did was give Billy Bob Thornton an uncluttered plain and honest frame to act in. And it’s all in his eyes. The scene has such clarity. The audience knows exactly what is going on and realizes later, at the end of the film, when Jacob tells Hank that he doesn’t want to live in this world anymore, that this is one of the scenes that sets up the believability of the climactic end scene!”

It is normal that in the editing process the story is tightened and some beautiful images are lost forever. It is quite rare, however, for an image to be lost forever—twice. “We did a scene where Hank and Jacob are arguing,” says Kivilo. “It starts off in a bar during the day. We shot a beautiful 50/50 two-shot in silhouette. The argument continues outside the bar. We track with Hank and Jacob in a wide-shot that shows the little town they live in. As they come to the end of the block, it is revealed that the last building has a white wall and a little snow-covered plot of land beside it with a couple of black trees.

“The shot was framed so it looked like they had returned to the forest where all their troubles had begun. It was very effective. We never got to see the dailies on that particular shot, because the footage never showed up at the lab. It was lost in transit. Our production coordinator tracked the missing footage for weeks. It was lost forever. Later in the schedule we reshot that sequence, but it is still not in the movie!

Even though economy was important to the production, there were times when shots like these were important. It is never thought that they won’t make the final cut of the film. “That’s part of the process,” Kivilo admits. “Sometimes, things just have to be lost.

“Still, we give everything our best. We try as many ways as possible, to conserve time, so we can get those beautiful shots. While we were shooting in the bowl, for example, where no lighting was required, my gaffer Elan Yaari had a chance to slip away to the studio and finetune the pre-rig on one of our important sets.”

The Mitchell house was built in the studio in two parts. There was the main floor set with a finished exterior entrance way and a separate set for the upstairs bedrooms. Outside the windows were huge Rosco photographic backings showing the neighborhood that had been established in exterior shots of the house. “In the past I’ve only worked with transparency backings, which often need a frame of bobbinet (white gauze) to make them less present,” says Kivilo. “The Rosco backings have a texture and a softness already built in. For daylight, you front light them and for night you backlight them.

“For the front light and general ambience we hung silked space lights all around the set. For nighttime, we rigged a row of Nooklites but ended up using small individual Tungsten units to light up the windows in the backing. Then we surrounded the set with banks of half-blue Maxi-brutes punching through muslin to provide a soft directional ‘daylight’ in the sets. On the greenbays that the pre-rig grips had hung, we strategically placed some 10Ks and a couple of 20Ks. Over the set, each room had a large soft box. Then all of this was put on a dimmer so that we could dial up various lighting configurations. It was quite huge.”

For Kivilo, Hank Mitchell’s house presented some interesting challenges. “Patricia, in keeping with one of the visual motifs of the film, built a beautiful set that was essentially white. Even the carpet was white. There was no escaping the snow! Night shots were the most difficult to control. I love using soft light but in this case it was very hard to keep from bouncing all around.

“I ended up devising a system of lighting with beveled mirrors. I would blast a PAR can or a HMI PAR into a corner of the set that the grips would black off with solids. This way, no stray light would bounce around and then I would selectively aim little splashes of light wherever I wanted with these little mirrors.

“The light splashes had a very organic quality to them, which I liked very much.” Kivilo put this technique to work in a scene where Hank and Sarah (Bridget Fonda) are giving their newborn baby a bath in the kitchen sink. “The shot starts off with a beautiful close-up of this wet, gurgling baby. As the baby is lifted out of the sink by Bill Paxton, the camera pulls back to reveal Bridget receiving the baby.

“It is a moment of domestic bliss in all of the madness. Suddenly the doorbell rings and Paxton leaves frame to go see who it is. It is the sheriff! Bridget moves forward into extreme close-up as she listens in on their conversation. Real tension. The baby was lit with some soft half-blue light coming from the kitchen window. When the camera pulled back into the two shot, I had Bridget and Bill rimmed with a four-bank Tungsten KinoFlo and keyed with a very soft low China ball.

“When Bridget steps into the foreground she also steps out of the soft secure light of the kitchen and into a moody, dappled patch of mysterious light kicked in by one of those beveled mirrors.”

Hank and Sarah’s struggle to live a normal life in the wake of all the terrible things that have happened, gets increasingly more difficult.”We shot a great scene inside a local barber shop on location,” says Kivilo. “It is an easy going moment that has an underlying context of paranoia. Bill’s character is sitting in the chair, getting a hair cut. The local sheriff comes by and makes casual conversation. In the middle of the local gossip, he says the FBI is coming the next day and they want to talk to Hank and Jacob. They might know something about a missing plane.

“Paxton’s character is trapped—emotionally and physically,” Kivilo continues. “To show this, we focused on Bill’s face, using the 40mm lens. As he sits there, he tries to turn around to face the sheriff, as he moves around in the background. However, the barber won’t let him move. At one point he even grabs Bill’s head and traps him with his hand.

“To emphasize the terror, we are relentlessly playing the shot off Bill’s face, as the sheriff moves freely. When the Sheriff leaves, we push in a bit and play off his face even closer. Having no cuts this gave the mundane an underlying sense of tension—the Hitchcockian moment we all wanted for specific parts of this film.”

To light the sequence, Kivilo kept with the simplicity style. He left the exterior over-exposed and used an 18K as a splash of light on the back wall of the shop. “I keyed Bill with two daylight, two-foot four bank KinoFlos through a silk and had an overhead soft box inside, and that was it,” he explains.

“When you are doing a picture where the characters propel the story, it is important to keep things as simple as possible,” he says. In A Simple Plan , everything depended on the audience being able to see the stages of terror and the degrading of the relationships, once money enters the picture.

“At the end of the film, when all is lost and Hank and Sarah are back at their everyday routine, we did a very tight tracking shot of Bridget Fonda, as she re-shelves books in the library. We shot through the dark back of the bookcase, framing Bridget’s face in the silhouetted gaps where there are no books. As she starts to re-shelve the books, she covers up the gaps blocking out our view of her, until we track to the next gap and the same thing happens. She is dead to the world and is being buried alive.

“In most of my films, I’ve tended to find a progression of visuals to emphasize the story. They will often start one way and end another. The lighting and the camera will build with the story. But here, because the characters were going through such extreme psychological changes, we decided to keep the photography on an even keel.

“It is interesting to note that the film ends with some of the exact frames of the abandoned farm that we saw in the title sequence. Because of what the characters have gone through, a totally new value is assigned to those shots. They feel different, evoking new emotions and yet physically they haven’t changed from when we first saw them!

“Whether we were doing shots in the white snow, Hitchcockian moments inside homes or downed planes, formal camera work and simple lighting seemed to work better.

“We tried to give this midwestern psychological drama a Japanese woodcut look. I think we succeeded. We’ll see when the audience reacts to what we put on the screen,” he concludes.

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