{"id":36793,"date":"2024-01-05T19:27:16","date_gmt":"2024-01-06T03:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/locationmanagers.org\/?p=36793"},"modified":"2024-10-21T13:34:40","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T20:34:40","slug":"killers-of-the-flower-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/locationmanagers.org\/es\/killers-of-the-flower-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Killers of the Flower Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

SLM Mike Fantasia and team help peel back the layers of time to recount a murderous chapter in Oklahoma history in director Martin Scorsese\u2019s film<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

by Shaun O\u2019Banion<\/b><\/p>\n

All images courtesy Apple Original Films except as noted<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Scorsese adapted the screenplay for this long-awaited movie with fellow Oscar winner Eric Roth from David Grann\u2019s no. 1 New York Times<\/em> bestselling nonfiction book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Scorsese worked closely with the Osage Nation to faithfully render details of the period and the portrayal of tribal members. Meticulous attention was paid to tradition, sets, costuming and of course, the setting: the oil fields, towns and grasslands of Oklahoma over a century ago.<\/p>\n

MIKE FANTASIA\/LMGI GETS THE CALL\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

It was June of 2019 and SLM Mike Fantasia (pronounced \u2018Fanta-See-uh\u2019) was standing on the set of what he thought was going to be his last film: Top Gun: Maverick<\/em>. Next to him, director Joseph Kosinski, producer\/star Tom Cruise and writer\/producer Christopher McQuarrie were talking about where they hoped to put a Technocrane in the middle of a protected wooded area (LMGI Compass<\/em>, Summer 2022).<\/p>\n

Mike\u2019s phone was vibrating and he took a moment to check the caller ID. The number that came up belonged to producer Georgia Kacandes. The two had worked together before and she\u2019d spoken with him a month or two earlier about working on her next film. With Martin Scorsese. She\u2019d been trying to reach him for days. He meant to call back, but never had a moment to spare.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Had he told her he planned to retire after Maverick<\/em>? That he and his wife were planning to leave their home in Mar Vista, CA, for the clean air and open skies of Montana? No matter. He couldn\u2019t answer now anyway. He was busy.<\/p>\n

Kacandes and producer Emma Tillinger Koskoff called again in July of 2019 and he finally picked up. Georgia got right to it. \u201cWe\u2019d just said, \u2018hello,\u2019 and Emma goes, \u2018we\u2019ll give you whatever you want, we\u2019ll give you whoever you want, we\u2019ll leave you alone, you\u2019ve gotta come do this movie,\u201d Fantasia recalls.<\/p>\n

The movie was Killers of the Flower Moon<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke with my wife and she said, \u2018How do you say no to Martin Scorsese?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seems retirement would have to wait. Again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Kihekah Avenue, Pawhuska<\/p><\/div>\n

TELLING A HORRIFIC STORY FROM OKLAHOMA\u2019S PAST<\/b><\/p>\n

The story recounts a dark chapter in tribal and U.S. history that revolves around the Osage striking oil on land the tribe had been relocated to from Kansas in the late 1800s because it had been deemed a barren wasteland.<\/p>\n

The tribe\u2019s sudden and extreme wealth attracted predatory outsiders who would stop at nothing to get their hands on the money.<\/p>\n

A love story between Mollie, an Osage woman (played by Lily Gladstone, a member of the Blackfoot Confederacy of Montana) and Ernest Burkhart, a white man just home from the war, is upended when her family is targeted in a scheme to secure its wealth. Leonardo DiCaprio was producing and set to play the intrepid FBI agent dispatched from DC to investigate a mounting series of mysterious and unsolved murders on the Reservation, with Robert De Niro attached to play William \u2018King\u2019\u00a0 <\/span>Hale, the local political boss and Ernest\u2019s uncle.<\/p>\n

\"\"OKLAHOMA AND THE OSAGE NATION<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a story about a monumental period in Osage history and for the state of Oklahoma as well,\u201d says Yousef Kazemi, the Outreach and Production Manager for the Oklahoma Film + Music Office. \u201cIt was important that the producers be made aware that the Osage were here and that they were open and interested in being collaborative. But more than that, there was a need to communicate that we believed this story needed to be told in the place where it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osage Nation member Chad Renfro was appointed by Principal Chief of the Osage Nation, Geoffrey Standing Bear, to be the tribe\u2019s ambassador for the film.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth,\u201d Renfro says, \u201cis that once Marty and the other producers started conversations with the Osage, and once they came here to see what we had to offer, it became very clear very quickly that the movie simply couldn\u2019t be made anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe movie was offered huge incentives to film elsewhere,\u201d says Fantasia. \u201cBut Oklahoma was where the story happened, and this is where the story was to be told.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to tell this story on the land where these events took place is incredibly important and critical to allowing us to portray an accurate depiction of the time and people,\u201d confirmed Scorsese in a 2021 statement. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWhen Martin Scorsese wants to make a movie, what matters most is authenticity. He met with Osage tribal leaders to assure them he was there to tell their story.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span><\/b>\u2013SLM MIKE FANTASIA<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

SCOUTING<\/b><\/p>\n

Fantasia pulled his team together quickly, enlisting, among others, LMGI members Donny Martino, Mike Reft, Chris Kucharski and Andrea Keener. Eventually, the department would grow to 14, along with 20 full-time PAs and cultural historian Addie Roanhorse.<\/p>\n

They scouted through December of 2019 with Scorsese traveling to Osage County several times to see locations with then production designer Dante Ferretti.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While most of the actual events in the story took place in the town of Fairfax, the filmmakers settled on Pawhuska, the county seat of Osage County, to play for downtown Fairfax in the 1920s. Established in 1872 when the Osage Tribal government opened offices there, it was named after the Osage Chief Paw-Hiu-Skah, which means \u201cwhite hair\u201d in English.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pawhuska came of age precisely when the story takes place. Rolls-Royce opened its first dealership west of the Mississippi River there and the no. 1 customer of Tiffany\u2019s at the time was the Osage Nation, whose members would hand out place settings from the New York retailer as gifts. The Pawhuska Historic Downtown District consists of 101 buildings and structures constructed from 1906 to 1930.<\/p>\n

Just prior to the 2019 holiday break, the team began to narrow down the possibilities in Pawhuska, \u201cAt that point, I\u2019d say we had, probably, 50% of our locations locked in,\u201d Mike recalls.<\/p>\n

\"\"Pawhuska Paused<\/b><\/p>\n

Everyone headed home believing they\u2019d be back in January but, over the holiday, Fantasia got a call from the producers and was told the project would be going dark for a rewrite.<\/p>\n

It seems that, in working with members of the Osage community, including Chief Standing Bear, Renfro and cultural historian Addie Roanhorse (whose grandfather is one of the supporting characters depicted in the film), Scorsese and Roth decided they needed to rethink their approach to the story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor one thing,\u201d explained Scorsese following a screening at the Cannes Film Festival, \u201cthe book is basically a procedural, and we\u2019ve seen those before. So how do you do something new with that? Also, the question wasn\u2019t \u2018who did it?\u2019 But \u2018who didn\u2019t<\/i> do it?\u2019 since there were so many people involved in these horrific events.\u201d<\/p>\n

This decision to rewrite was solidified when DiCaprio asked Scorsese where the heart of the film was. \u201cWhen he asked, I knew the answer immediately,\u201d Scorsese said. \u201cThe heart of the film was in the relationship between Mollie and Ernest Burkhart.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Scorsese, DiCaprio replied, \u201cWell, maybe I ought to be playing Ernest then.\u201d And that was that.<\/p>\n

Fantasia was told they would all reconvene in April, but he didn\u2019t believe it. \u201cLost in \u2018development hell,\u2019\u201d he thought. Then COVID-19 spread across the planet and countries all around the world went into full lockdown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt that point, I thought the project was done for sure,\u201d he says. But the film industry was one of the first to find a way to get back to work during the pandemic and, sure enough, on April 1 of 2020, the phone rang again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI picked up and they said, \u2018we\u2019re going back to work,\u2019 I couldn\u2019t believe it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by Mike Walton<\/p><\/div>\n

STARTING OVER WITH A NEW PERSPECTIVE<\/b><\/p>\n

I got the new script and it was totally different,\u201d relates Fantasia. \u201cIt went from being a \u2018white savior\u2019 movie with the FBI on page one, to the movie that we have now, where we don\u2019t get to the FBI stuff until page 60-something.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DiCaprio had officially moved into the role of Mollie\u2019s husband Ernest, and Jesse Plemons would now take on the role of FBI agent Tom White.<\/p>\n

Once the company was back up, they were still at the height of COVID, so the team was working remotely at first, and then within strict protocols. They were also now working for Apple as opposed to Paramount and much of the crew changed along with the studio. Tillinger Koskoff, Kacandes and Ferretti left the project and Daniel Lupi, a veteran of films with Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson, joined with production designer Jack Fisk and his art department team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to art director Matt Gatlin, when production designer Jack Fisk and his team came onto the project, \u201cthe movie was completely re-conceptualized and there was a shift away from an interpretation of the history to more of a recreation of the real places.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so, the location department basically started over\u2014with the exception that Pawhuska would still be a stand-in for Fairfax.<\/p>\n

Kucharski and Martino did not return; Reft and Keener stayed on; Miranda Carnesalle\/LMGI and George Alvarezzo\/LMGI joined the team.<\/p>\n

FINDING THE TALL GRASS<\/b><\/p>\n

Carnesalle was on her own much of the time searching for cinematic vistas for driving sequences, beauty shots of nature and plates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d go out,\u201d she says, \u201cand you\u2019d stop because you\u2019d be looking at this stunning tall grass waving in the wind and you\u2019d think, \u2018God, this is just beautiful, but when you\u2019d look through the camera, it would just kind of look like \u2026 nothing. It was a challenge to find a location where there would be enough visual interest \u2026 something to suggest scale and texture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her photographs intrigued director of photography Rodrigo Prieto, and the two forged a close friendship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRodrigo saw the artist in her,\u201d says Fantasia. \u201cShe\u2019d shoot various places for a moonrise or a sunrise and then she\u2019d come back and I\u2019d just say, \u2018go right to Rodrigo. If he\u2019s happy, I\u2019m happy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cScorsese completely relies on and trusts his team to review and vet locations before they ever come across his desk,\u201d says Carnesalle. \u201cSo, I\u2019d go shoot and then Rodrigo and I would go through everything. When he found something he liked, that\u2019s when we\u2019d go to Scorsese.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the locations for these shots were ultimately found on the Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Osage County, which is the largest protected tract of tallgrass prairie in the world at almost 40,000 acres.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis was my first experience working with Mike and his team, but they are just, all of them, absolute pros. The sheer number of sets that we were all dealing with was overwhelming and the scale of this project was massive, with things often happening simultaneously in five different locations that were all an hour apart from each other in a remote locale with fewer resources than you would have if you were in a major film hub.\u201d<\/b> <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013ART DIRECTOR MATT GATLIN<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

KIHEKAH AVENUE<\/b><\/p>\n

The location in the film seen perhaps more than any other is Kihekah Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Pawhuska. \u201cIt didn\u2019t take long to realize we would be able to do a ton of filming on that street,\u201d explains Gatlin. Production would need to own a three-block section of the downtown area that included some 50 businesses, essentially turning it into a backlot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt that point, 30% of the storefronts were empty,\u201d says Fantasia. \u201cThe rest varied from thriving to barely hanging on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forty-one different entities owned the various properties on the street and the production would need to make arrangements to alter as many as 25 of them for picture. Historian Addie Roanhorse is also co-owner of the Big Rain Gallery, which would become Hale\u2019s Ballet School, as well as a central meeting point for several departments, the location and art departments among them. She even has a small role on screen. Her first meeting with Mike was a memorable one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were here for a scout,\u201d she remembers, \u201cand we always knew whenever they were in town, like, they\u2019d be walking up the street in a big group and people would say, \u2019there go the movie people.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Addie was in her gallery when Mike texted to ask if he could come by with some of the crew.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said \u2018sure,\u2019\u201d Addie says, \u201cand then this huge group of people comes walking in with Mike to find me just hysterically laughing because, about two seconds after we hung up, my smoke alarm began to chirp really loudly which is not an easy fix when you\u2019ve got 15-foot ceilings. So there I am trying to origami this ladder out of a closet and Mike takes the ladder, quickly climbs up, replaces the battery, comes down and almost with a wink says, \u2018I\u2019m pretty handy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Fantasia impressed her immediately and, over the course of the shoot, became a mentor to Addie and other members of the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a real trust there,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople still ask me if Mike\u2019s going to come back to visit \u2026 and not just Mike, but Andrea and the other members of the team as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by Cait Murray\/LMGI<\/p><\/div>\n

THE HOLDOUT<\/b><\/p>\n

The team spent months talking to the other property owners and were able to sign agreements with all but one. The lone holdout was a woman they had been speaking with for six months.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe couldn\u2019t have been nicer all the way from 2019 up until I sent over our timeline and the bullet points of what the art department wanted to do,\u201d Andrea Keener says, \u201cand all of a sudden, she goes, \u2018I have to get my son involved now. He actually owns the building,\u2019 and we were like, \u2018wait, what<\/i>?!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman\u2019s son, unfortunately, did not want to play ball.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe sat around her lawyer\u2019s table,\u201d Keener recalls, \u201cMike, me, the woman and her son and he just said \u2018no\u2019 to everything. So out of all those businesses, that was the only one \u2026 and it was right in the middle of our run.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, by that time, they had negotiated with the city to completely \u201cown\u201d the street.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI tried one last time,\u201d Keener says. \u201cI told them, \u2018look, you can come aboard, let us affect your building and we\u2019ll pay you, or you can be open when we\u2019re not working but nobody will be able to park in front of your store because we\u2019re going to cover the street in dirt and the road\u2019s going to be closed. You won\u2019t even be able to park in front of your store.\u201d<\/p>\n

The owner would not budge, so when it came time to film, the store\u2019s fa\u00e7ade was creatively obscured by fruit stands with large canvas backings and 1920\u2019s picture cars.<\/p>\n

Keener continued to speak with the woman, who cooperated when she could. \u201cShe let us take down this big sign she didn\u2019t like and the art department made her a new one. We wound up doing some other things that helped us and, in the end, probably helped her too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keener still has a voice mail from the woman about what a wonderful experience it was.<\/p>\n

\"\"HOMETOWN APPLIANCES: UNMASKED<\/b><\/p>\n

While nearly every single property on Kihekah Avenue required work, perhaps none required more than Hometown Appliances, a store which would come to serve as one of the focal points on the street.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hometown Appliances sells washers, dryers, TVs and other electronics to the community and the owner has owned the building for decades.<\/p>\n

At first, what they were asking wasn\u2019t going to be a big deal. But then Fisk decided to combine two different sets into one\u2014the billiard parlor and barbershop\u2014where several critical scenes take place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was an idea borne out of a memory Fisk had from growing up in rural Illinois\u2014a memory of his mother taking him to get his hair cut in a pool hall. When the art department later pulled up fire maps from Osage County during the period, they discovered that, of the three pool halls in the area at the time, two had barbershops.<\/p>\n

Keener already knew the owner from the first iteration of the film, so when she walked back into the store after being away for months, he was pretty surprised. \u201cI was like, \u2018here we are again! We\u2019re really going to do it now,\u2019\u201d says Keener.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The owner was on board, but he really wanted to keep his business open. They\u2019d not only have to find a nearby location large enough to move the entire business to, but then get him to agree to move to that new location\u2014for six months!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe store really did serve a big purpose for the community, so I totally got it,\u201d she explains. \u201cThe closest real store is a full 30 minutes away, so people really did shop local there as much as they could and this man took care of people in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

They eventually found him a new spot and moved every single piece of merchandise out. When the team finally gained access, it proved to be much more of an extraordinary find then they had imagined.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Keener recalls, \u201cThere were rats living in there and birds and just\u2026 Yeah. Wildlife. It was … an unmasking!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Original pressed tin tiles were revealed after the drop ceiling was removed, and also, says Gatlin, \u201cthe full height of the front windows and these absolutely beautiful transom windows above that had layers of plywood and other material covering them from both from the inside and the outside.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo not only had they lost the beautiful period ceiling inside the store, but also the light all those windows bring in. Then, on the exterior, there were these amazing black and yellow four-inch tiles, all along the bottom of the storefront that had also been covered. It was like discovery after incredible discovery in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, the building got a complete makeover. They uncovered the windows, the original hardwood floor and plastered the walls in an aged-olive green, then filled one half of the room with a dozen 1900\u2019s Brunswick pool tables and, on the barbershop side, installed period-correct half-inch hex tile and a line of chairs and mirrors.<\/p>\n

Many of the buildings on Kihekah were also in a state of disrepair and the location team had to create an entire calendar just to track remediation and repair of the various spaces. This process alone stretched to months and months.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent a considerable amount of money on things like mold abatement, remediation and construction. It was just a massive undertaking,\u201d Lupi recalls. \u201cOccasionally, what we did was to trade renovations as payment or at least partial payment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

L-R: Miranda Carnessale\/LMGI and DP Rodrigo Prieto<\/p><\/div>\n

SUPPORTING A TOWN<\/b><\/p>\n

Most of the scenes on Kihekah involved as many as 800 background performers, many of them traveling from Tulsa and further out for a chance to be in the film.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the last census, Pawhuska\u2019s population was noted at 2,948 people. Between the cast, crew and background, the production grew that population by close to 1,100 more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The team fixed its sights on an abandoned supermarket with a parking lot large enough to hold tents for background, hair, makeup and costumes. It was owned by a man in New York but Fantasia says, \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t rent to us no matter how many times we came back to him!\u201d<\/p>\n

They eventually found out that the property owner was in the process of selling to the Nation, who hoped to build a medical center there. The Osage intervened and within a matter of days, permission was granted.<\/p>\n

They now had to source a very specific kind of tent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t use the same kind you would in L.A. or Atlanta because of tornadoes and inclement weather, so we had to use these huge, heavy, aluminum-frame tents we found from a vendor in Texas,\u201d Fantasia explains. \u201cThey were maybe 300 feet long by 200 feet wide. Then we brought in swamp coolers and HVAC to keep the tents cool inside and the air clean because of COVID.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They got lucky with weather, for the most part, though at one point, a sudden rainstorm nearly washed away all the dirt they\u2019d laid down on the street. Temperatures in Pawhuska through the summer regularly hit 112 degrees or 113 degrees with as much as 95% humidity. And many of the background were dressed in wool, leather or buffalo hide.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fantasia estimates that production spent well over a million dollars for background support alone in Pawhuska. Combine that with the million and a half dollars of roads they had to build on the various ranches they shot on, roads which then had to be completely removed down to the last stone and the land re-seeded, and you begin to get a sense of how massive the production was and why the budget shot up to an estimated $200 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve built roads before, I\u2019ve built train depots and basecamps, but never to this extent,\u201d Fantasia says.<\/p>\n

\"\"

L-R: Nate Wilson, Mike Reft\/LMGI, Brady McIntyre, George Alvarezzo\/LMGI<\/p><\/div>\n

THE NEIGHBORHOOD IN FAIRFAX REVISITED<\/b><\/p>\n

While the first team of producers had nixed filming in Fairfax, the new team, spurred on by Fisk, eventually agreed to shoot a number of locations there. George Alvarezzo and Mike Reft would handle the majority of them, including the residential street where Mollie and her sister both had their city homes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It meant not only taking the two hero houses back to their \u201920s glory, but many of the neighboring houses as well.<\/p>\n

Matt Gatlin recalls, \u201cFor some of the houses, there would be a laundry list of modifications we needed to make to bring them back to the period and for others, we wouldn\u2019t have to do all that much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fantasia, Alvarezzo and Reft created a map of each property that Scorsese, Prieto and Fisk could use to mark out precisely what they\u2019d see.<\/p>\n

Once we knew what the frame was going be,\u201d Gatlin says, \u201cwe\u2019d go to the guys and say for example, \u2018we would like permission to paint houses one, five, seven, nine and thirteen,\u2019 or \u2018we need to change the windows on houses 10 and 11 and we also need to remove their mailboxes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A major scene required that one of the houses be destroyed in a massive explosion. The actual explosion would be heard off screen, with the sound and reverberations experienced by Mollie in her bedroom down the street.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nuts when you read the history of it,\u201d Fantasia adds. \u201cThey probably could\u2019ve used a pint of nitroglycerin and gotten what they wanted, but they used a gallon and just decimated the house with three people inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question for production was how could they depict a 1920\u2019s house as a normal, functioning home and then show it post-explosion without the use of CGI?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was Jack Fisk who originally said, \u2018let\u2019s just buy someone\u2019s house and blow it up,\u2019\u201d laughs Lupi, \u201cand I remember saying, \u2018what are you talking about?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Incredibly, Fantasia found a house where they could do exactly that on North 4th Street.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe knocked on the door of this house that\u2019s about four blocks from the site where the real house was blown up,\u201d he says, \u201cand it appeared to be abandoned, but we weren\u2019t sure because there was still stuff inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, they found the homeowner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just kind of laid out for her who we were and what we were trying to do. Then I said, \u2018so, we\u2019d like to shoot inside the house and then we\u2019d like to blow it up,\u2019\u201d laughs Fantasia recalling the absurdity of the request.<\/p>\n

The woman took a beat and then said, \u201cOK.\u201d I looked at her like, \u2018what?! I would\u2019ve bet five weeks\u2019 pay that she was going to say \u2018no\u2019 but she didn\u2019t,\u201d Fantasia says, still astonished at this stroke of luck. The house had belonged to her parents and had sat empty for several years. She was willing to let it go.<\/p>\n

It was also more than 100 years old which meant it was another property which would require remediation and abatement.<\/p>\n

In reality, the house was not actually blown up, but restored and then carefully disassembled to show the smoldering aftermath.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went in, stripped everything out and the art department turned the clock back on it to the 1920s,\u201d says Fantasia. \u201cThen we shot a day or two inside, had the remediation company come in, encapsulate it all and then we brought a contractor in and he dismantled the house with the art department literally telling him \u2018OK,\u2019 move this chunk of wall over here,\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018or rip up that chunk of the floor and put it over there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When they were done filming, the contractor came back and took everything above ground away. \u201cThen we collapsed the basement, filled it with dirt, graded the land, seeded it and it\u2019s now just a big, empty grass lot between two houses,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by Miranda Carnessale\/LMGI<\/p><\/div>\n

OF RANCHES AND RAIN (OR LACK THEREOF!)<\/b><\/p>\n

The location department did similar work at the Hughes Ranch, where the Hale house was erected, and at the Ford Drummond Ranch where Mollie\u2019s country house, the Osage village and cemetery were built.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When filming wrapped, the structures and roads were completely removed, the land was re-seeded and you\u2019d never know they were there. But that wasn\u2019t the end of it. Fantasia was still dealing with one of the properties only several weeks ago as of press time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe finally got a release in June of this year<\/i> from the Ford Drummond property because, after we pulled the gravel and seeded, they didn\u2019t get rain so the grass didn\u2019t grow. You have to understand, the grass is like gold to these guys. It\u2019s what their cattle eat. Native tall grass has higher nutrition than any other type of grass in the country. You learn all kinds of shit when you do a movie,\u201d laughs Fantasia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No rain meant they needed to seed the ground again. And again, they got no rain. Finally, in the spring of 2023, they tried a different type of the native grass, decided to hydro-seed and then they paid the rancher to water once a week until it took.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fantasia talked to the rancher in September and was told the grass is finally growing and will be back to normal in a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a huge relief because if I had had to fly back to Oklahoma and re-seed the ground myself, I would have because I gave them my word,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I have to say that Apple has been amazing. They went beyond the agreement. The agreement terminated in 2022 because everyone assumed the rain would come and the grass would grow \u2026 but they just spent a nice six-figure number on the third go-round.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gatlin confirms the skill and integrity that Fantasia and team brought to the project. \u201cIt requires an enormous team effort, a lot of communication and just kind of supporting each other to figure it all out. Mike and his team were able to tackle pretty much everything we threw at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMike is one of those location managers that loves being a location manager,\u201d says Lupi. \u201cAnd most people don\u2019t understand just how difficult the job is and how a SLM has to carefully ride the line between working for the producers, the shooting company and the people whose properties we\u2019re filming on. And I think riding that line must become very … frustrating. I think Mike was incredibly good at balancing that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve known Mike going back to Catch Me if You Can<\/i> and, what can you say? He\u2019s just a legend in the business and he\u2019s definitely going out on a high note.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

L-R: Mike Walton, Jason Wolf\/LMGI, Mike Fantasia\/LMGI, Andrea Keener\/LMGI<\/p><\/div>\n

THE LAST HURRAH<\/b><\/p>\n

Mike Fantasia has some 39 credits going back to Spielberg\u2019s Always <\/i>in 1989, and what connects them all is that they are all well-regarded movies that have stood the test of time. It\u2019s an incredibly impressive collection of films and filmmakers.<\/p>\n

In thinking about Killers of the Flower Moon<\/i>, Fantasia is proud to have had it serve as his last cinematic hurrah.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou always want to go out on top and I felt like I had with Top Gun: Maverick<\/i>, but reading this script, knowing that Martin Scorsese was going to be at the helm\u2026 Well, it\u2019s bigger than I could have ever imagined. I feel so lucky to have been a part of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, look, I\u2019ve had the opportunity to work for a lot of great filmmakers and a lot of great studios on a variety of stories, from sci-fi to action to comedies to Westerns and now this. This project and this team are, for me, just \u2026 unrivaled. We drew together as a cohesive unit and they all busted their asses, from the PAs to the office coordinators to the assistants on the ground. They made me look really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Killers of the Flower Moon<\/i> shot for 100 days on 99 different sets in 57 locations and 12 distinct areas of Osage and Tulsa Counties. The film is in theaters now and will be made available to stream on AppleTV+ and other platforms.<\/p>\n

\n

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON LOCATION DEPARTMENT<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

SLM Mike Fantasia\/LMGI
\n<\/span><\/b>KALM Andrea Keener\/LMGI
\n<\/b>KALM Miranda Carnessale\/LMGI
\n<\/b>KALM Teddy Alvarez\/LMGI
\n<\/b>KALM George Alvarezzo\/LMGI
\n<\/b>KALM Michael Betz\/LMGI
\n<\/b>KALM Kirsten Cornay\/LMGI
\n<\/b>KALM Jason Wolf\/LMGI
\n<\/b>KALM Luke Helms\/LMGI
\n<\/b>KALM Cait Murray\/LMGI
\n<\/b>KALM Dylan Brodie\/LMGI
\n<\/b>KALM Scott Kimbrough
\n<\/b>ALM Mike Reft\/LMGI
\n<\/b>ALM Rachel Trombetta
\n<\/span><\/b>ALM Mark Walton<\/b><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SLM Mike Fantasia and team help peel back the layers of time to recount a murderous chapter in Oklahoma history in director Martin Scorsese\u2019s film<\/p>","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":36794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured"},"yoast_head":"\nKillers of the Flower Moon - Location Managers Guild International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/locationmanagers.org\/es\/killers-of-the-flower-moon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Killers of the Flower Moon - 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