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Lady Bird (2017)
Lady Bird is a 2017 American coming-of-age comedy drama film written and directed by Greta Gerwig in her solo directorial debut, starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Lois Smith. Set in Sacramento, California during the early 2000s, it focuses on a high school senior who has a turbulent relationship with her mother.
Directed by Greta Gerwig · Shot by Sam Levy · Cut by Nick Houy · Music by Jon Brion · 93 min
How it was made
- Greta Gerwig's screenplay ran over 350 pages at one point under the working title Mothers and Daughters before being cut down.
- To prepare cast and crew, Gerwig shared her own high-school yearbooks, photos and journals, gave them passages by Joan Didion, and took them on a tour of her hometown, telling cinematographer Sam Levy she wanted the film to feel “like a memory.”
- Budget constraints forced a switch from Gerwig's preferred Super 16 film to the Arri Alexa Mini digital camera; the filmmakers added digital noise in post-production to recreate the look of a photocopied photograph.
- Saoirse Ronan dyed her hair red and wore no makeup to cover her acne for the role.
- Gerwig arrived on set an hour before the rest of the cast and crew each day, a technique borrowed from filmmaker Rebecca Miller, and banned mobile phones on set, a policy taken from her partner Noah Baumbach.
Behind the scenes
Elsewhere
More by Greta Gerwig
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