A young boy is transformed by a story from his grandmother’s past in Director Marc Forster’s drama, White Bird.
Forster’s film is a follow-up to Stephen Chbosky’s 2017 feature Wonder, where Julian is struggling to fit in at his new school after being expelled for his treatment of Auggie Pullman. He is visited by his grandmother, Sara, who tells him about her childhood as a young Jewish girl in Nazi-occupied France during World War II and her attempts to escape.
On October 19 after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Forster discussed the making of White Bird during a Q&A moderated by Director Phillip Noyce (Fast Charlie). He also discussed the film with Director Michael Pressman (Frankie and Johnny Are Married) following the New York screening on October 20.
During the Los Angeles conversation, Forster spoke how he chose his DP, Matthias Koenigswieser.
“After World War Z, I wanted to work with a young DP. And at that point in my career, I sort of understood how things need to be lit and how I wanted things to look. And I felt everything became just so technical: that’s how I want the scenes to look, that’s how I want the lights to be. I felt if I have a young DP who purely comes from the gut and instinctual and is not just technical and brings a certain poetry to it, that’s sort of what I was looking for. When I met Matthias, he’s also Austrian so we spoke the same language, but he was so enthusiastic and lovely. So, we did a couple films together and he comes from very much from the gut you know.”
He also elaborated on how that played into his preproduction process.
“We did a couple of floorplans and diagrams. Especially for the barn. The interior of the barn is a set which we built and how we’re thinking it be lit and feels natural. I usually only storyboard for action. So, for the dramatic scenes we did a couple diagrams and that’s it. Not too extensive.”
Forster’s other directorial credits include the Forster’s other directorial credits include the feature films A Man Called Otto, Christopher Robin, World War Z, Quantum of Solace, The Kite Runner, Stranger Than Fiction, Monster’s Ball and episodes of the series Hand of God. He was nominated for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures for his 2004 feature, Finding Neverland. Forster has been a DGA member since 2002.