‘Fargo’ Season 4: Creating a Digital Kodachrome Look for the ’50s Gangster Saga

For “Fargo” Season 4, showrunner Noah Hawley (who directed the first two episodes) came up with his most ambitious idea yet for the FX anthology series: a prequel about the origins of the gangster families that ran Kansas City in the 1950s, pitting Italians against Blacks, which explains the formation of the Midwest crime syndicate in the current timeline.

And, for the crucial visual look, Emmy-winning cinematographer Dana Gonzales (who directed four episodes) created a colorful Kodachrome look for the period aesthetic.“I talked about the look for a year with Noah,” Gonzales said.

“We briefly discussed shooting it black-and-white.

To me, there was something interesting about mug shots and photography at that time because criminals used to ham it up.

That’s how the mugshots derived [from a monochrome look in Season 4] — there’s a pride there.

But it seemed right to do Kodachrome as the main narrative look since this was the ’50s.

It informed

Read full article