Sinners is a rare experience. A genre-defying genre film that focuses on history with a fantastical element of vampires to elevate the story. There’s a reason why it was nominated for 16 Oscars, as every actor and craft department worked closely together to bring their personal experiences to writer-director Ryan Coogler’s vision.
From finding the perfect actors with casting director Francine Maisler to piecing together the finished product with editor Michael Shawver, every department needed to mesh together to create the film. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, production designer Hannah Beachler, costume designer Ruth E. Carter and composer Ludwig Göransson also gave their expertise as Coogler’s “filmmaking family.”
It all starts with the script, which every department received even before it was fully finished. “Being part of what we call our filmmaking family with Ryan’s movies, there’s a level of trust that we built with Ryan,” says Shawver. “As soon as Ryan had a script that he felt good about, he sent it to all the department heads.”
Michael B. Jordan in ‘Sinners’
Warner Bros.
Since this film was personal for Coogler, who wrote the script with his Uncle James in mind, it was important for everyone to bring in their own personal experiences to help with their work. “He thinks of his Uncle James, I think of my Aunt Ramona and the women in my life that changed me, that nurtured me, that brought me to where I am,” says Carter. “You can’t help but want to bring those southern roots, the soil, the feeling, the smells, the heat… It’s in your heart, it lives in your mind, it lives in your soul.”
As an executive producer, Göransson had the unique experience of spending all of his time on set, which is not usual for a composer. Through that experience, he felt just how important the score would be for the film. “I started seeing how the movie is coming together with edits, and I realized that there is actually going to be a substantial amount of score in this film,” he says. “It was through living that experience of being on set with everyone, with the whole crew, working very closely with every department and all the actors. It made me understand where I fit in this, how I can find my own language within this movie, which essentially became a very personal story because I am a guitar player too.”
Miles Caton in ‘Sinners’
Warner Bros
Whereas Carter thinks of her Aunt Ramona while designing her costumes, Göransson brought his experience learning guitar with his dad. “My dad bought his first blues record in 1964, and that changed his life into becoming a blues man,” he says. “He literally started playing guitar and he became a guitar teacher, and he taught me growing up. To me, blues is my dad’s guitar, that’s what my dad is doing. So, when I was eight years old, I heard Metallica for the first time, and thought, okay, well, I’m going to play metal music and heavy metal. Not realizing at the time that without blues, there wouldn’t be any metal, and that’s what the score is about.”
Of course, music is a huge aspect of the film, which is was reflected in Maisler’s first task as casting director. “Ryan called me and told me he was working on a very personal film,” says Maisler. “The first part of the puzzle was that we needed to find this young man who was able to sing and play the blues, as if it was from another time in another world.”
Though there would be no point in casting a great young musician without the stage of the juke joint, which Beachler based off an abandoned sawmill. “Ryan and I have a long conversation about whether it should be a cotton gin or a sawmill,” she says. “After all the research, a sawmill would be appropriate because they kind of went out of existence in Mississippi around the mid-’20s, so it would’ve been long abandoned by that point… What would happen to it over 20 years it had sat abandoned? What if they just got up, walked away and left all the stuff that’s too heavy to take? And then what kind of dilapidation happens in that period of time to certain materials?”
Beachler’s approach of realism was essential for Arkapaw, who approaches the cinematography with “stylized naturalism” in mind. “Hannah and Ruth are so talented and they do so much homework and research to make those worlds feel real and textured and heavy,” she says. “So, I want to make sure I do justice to that when we’re building out the world and that those spaces are lit beautifully and that the characters have density in their skin tones and that the lighting is also a character.”
Warner Bros.
With lighting and other aesthetics in mind for the design, Beachler had to consider how Arkapaw would film in the space. “We put a second level up, and it turned out really lovely to have shots looking down and allowing Autumn to move the crane arm throughout the space and go up to the second floor and through the rafters,” she says. Everything was considered, all the way down to the floors they dance on. “I really wanted that floor to move and bounce when they’re stomping and dancing on it. We would put dust underneath it, so when they did that, it would splash up a little bit of this dust and look like a romping, good time.”
“Working with a full set, I love ceilings,” says Arkapaw. “[Beachler] knows that because I like that the actors have a full space. Then I’ll adjust lighting accordingly so that when they walk on set, there’s not a lot of stuff on the ground… My gaffer and I like to light from the exterior, and we had some jem balls within the juke joint that we would adjust, but the jem ball felt like a tool that gave off a really beautiful source of light that felt of the ’30s and was really pretty on the skin.”
All of this was essential for one of the most iconic scenes of the film, the surreal “I Lied to You” montage, which started as just one italicized paragraph in the script. “Ryan is a brave filmmaker, and he puts stuff like that in the script because he believes in it,” says Arkapaw. “He believes it’s important and it will ultimately be effective, and that the team that he chooses to stand alongside him will execute it beautifully and it will ultimately mean something… There are always these little beats where you know that they’re these big imaginative sequences that are going to be really fun to shoot and difficult, but they open your mind up when you read them.”
Hailee Steinfeld in ‘Sinners’
Warner Bros. / Courtesy Everett Collection
“As a collective, we know Ryan’s going to throw things our way that we’ve never thought of before,” says Shawver.
“Everyone who reads that [paragraph] has a different explanation for it,” says Arkapaw. “For me, it was very dreamlike and surreal, but it was also his way of passionately explaining how the impact of blues music felt.”
“It was a very special experience reading that script because I’ve been on stage as a musician several times and had that experience,” says Göransson. “Where you close your eyes and time and space disappears, and you feel like you’re transported somewhere else. It’s an intense experience, but I never read that on paper like that… Everything was spelled out so beautifully. Ryan’s not a musician, but it was written in a way like he actually had that experience several times.”
Göransson took all of this to heart when writing “I Lied to You” with musician Raphael Saadiq. “I knew we needed an artist that could write timeless music,” he says. “Someone that was a great songwriter, but also a great instrumentalist that could play anything. [Raphael] came to my studio and it was immediately magic being created. He sat down in front of my studio microphone and just started singing.”
While Saadiq didn’t get the script beforehand, Göransson and Coogler were both amazed with how he performed. “I sent the song to Ryan when we were done with it, and Ryan called me back immediately and kind of freaked out,” says Göransson. “It was like, he hasn’t read the script, so how does he know that Sammy is projecting his voice to Remmick saying, somebody, please take me in your arms tonight.”
The song itself was performed by Miles Caton, who Maisler said was undeniable in his performance. “Luckily, Miles’ tape showed up in our email and it was undeniable that he had something special,” she says. “He’s just so beautiful, so authentic.”
Costumes were also important for the montage, as the dancers introduced span across time and culture. “It was beautiful thing for a costume designer,” says Carter. “I got to retrace history, and I also got to be creatively surreal. Going through generations, genres, time periods… I used Bootsy Collins as my inspiration, I had a west African dancer… all kinds of great stuff in there that I felt poured out my story as well as a costume designer.”
