“King Ivory” cinematographer Will Stone sheds light on John Swab’s fentanyl crime drama

“It was a very important script for him,” says cameraman Will Stone about screenwriter and director John Swab and his latest project, King Ivorywhich premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

Swab was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a recovering drug addict. His feature film Body broker (2021), he drew on firsthand accounts of his time in drug rehabilitation centers to provide a visually haunting narrative about con artists who profit from keeping people in recovery. King Ivorywith Ben Foster (Hell or high water), Melissa, Leo (The Fighter) and Michael Mando (breaking Bad), continues the director's cinematic war on drugs by shedding a light on the fentanyl drug trade and its impact on society.

“It's a very personal story for him,” admits Stone, who has worked with Swab on four films. “Some of the dark things that happen in this film are things he experienced himself. And to John's credit, he can tell his story and try to raise awareness.”

When shooting the powerful and raw images, Stone wanted them to “feel real and naturalistic,” and the composition, framing and lighting were reminiscent of documentary films. Below, the cinematographer explains how he created this haunting imagery and how Tulsa, the film's location, influenced decision-making.

How did you and Swab prepare for the film?

John and I have a really good shorthand. We see things very similarly and all we need on set to know if something is working or not is a bit of eye contact or a look. With King Ivory, We made a little cheat sheet for our general approach to the film. It was mainly about how we deal with movement, color, lighting and angles. When do we show contrast or similarities and differences in the characters? Since the story follows five or six different storylines, it was important that they all have some kind of consistency or create contrast where necessary.

How did you want to design the images of these storylines?

Our biggest concern was that it felt raw, like true documentary style. We didn't want the audience to experience something before our characters experience it, so we were more about inserting ourselves into the characters' lives and experiencing things with them for the first time. So we tried to be more reactive with the camera rather than proactive. Then it was about how familiar we were with each character, and each character has a completely different path in life. And I think we wanted to be as true to that person and their path as possible.

King Ivory was filmed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is a pretty interesting place. How did you react to the city?

I grew up two and a half hours from Tulsa, Missouri, so I'm from a similar area. But Tulsa is a little different place. There's a big dichotomy of wealth there. It's like there's old oil money there, and some of the biggest estates and houses in those neighborhoods are really nice. And then when you go to a certain part of town, it's almost like a third world country. It can be pretty bad.

Did anything unexpected happen while filming in Tulsa?

Because John knew the city well enough, he thought we could probably get some footage of people actually doing something. To make it a very real part of the story. So we took a camera and went to a gas station a block from where we were shooting. And there were probably five or six people in the parking lot, shooting needles and smoking meth. I think people don't realize how much that happens and where it happens and that it's literally all around them. And that's why we wanted to show that and relate to Tulsa.

That's intense. Since you're doing almost guerrilla shooting at times, what kind of crew did you and John want to surround yourselves with?

We were lucky to have a good crew. We had people who were willing to give it their all because this was not an easy shoot. It was going to be tough and it was summer so it was super hot. There was a lot of indoor shooting without air conditioning, which can be brutal and difficult. I'm really proud of the people we worked with for getting through that.

One of those people was production designer Miles Rogoish. How was your collaboration with him?

Miles is great and he's a good friend of John's. The art department deserves a lot of credit because they spent countless nights transforming certain locations. One day it was a farmhouse and the next it was a drug prep room. They did such an excellent job.

Did you have a general approach to lighting or was it more tailored to the location?

We try to recreate natural light or enhance what was there in a certain area. I don't know the exact number of locations, but it was in the '50s, close to 60. We only shot for 23 or 24 days, which means we do a company move every day, or three on some days. So it was very much about what we could use on location. What's our starting point? And then the documentary style really helped us. So I just tried to naturally recreate what you find in those environments. If it's fluorescent light, we enhance that or bring in some negative film to create some contrast, and so on.

There's a scene in a Mexican farmhouse at the very beginning of the story that sets a different tone. How did you handle the lighting to create an atmospheric setting?

We found this summer house in Tulsa. It's very small and has a tiny window. So we had a beam of sunlight shine through the window and then used skip bounces to light people's faces and make it look like the sun was reflecting off the floor inside. We wanted to make it as natural as possible and allow the actors to walk in and out of the light. We didn't want the lighting to be perfect.

How did you want to approach the lighting of the crucial shootout scene?

That was a pretty intense scene. We're in a motel with a big open courtyard. We decided to shoot over two days and we knew there would be harsh light coming in from all sorts of angles. That would be hard to balance because we had to shoot in a certain order for the stunts. So we covered the entire courtyard with silk and had this nice soft light the whole time.

Did you have to spend any resources to improve the yard lighting?

When we were scouting the courtyard, I knew we needed about 20 sheets to cover it, but I didn't want to ask Sam Baker, our lighting guy, because I didn't think we had the people or the sheets to do it. But he came over and said, “Should I cover this with sheets?” And I said, “Do you think you can?” He said he'd figure it out, and they ended up getting sheets from all over town and bringing some in from Oklahoma City overnight to do it. That made the scene a lot better.

It's incredible how often a gaffer or lighting technician can save a scene by MacGyver-style performing the nearly impossible.

Sam and his guys worked really hard to make that happen because we didn't necessarily have the resources. Everyone was a real team player, bringing their own ideas to the table and making sure we stayed true to what felt natural and real. When you pull something off like that, it really does run a lot more smoothly.

How do you react to working on a project that deals with the drug problem and what do you hope the audience will take away from it?

It was pretty hard because, of course, you hear a lot of stories about it. But then to be there and actually see it is a whole different thing. And then in Los Angeles, where I live, I feel like it's getting worse. Even in my hometown in Missouri, you see people who are not doing well. And that's really sad. Drugs like fentanyl are so ingrained in our society that it's almost hard to break away from it. But I hope that this film is, I wouldn't say a wake-up call, but I hope that it hits people hard and makes them realize that it can happen to anyone they know who uses drugs and that they need help.

King Ivory made its debut at the Venice Film Festival.