[July 11, 2011] - The Help producer Brunson Green's a Southerner - he's from Jackson, Mississippi - and so he was very familiar with not only the area of the country but the people who call the South home. That personal knowledge came into play when it came to looking for the right location to film The Help. Kathryn Stockett's bestselling novel is the story of college graduate who returns to her hometown and sets to work penning a book focusing on the lives of the maids who work in the homes of her friends and neighbors. Set in the 1960s, The Help is a moving tale of prejudice and ignorance, as well as loyalty, honor, and friendship, and producer Green and The Help filmmaking team were dedicated to bringing the story to life as authentically as possible.
While filming was taking place in Greenwood, Mississippi, DreamWorks invited a small group of online journalists to the set for a chance to look behind the scenes at the making of the dramatic film. Stepping onto the set was like stepping back in time, and when the extras tried to stay cool in an air-conditioned tent next to where our interviews were being conducted, it was easy to imagine these women had been lifted straight out of the early 1960s.
Green and director Tate Taylor chose the perfect town and the perfect neighborhood in which to shoot The Help, and between scenes he talked about finding just the right setting for the film and how important actually being in the South was in the making of The Help.
Producer Brunson Green Interview:
Producer Chris Columbus was saying you and Tate Taylor caught all the details.
Brunson Green: "Yeah, we grew up in this world. I mean, obviously it's 20 years difference, but things that have changed and haven't changed."
What's it like to be back here?
Brunson Green: "Tate and I came and scouted in December, and we kind of knew it was going to be somewhere in Mississippi. Greenwood is the perfect place because Jackson is a great town but it's too gentrified. A house like this was so much easier [to use] because things haven't changed since the '60s. This is kind of perfect for us, location-wise. It's still got the Southerner's charm but just without everybody's mothers trying to hang out on the set. It's hard to say no to people."
Has your family been coming and visiting once in a while?
Brunson Green: "Totally. My mom came three weeks ago and brought my niece, and her best friend is Tate's aunt. If you invite [everyone], you'll have 50 extra people coming to lunch every day. But I grew up in this world too, so it's being fun being bounced back here."
Since you did grow up in this world, did you find you or your friends were protective of how the area is portrayed?
Brunson Green: "Sure. Well, my mother was in the Junior League and she said this is it, exactly. But she didn't get in the Junior League her first year because she was from Tupelo and didn't go to Ole Miss. But she's a great woman and made a lot of friends, and so she got into Junior League in a couple of years. A lot of her friends that have been her friends for years are protective of this, but also it's just a vehicle for a fine story and not really true. As far as civil rights and stuff, sure. So it's like you're getting a little bit of medicine with a lot of sweets. It's a good mix of that."
Do you think it will play well to audiences who aren't at all familiar with this area of the country?
Brunson Green: "Oh yeah. They're selling 25,000 copies of the book a day worldwide, so there seems to be a commonality of having a caretaker, whoever it may be - whether it's a housekeeper or a grandma. People read the book, from the production companies, to our actors over the past nine months, and everyone has a story about who their Aibileen was. It's crazy seeing grown men producers crying, talking about their 'Meme' or whatever. Everybody's got somebody like that, so I think it's very relatable. It will be interesting to see what the men's reactions are."
How do you balance being protective of the book and deciding what you have to change?
Brunson Green: "Well, it's been great that Tate has really gone over with Kathryn [Stockett] all the changes. She's a storyteller too, so she works with it. A lot of times the idea that we need to compress the story, because it is 400 pages down to 125, she loved those ideas. She's like, 'I wish I would have thought of those myself.' So, she's been great. What's good is that some of those changes entail some changes in the characters' actions, and so when they weren't true to what she felt they were, then we would make an adjustment. It made it a much better movie, having her so involved in it. She's in and out of town all the time, watching dailies."
What were some of the hardest decisions you had to make?
Brunson Green: "Well, one of the hardest things about making the movie was jumping into the story. She had the luxury of having 150 pages where you really get to know these characters, and it was really difficult to figure out, 'Okay, who's going to be the person talking to the audience throughout the whole movie?' In the book you've got Minny, Aibileen and Skeeter, and it all goes through Skeeter. So we thought, 'Where's the heart of the movie? Where's it coming from?,' and that's Aibileen. And so that's why the voice-over and the voice you hear is hers. But that's tough, too, because you want to know what Skeeter's thinking. But I think he's also bumped up Constantine and Charlotte, he's really bumped up those relationships in the movie so it gives that balance of where [Skeeter] comes from, what it's like to be a daughter who feels like she's not [connecting] with her mother - all that stuff. It kind of accomplishes the same thing that Skeeter's voice-over did."
And you're literally taking pieces from other people's house to create the right look for this house in the film?
Brunson Green: "Oh yeah, totally. There's this amazing 360 tower cam which is used when you see everything in the movie go wide. It's a 17 foot vertical lift so we have a shot where the guy's on the steadicam and he turns it around and you see the entire house in one shot. And what you see is stuff that looks fantastic, but was [borrowed] from someone else's house. Literally, things were the perfect size, and that's what's so great about Rena [DeAngelo] our set dresser is that she knows everybody in town. She's been in every home, she's been doing the whole shuffle of items."
Are the extras in authentic dresses? The dresses look to be in perfect condition.
Brunson Green: "A lot of them are. Sharen Davis, she did Dreamgirls and she's phenomenal. Basically she went out and bought on eBay every, whether she needed it or not, every dress of that age during a three week period. She's taken some of those dresses, like especially in the South, like Jolene in the benefit ball is my mother's best friend's bridesmaid's dress from another woman who is an extra in the movie. It's her bridesmaid's dress, and it looks like a princess dress. Now people wouldn't be caught dead in it, but it looks great for that period. But some of the other dresses, they get moldy. She's taken those designs and done them with new fabrics. A lot of the main characters' dresses are custom-made. But a lot of the extras are in authentic dresses."
Getting back to the author, did you consult her on the casting of the film? Was she in on any of it?
Brunson Green: "She is an avid reader, she's not an avid moviegoer. Like, Sissy Spacek she knows because she adores her. But a lot of the others...she just doesn't watch a lot of movies so she didn't know. She's like, 'Whatever. I trust you.' And I love the casting process; I started in casting."
What was the casting process like?
Brunson Green: "What we did was Emma Stone was one of the first actresses that Tate met with, and I remember he came back after meeting her and said, 'Look at her.' We said, 'Well, do you want to look at other actresses? This is the first actress you've met. Is it going to be like that with every actress?' But it really was, she has that kind of [vibe]. I liken Skeeter to someone like a young Joan Cusack, and Emma's obviously gorgeous - she's a beautiful woman - but she has that vulnerability to her, kind of like a Sandra Bullock. She's really amazing. The rest of the actresses we read in New York or LA. There were probably 400 going for all the roles."
"It's amazing how when you have an actress come in, someone who connects with that role - they get it - and it's just night and day from everybody else. And that's what happened with Chris Lowell. We'd never seen him before; he had his own television series before, but I didn't know who he was. And he just nailed it. He felt like Stuart, and we still saw other guys after him, but we knew it was him."
And how about Bryce Dallas Howard?
Brunson Green: "With Hilly it's a balance of you can't be just a villain, she can't be just flat-out villainous because that's just boring. There has to be some progression. The great thing about the character is that she thinks she's doing the right thing, and Bryce really got that. She's not overdoing it."
What's been the biggest challenge?
Brunson Green: "The heat. When I grew up we were in the heat all the time, but it was always like 98 degrees. Now it's 100, 102. It's noticeably hotter, and this year it's hotter than usual. We're pretty well-prepared, but it's tough."
Are you using any local talent?
Brunson Green: "Besides the extras? We cast some local actors, but not tons."
What's been the best part of working on a big studio production like this?
Brunson Green: "What's been really cool is that, this is our first studio film, and what's been great is that in the indie world there's always compromise. And so what is in your mind when you're writing it and then when you're making it, you always have taper things down. And there hasn't been a single scene that we shot that wasn't exactly what we had in our minds. And we've been so lucky, for real, to create something like this."
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More from the set of The Help:
Emma Stone ('Skeeter') | Viola Davis ('Aibileen') | Octavia Spencer ('Minny') | Writer/Director Tate Taylor | Producer Chris Columbus
