Beasts of the Southern Wild Production Context

• All non-professional actors local to South Louisiana - no star persona - believability, verisimilitude
• Scavenged for parts for props from area, e.g. Wink's house made out of a submerged bus - goes with theme and setting of film
• Used practical effects for everything except final scene with Aurochs - got a bunch of university students to make it
• All location shooting, no studios - makes it more realistic and believable
• A lot of these techniques used by Italian Neo-Realism
• Cut out multiple scenes, including:
• Scenes where character's talk about Hushpuppy's mother - where she it etc - as they felt that the mystery was more powerful
• Scenes showing the relationship between Wink and his friends (Jean Baptiste, Juarez etc.), Hushpuppy and the girl group - they decided that it took away the focus from Wink and Hushpuppy's relationship
• Scenes showing characters preparing to leave the Bathtub - adds ambiguity to the ending (ie where are they walking to?), adds to spectatorship