Fruitvale Station facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Fruitvale Station
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ryan Coogler
Produced by	Nina Yang Bongiovi Forest Whitaker
Written by	Ryan Coogler
Starring	Michael B. Jordan Melonie Diaz Kevin Durand Chad Michael Murray Ahna O'Reilly Octavia Spencer
Music by	Ludwig Göransson
Cinematography	Rachel Morrison
Editing by	Claudia Castello Michael P. Shawver
Studio	Significant Productions
Distributed by	The Weinstein Company
Release date(s)	January 19, 2013 (2013-01-19) (Sundance) July 12, 2013 (2013-07-12) (United States)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$900,000
Money made	$17.4 million

Fruitvale Station is a 2013 American biographical drama film written and directed by Ryan Coogler. It is Coogler's feature directorial debut and is based on the events leading to the death of Oscar Grant, a young man killed in 2009 by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale district station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in Oakland.

The film stars Michael B. Jordan as Grant, with Kevin Durand and Chad Michael Murray playing the two BART police officers involved in Grant's death, although their names were changed for the film. Melonie Diaz, Ahna O'Reilly and Octavia Spencer also star.

Fruitvale Station debuted under its original title, Fruitvale, at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. dramatic film. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the award for Best First Film. It was released in theaters on July 12, 2013.

Cast

Production

Development

Ryan Coogler was a graduate student at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts when Grant was shot on January 1, 2009. Coogler expressed his desire to make a film about Grant's last day: "I wanted the audience to get to know this guy, to get attached, so that when the situation that happens to him happens, it's not just like you read it in the paper, you know what I mean? When you know somebody as a human being, you know that life means something." Coogler met the Grant family's attorney, John Burris, through a mutual friend, and also met with and worked with Grant's family.

In January 2011, Forest Whitaker's production company was looking for new young filmmakers to mentor. Coogler met Head of Production Nina Yang Bongiovi and showed her his projects. He soon had a meeting with Whitaker, who supported Fruitvale. Coogler met with advisers of Sundance Screenwriters Lab and developed the script with the help of creative advisors Tyger Williams, Jessie Nelson and Zach Sklar. The film received funding from the Feature Film Program (FFP) and the San Francisco Film Society.

Coogler had Michael B. Jordan in mind to play Grant before writing the script. In April 2012, Jordan and Octavia Spencer joined the cast. Spencer also received a co-executive producer credit as she directly participated in funding the film and contacted investors when a deal was lost during the filming. Notable investors included Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, a bestselling novel adapted as a successful film, for which Spencer won an Oscar. In April 2012, Hannah Beachler signed on as the film's production designer.

Filming

Fruitvale Station was shot in Oakland, California, for 20 days in July 2012. Scenes were shot at and around the Bay Area Rapid Transit platform where Grant was killed. BART agreed to let the crew film at Fruitvale station for three four-hour nights. Most of the platform scenes were shot over the course of two nights (with another night dedicated to the sequences on the train that led up to the police confrontation). San Quentin State Prison served as a filming location for a flashback scene with prisoners featured as extras. The film was shot in Super 16 mm format using Arriflex 416 cameras and Zeiss Ultra 16 lenses.

The film includes actual amateur footage of the shooting, which Coogler initially did not want to use:

I didn't want any real footage in the film. But you sometimes have to take a step back. Being from the Bay Area, I knew that footage like the back of my hand, but more people from around the world had no idea about this story. It made sense for them to see that footage and see what happened to Oscar, and I think it was a responsibility that we had to put that out there.

Soundtrack

Fruitvale Station's musical score is by Coogler's fellow USC graduate Ludwig Göransson, who said of the scoring process:

Ryan and I talked a lot about how sound design was going to have a huge role in the movie and very early on I got sent the actual sound recordings of the BART train. I manipulated the train sound and made it almost feel like a dark ambient synth sound and I used it almost throughout the whole BART platform scene. The other element in the score is lots of layered and manipulated guitars sounding almost like haunting pads.

Coogler added:

One thing that we always wanted to be conscious of with the score was to make sure that it always felt organic. A lot of the film would play without score, so Ludwig made sure that whenever we brought score in came out of sounds in the environment.

A soundtrack album, Fruitvale Station: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, was released digitally on September 24, 2013, and on CD on October 15, 2013, through Lakeshore Records.

Release

Fruitvale Station premiered on January 19, 2013, at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was listed as Fruitvale before undergoing a title change. After premiering at Sundance, it was at the center of a distribution bidding war. The Weinstein Company acquired the film rights for about $2 million. In May 2013, Fruitvale Station appeared in the Un Certain Regard, an award section recognizing unique and innovative films, at the 66th Cannes Film Festival and won the award for Best First Film.

The Oakland premiere was held as a private screening at Grand Lake Theater on June 20, 2013. The film opened in select theaters on July 12.

Box office

The film grossed an estimated $127,445 on its first day and ended its first weekend of limited release with $377,285 from seven theaters for a $53,898 per-theater-average. It is the third-highest opening of the year for a film in limited release (behind Spring Breakers and The Place Beyond the Pines) and one of the best openings for a Sundance festival top prize winner. A week after its debut, Fruitvale Station expanded to 35 theaters and garnered $742,272 for a $21,832 per-screen average. The film opened nationwide on July 26 in more than 1,000 locations. It ranked #10 at the box office, earning $4.59 million. The film has grossed $16,101,339 in the United States and $1,284,491 elsewhere, for a worldwide total of $17,385,830.

Accolades

Home media

Fruitvale Station was made available in Digital HD via Anchor Bay on December 31, 2013. DVD and Blu-ray combo packs were released on January 14, 2014.

See also

In Spanish: Fruitvale Station (película) para niños