The GunFight

We are heading down to Kanab for the Memorial Day weekend to shoot a gunfight. Parry Lodge has been gracious enough to let us use the Old Barn Playhouse, which we will convert into an old time saloon. The filming of the gunfight will be the capstone to the gunfighter project.

I've worked on this gunfight script for several month and have the short story boarded out. My brother, Brian Riddle will be the director of Photography for this gunfight. I will be playing the proverbial Hero. My wife and local stage actor will play the heroine and of course my oldest daughter who just turned 10 has a part. The Sheriff will be played by our co-producer and team historian Roger Blomquist and our villain will be played by local actor Kyle Allen. Kyle has also helped shoot various interviews and footage from last years western legends in Kanab.

Ahh, Sweet Music

I had a great evening with the Holt family who came into the studio to record some Music for the gunfighter documentary. We recorded several songs which are authentic to the time period of the old west or were written by John Holt and capture the feeling of that timeperiod. The music has a great sound and will add a great deal to the production. I was giddy the whole time.

Otherwise I'm currently sitting with about 14 minutes of rough editing for the gunfighter documentary. This coming Monday afternoon I'll be interviewing history students who have been doing research on the old west gunfighters for this project. That should fill in a bundle of holes I'm currently faced with.

I'm also hoping to get down to Kanab over memorial day weekend to film the final gunfight. I've been working on story boarding the sequences and planning out the shots. I'm getting so excited, and anxious. I'm hoping I'll get it finished on time and it will be the quality I'm shooting for in the time I have left.

Here is a mock up for the cover. I feel it's along the right track that I'd like to pursue, but there will be some changes before the final. I figured I'd post this just to show how some of the visuals were coming along.

working on style and location

I've finished a draft of the final gunfight and have been working through the set and prop requirements to pull it off. With the exception of a few interviews I think we have most of what we need. Otherwise not a lot to say, but we are plugging along.

Finally!

I've finally broken through the writers block that has kept me down. I've just finished the first draft of the final gunfight script. Once the dam broke it was a flood that enabled me to finish the script in about an hours time. It will represent about 10 minutes of the overall project, but is where the whole project culminates.

Now that I've finally gotten this complete, I'm gaining a clear vision of what now needs to be done to complete the project.

I have four short scenes to shoot that introduce each spur of the story and the final gunfight. Additionally I have three major interviews that still need to take place. Plus editing, graphics, sets, costumes, etc, etc, etc...

I've got a lot of work to get done before August.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Even a holiday is a day for work. I'm spending Thanksgiving in Kanab and will be getting some additional B-Roll Footage while I'm here.

An interview with Dr. William Cobb

We wrapped up a great interview this evening with Dr. William Cobb who is a history professor at UVU. (UVU is in Provo Utah, for any who are interested.) Dr. Cobb has written a book about the American Foundation Myth. In his book he discussed points related to Western films and their roll in perpetuating the idea that as Americans we feel we have a destiny. Initially that was Westward expansion. Today it is in discussion as to whether we are to be a beacon\example to the rest of the world or to fight and physically spread our ideals. The bulk of the book looks at Viet Nam and how that war effected the Myth and our peoples belief in it. Dr. Cobb made some interesting points in his book and I encourage anyone interested to give it a read. (Amazon)

I'm really happy with how the interview went. Roger Blomquist, our Associate Producer has a class of historians working on our project and they participated tonight by asking the interview questions while I ran the camera and technical stuff. We had a great time got some fantastic sound bites.