Day three brought a new challenge. Horses. I had never tried to work with animals before, and I was seriously nervous about this part of the production, but it turned out to be the most fun I've ever had on a set.
Today I wasn't just the writer. Today I was an actor. The deal I made with Scott when we first discussed this project was that I would write it if I got to write a cool part for myself. I knew I didn't want a big part, but I got to give myself a couple of cool lines and some fun action.
I showed up on the set early to get some time on the horse before they needed me. Michael Flynn was more experienced than the rest of us, but none of the actors would call ourselves a horse expert. I was about as low as you can go on the horse experience rating chart. The last time I was on a horse I was a little kid crying in fear because the horse wanted to go too fast.
Luckily, the owner of the horses gave me a couple of pointers, and I tried to focus on learning how to move with the horse because I thought that would be the key to looking like I knew what I was doing. The thought that scared me most was having people look at the finished film and think I looked like an obvious idiot who had never been on a horse. Even if I was really an idiot who had never been on a horse.
It was a fantastic experience, though. Tye, Paul, and I had some trouble getting the horses to do what we wanted, but my horse, Jade, seemed to respond a little better than the others. Thank you, Jade, for not making me look like a complete idiot.
When we went to shoot the last horseback shots of the day things got really fun. We set up the camera looking into the hills, and wanted a shot where the horses came from behind the camera, flew right by and ran up into the hills. Paul was chasing Tye, and then I was supposed to come just a little ways behind them. I guess the horses could tell we weren't all that serious, though, because take after take the most we could get out of them was a trot and we were running out of daylight. Tye went by the camera in this bouncy, little trot and Paul went right behind them, then Tye's horse started up into the hills and Paul's horse wouldn't even follow, so Paul was shooting off in a totally different direction. I just shook my head and thought, "Oh no. We had no business making a western if we can't get the horses right. We look like the biggest bunch of phony cowboys."
We were probably just being too timid with the horses. I leaned over to Jade and patted her on the neck and said, "Come on, baby, let's run for real." Then when I got my cue I dug in my spurs and whipped the end of the reins back and forth on her neck the way I'd seen the owner do it, and Jade took off running. Of course, being the inexperienced rider I am and being a perpetual klutz, I leaned over too far and when I whipped the end of the reins over her neck, I swung them right up and leather-slapped myself across the face. Nice going, Jim. But when I passed the camera at a run and flew up into the hills, the whole crew started cheering. After that, the other horses got the idea and we finally got a couple of good running shots with all the horses.
On my second run, Jade headed straight for the camera, though. She was set to take it out and trash the whole thing. I yanked the reins to the side and barely got her to shift over, so as we went by I brushed the camera matte box with my leg. I'm just glad Kyle wasn't there to see his camera's near-death experience. He would have had a heart attack.
When we ran out of sun we shot night scenes, and I loved the performances we got from all the actors involved. Charlie Halford is so natural on camera, and Stephanie Christensen got all the subtleties I wanted in an anguished scene. Then Michael Flynn and Tye Nelson filmed a blown-up argument that we see through the window, and it was incredibly powerful. I got chills the first time I walked up to the set and heard Michael and Tye rehearsing the lines I wrote. It was a great experience for a writer to hear them bring my words to life with power and passion.
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