A Western

THE "A WESTERN" SUCCESSES Production successes: Well, we shot a 50 minute movie in two days, so it was far from being a failure. Other than a little wind the weather was very cooperative. We had enough costumes for everyone and could have handled more if we would have needed. We were able to make each character distinguishable from the next. The pistols with powdered blanks worked perfect. Luke Newsam was our animal coordinator and was a stud. (pun intended) He's a good friend I've known for over 10 years and everyone thought he was cool shit, which he is. He showed up both days with 3 horses. He said he wanted to bring more, but everyone was out of town for some horse/cow show, so without help 3 was all he could handle. He did everything we asked with absolutely no attitude and had 0 complaints. He even went so far as during his down time of giving rides. He even picked up all of the horse shit himself. The chickens were great, though there was a hole in the coupe I didn't see right away and one of them got out. Eric, Justin's friend, caught him easily and covered the hole up. One even laid an egg, which I cracked Monday morning. And the most important thing is everyone who participated said they had a great time. In fact, Josh's father supposedly said it made his decade. Acting successes: Josh's brother Garret can seriously act. It was his first time acting and you wouldn't have thought so if you'd seen him. I was sure he'd at least been in a couplfe of school plays before. It may not show so much in the actual move, because he had very little preperation and only a few takes. But under the pressure he was very cool. There was this scene, which is at the begining of the movie, where he is standing in front of the mirror and then turns to the doorway and heads out to talk to Mr. Merriwhether, well, without any direction from Jim, he took this sweet deep breath and then started walking. It was perfect, and tells me he has half an idea of what he's doing. With some study he might be good. And it doesn't hurt that he has a good look. Tall and slender. Hopefully he will want to continue working with us. Snook was a total hero. With so many people bailing at the last minute he jumped into the largest role of the movie. His character, the banker, has the most screen time and the longest dialogue of them all. He was very nervous and a bit unconfident at first, but by the end I think he got the hang of it and you could tell he was lovin it. Walter, who was a bit under the weather, hung in there like the champ he is and nailed everything. During the first gunfight scene we had a fairly big crowd of tourists. They were all over because of the nice holiday weekend. Well anyways, at the end of the scene Josh finished with his sweet ass gun tricks and we literally received applause. It got my heart pumpin and I might even have blushed. Brian and Paul, Josh's uncle and his friend, were extremely nervous starting their scene. I guess Paul hands were actually shaking, though he claimed to be cold. Well, it was about their fourth take that we got a good enough take and were ready to move on, but I could see that each take they were getting better. So after a little conference, Jim and I agreed to do one more and they completely nailed it. Steve was another saviour. He was just a worker at 1880 town stepped in like a veteran and filled in as the bartender. Sean Gunderson, a Valley Springs alumnist, played the role of Ronnie and may have hit his character's emotion better than anyone. And was the lucky one to be the only one who's character got bloodied.Finke, well, what can you say? He knows what he's doing. Especialy when it comes to stealing the show.