We had a big discussion last night about why the hell we do this filmmaking thing. How hard it is. Frustrating. Discouraging. Costly. High Pressure. Long hours. No stability. Few returns. Insane-really! Of course that turned into how much we love it...Yes, it's all of those things-but it's the stories! Okay, the stories we are making are one thing...But it's the behind the scenes stories that are the life-blood of the filmmaker. As we sit in the edit room, watching the film unspool, we are reminded of "the making of" stories and we laugh! Our winter shoot was riddled with stories, the big one being the massive snowfall that we woke to on Day 1, creating a 3 hour trip up the mountain (which should have been a 20 minute drive). Every, I mean EVERY truck got stuck (at least once)! There's the story of the cowboy extras who's horse trailer slid precariously into the ditch. But "Coyote" (his real full name) simply offloaded the horses and they rode them bareback up the snow covered mountain because they didn't want to be late for their call time! Coyote and gang were the first ones on set! Those cowboys provided more than a few entertaining stories. They were REAL cowboys, who live on the range...literally! The only way to communicate with them was by leaving notes on the gate of their ranch. They did carry cell-phones, but they rarely worked and when they did, our cowboys would ask if we could call them back they were right in the middle of birthing a calf. It's difficult to get cowboys to work on a film during calving season-a lesson learned. We eventually did make it up to the top of the mountain and the snow that had cursed our journey blessed the film. Gobs of snow hung from every branch. Mist fell down over the lake and made it all look magical! We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful, harsh, idyllic setting for our scenes. Coyboys and Angels - Don't make a film without them.
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