Montana is on Fire

I woke up on Friday morning and peaked out the blinds of my Aunt's basement guest bedroom in Missoula with hopes of seeing all the way up Pattee Canyon to the east. The sun struggled to punch through the dense smoke that settled in like fog over Seattle's Elliott Bay. In my bedroom at home, in West Seattle, on foggy days, I can hear the fog horn of the passing ferries calling out to other boat traffic. It is kind of a soothing low, guttural sound that prompts me to hit the snooze button. I bet I could only see about three quarters of a mile of the Pattee Canyon. Not good for air quality and wildlife and human life in Montana but what was really going on in my head was the scare that it will impact our shooting days.

Many times on shoots, I've used smoke (fake smoke) to bring atmosphere to a set. You can actually light up the smoke to create shafts of light or to make a bar really feel like a smokey bar without the nastiness of cigarette smoke. The effect is great and really looks cool. I just can't imagine, though, the look of smoke clinging to the hills around Helmville while we shoot several scenes for the film. The forest fire smoke would just look wrong.



There are several substantial fires burning in the vicinity of our locations. We are nearly boxed in by fires in Helmville and in Pendroy, the big fires burning in the Bob Marshall Wilderness are blowing smoke right at us. We may be jumping on the task of finding a few new locations in the coming days. We'll have to just get back to Montana and evaluate how it all feels.

Let's just hope they get rain and very little wind in the coming days out there. Let's also hope the fire danger subsides enough to take all the homes out of danger.

I'll be watching the National Incident Information Center's Website seeing what is happening as well as the National Interagency Fire Center website for up to date info. Montana has a good fire website too.



I have to admit, the idea of fire in the forrest has always seemed like a good thing to me. Biologically, it cleans out the understory and allows new growth and fertilizes existing or surviving growth. There are many species of plants and trees that depend on fire to open seed pods and pine cones to jump start germination. The fire can be a good thing. Even after the fires back in 1988 in Yellowstone, the immediate results were horrific, but the out come is some amazing new growth and life.

Obviously, fire comes at a price and the wildlife and people living in those wooded areas take the beating. Hopefully, they all dodge the fires this year.

And the photos above...they are shots of smoke. That isn't a big bank of clouds rolling through. It is smoke. The last shot is smoke coming out of the mountains and pouring out into the plains near Augusta. When the sun shines through the smoke, it creates this amazing light that is warm and romantic like a sepia toned photograph.

James LeGros signs on to Dry Rain!

I'm excited to say that James LeGros has signed on to play the part of Stil. We got the word this weekend that he's on board for the project. James brings a huge amount of experience and talent to the film along with a collaborative spirt. I'm looking forward to working with him.

With schedules aligned and plans in concrete, we are now slated to start shooting on the 14th of August and run through the 18th.

I slept with the bobcat, twice

After a long day of driving and scouting locations and as Pete put the boys to bed, I went to sack out for the night in the basement guest bedroom of the Fromm house. I could hardly wait to go to sleep. Just as I was about to crawl into the covers, I saw it for the first time. There, hanging on the wall in the guest bedroom bordered by 60's wood paneling, was the legendary Bobcat. Here was the creature that confronted Pete and did it's best to try to hurt him. The scene laid out in Indian Creek Chornicles is fascinating and becomes a turning point, of sorts, in the story for Pete. Touching the fur of the animal and seeing the skull perched on top of the file cabinet brought some sort of proof to me that Pete actually was there in Indian Creek.

Long before John Krakauer's "Into the Wild" there was Pete Fromm's "Indian Creek Chronicles." This is Pete's story about a winter alone in the Bitterroot Selway Wilderness. Pete set off on the solo adventure, but it wasn't a race or a dare and it wasn't "extreme", really. His whole adventure and existence, for that 7 months of winter, was to watch over a million or two Salmon eggs to enusre their safety from predetors and ice build up on their cold watery home in the creek.

Idaho Fish and Game hired Pete to spend the winter in the wilderness to dote over the eggs they optimistically placed in hopes they'd hatch and make it to the ocean and then to return to populate the ravaged rivers of Idaho. The challenge for Pete was that the eggs took all of 10, maybe 15 minutes a day to attend to. He was left with entire days to fill with anything else, he just couldn't go anywhere beyond where he could walk because he was snowed in with frigid temperatures. He had a 10' x 12' canvas tent to call home and a gangly pup to keep him company. Unlike Krakauer's book, Pete's singular existense, away from the world, was successful and ended happily. Pete didn't die, although at times, he made some decisions that lead him to the edge.

It seems like those skills Pete learned out there translate to his work ethic in writing. He attacks writing with a dedication that is impressive, to say the least. He's weathered through the hard years of being a writer and continues to create interesting and valuable work. He has monk-like tendancies when he retreats into his work, but when he comes out, he turns into a 15 year old and falls in with his boys and plays and explores side by side with them.

Last October, I went to Montana to shoot location photos for my grant proposal. I was going to stay in some flea-bag motel during the trip and try really hard not to impose on Pete. I wanted him along for the ride, of course, but I didn't want to tax him. Afterall, he'd was giving me so much by allowing me to make his story into a film. I didn't want to make more of an impact, but Rose and Pete insisted I stay with them and make it a home base for my scouting trip. I immediately felt at home. The easy going nature of the whole family made it comfortable.



The boys, Matt and with Pete looking on.

Pete had warned me about Rose and how I better not get out of line with her or I'd be had. At first, I thought he was joking, but I wasn't sure. He made her out to be some sort of a task-master. What I found was a wonderful woman that easily navigated a chaotic household full of boys, orcs, midevil knights, wringraiths, trolls and wizards (depending on which day it is). I quickly saw how she managed to keep it all together around there and actually enjoy the sense of wonderment that the boys (including Pete) brought to every discovery and invention. Rose is intelligent, funny and pretty much a smart-ass, but I guess you'd have to be to keep up with Pete. I think she just barely tolerated me and that's because I helped her gang up on Pete when we were making fun of him. Clearly, Pete was pulling my leg about Rose and I've quickly found out that he is pretty much always pulling my leg some how.

This spring, Doug, the cinematographer, Brian, the producer and I all crammed into the Fromm basement for a few nights when we went out to scout locations again. Doug quickly recognized the prize on the wall: the bobcat. He had read the tales of the demise of the old cat and knew instantly what we had hanging there on the wall. He took photos to prove it and to share with his father in law. The father in law has become a huge fan of Pete's and was excited to see the bobcat still hanging around. We're trying to slowly pay Pete back for Dry Rain by getting family and friends to buy his books. I think we are up to at least 30 books sold, so far!

Doug's photo of the Bobcat Skull.

More on Indian Creek Chronicles

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My Hair's on Fire

It is an amazing process, this casting thing. All I want to do is put a face to my character, to Stil. I've seen him in my head for years now. He's been rattling around in there as I've planned, scouted locations and talked with Pete Fromm about the story. I see him in the car. I see him talking to Joey (Nathan Gamble). The weird thing is I just can't really see his face. I know a lot about him, but I'm still missing that important detail. It's as if he's always standing in a shadow.

Stil is a likeable guy. He's 40's-ish, rough around the edges and has worked, most of his life, in hard jobs. None of them have ever panned out to be more than a few months here and there, but people like him none the less. Stil is a schemer and keeps trying to find something better, but that something better alludes him. He's basically his own worst enemy.

The one thing that Stil has used to his advantage most of his life are his good looks. He's no model, but he is attractive (even with the scar on his chin that he probably got from a little brother wacking him with a golf club or some odd blunt instrument) and can sweet talk like nobody's business. That sweet talking has gotten him into some good predicaments. It probably made him a dad before he was ever ready to be a father.

I don't want to jinx myself, so I won't go into any detail right now, but we have a great actor that is ready to jump on board. We just need to work out some scheduling things. Putting a schedule like this is minor compared to a big movie, but our hair is still on fire trying to line it all up to meet everyone's schedule and to make this happen.

I think I'll have something new to report very soon. For now, check out the pictures below. This is from our location scouting trip in June. Christine and I came around the bend near Helmsville and saw this big fire. The tractor had blown a fuel line or a haydraulic line starting the fire. No one was hurt, but the tractor burned to the ground and most of the hay was lost, not to mention all the work going into bailing, loading and growing it all.

Dusty

When you are shooting a road picture, you need the right vehicle to transport the cast down the road. The car becomes another chracter that speaks volumes about the film or person driving it. I gave the car special thought knowing it would have such a big impact.

My first thoughts on cars always lead to Station Wagons. The station wagon is an American icon. They've faithfully hauled families all over. Marketing types tried to make them sexy, but let's face it, they are just utilitarian work horses meant to haul stuff, kids, dogs, bikes, mattresses and miscellaneous junk.


My family never had one while I was around (I take that back, they owned a purple station wagon when we lived in Portugal...I was 18 months old), but many friends of mine have recounted tails of piling into the family station wagon and enduring long hours on the road. My buddy across the street, when I was growing up in Illinois, was from one of those famlies. Their cool Caprice Classic had the ever popular "way back" seat that faced backwards. We loved to sit there and make faces at on coming traffic. We only got in trouble once or twice for it, but we had fun.

My girlfriend Christine and I started to shop for the right station wagon back in early June. We looked into a 72 Olds Vista Cruiser (leaked oil like a sieve), an 84 Ford Country Squire (too Clark Griswald like), a 1963 Buick Special (too cool), another Olds (was hot rodded) and finally the 77 Plymouth Volare. It was a great adventure meeting people.

We met the guys at the transmission shop in Puyallup that swore their Olds was a barn find. There was the guys in Deer Park that really wanted to sell me their Caprice Classic, but it was pretty beat. The Vista Cruiser was alledgedly the guys grandfather's car and in perfect mechanical condition, but, what about the big puddle of oil under it?! And then their was the nice old guy that was on the car lot. He loved to talk and probably was a little lonely. We spotted the Buick on the old guy's lot in Helena as we drove through on a location scout. The coolness of a 1963 Station wagon turned us off, not to mention the steep price tag: $3900. We had to test drive it just for fun, but I had to remember how to shift with Three on the Tree. It was pretty sweet and all but just not what we were looking for in a picture car. Our car needed character but it also needed to look less like a hipster car and more like some dad's car that was making an attempt at being a family man.

In the end, none of the cars we'd seen yet felt right until we stumbled on to Dusty. We found Dusty in Greenlake, just north of Seattle. A musician had him. Dusty lead a good life hauling around band equipment. Apparently, he'd even been to NYC and points in between while on tour with the band. He was well traveled and well loved, but another car came in to the musician's life and Dusty was left to rot in the alley. The musician seemed pretty anxious to get the cash plus, I imagine it was time to get Dusty out...the landlord was sick of seeing an old car rust away, I'm sure.

Dusty sputtered back to life with just a little effort, cleaned up (but junk was still in the back) and put up for sale on Craig's List. I took a brief test ride in Dusty. The musician was a little worried about me driving Dusty too far with the expired tabs. "Don't get me busted, man, that would be a raw deal." I promised not to get caught so I kept it short. A deal was struck and I now owned a sweet station wagon. That was Saturday. Christine and I came back for him on Tuesday. Problem was, Dusty would not run. Maybe he didn't want to leave the alley, his home and the love of the musician (he really did love Dusty but clearly, at this point, was jonesin' for the cash)...who knows...but we got to bottom of the problem. Dusty was out of gas.

Now Dusty is sitting in my alley and is pretty sweet. He's got a funny grill that was repairded with some sort of fencing to simulate a grill. There's the vice grips for a window crank. There is the odd smell that only an old car can have...kind of musty. And the steering wheel is sticky for some reason.



Dusty is about to be treated to some love: oil change, air filter, shocks, brakes and whatever else he needs to be safe and sound and he'll get some fuel. He might not know it yet, but he's gonna be famous, sort of....

Casting Update

We are currently working on casting for the lead role of Stil. We've been searching for the right person now for the last three months. We should have our guy in the next two weeks or so. We are aiming at shooting in early to mid August.

Other elements are lining up nicely. Locations are nearly locked up, the art department is working away at set dressing and some minor building and we have one phone booth. Let's just say that the phone booth came to us rather curiously. Phone booths are pretty rare these days. Luckily, a friend of a friend had left one behind at his old rental house in a rather nice neighborhood...a neighborhood that probably doesn't like trash build up in front yards. Jason and I did everyone in the old neighborhood a favor by taking the eyesore of a phone booth out of the front yard and into his van. It now happily reisdes at an undisclosed location in North Seattle.

If you ever need pay phone parts or accesories, you might want to check out this Link

Nathan Gamble on board to play "Joey"

I'm excited to say that Nathan Gamble is on board to play the role of "Joey" in Dry Rain. Nathan comes with an impressive background. He has a long resume of work with one of the hightlights being his role in "Babel" with Brad Pitt.

I spent a few hours reading with Nathan and was confident in his ability to take direction and bring something new and fresh to the role. Hanging out with him and his family at their home was a great moment. It made it clear that Nathan is a down to earth kid with a great family. It'll be fun to work with him!

Nathan is off on another exciting project this late summer and fall. For now, we can't share what the project is, but let's just say it is a big one. Nice work Nathan!