Black Wood
Project Information
- My Role: Producer & 1st Assistant Director
- Distributed By: Saban Films
- Project date: 2019
- Project URL: www.sabanfilms.com/film/black-wood
Project Synopsis
Dowanhowee, a Native American woman, evades the notorious Dutch Wilder Gang by escaping into the uncharted Black Wood Forest. Once inside, they quickly discover they must help each other for they have unknowingly awaken an ancient ravenous creature, known as The Wendigo.
My Experience
Hitting Above Our Weight Class
On this project we were punching way above our weight class. It was an ultra low budget film and we called in every favor we could to try to put everything on screen. We had an amazing crew who banded together to do something that, at this budget range, seemed completely impossible.
We had horses, stunts, a wild west town, blood, a monster and remote locations that made this movie seem bigger than it actually was.
I'm proud of what we were able to do with almost nothing.
Weather AGAIN
As with so many projects, filmed out here in South Dakota, the weather was unpredictable and definitely caused us some problems.
We have a scene in the movie that actually takes place in two different locations with two different types of weather because it was raining as we filmed the first part of the scene, but as the rain continued the location was impassable for us and we had to move the production into another location that was easier to access.
What resulted was a scene that took place over multiple days with different weather types and two separate locations due to access.
Deep in the Woods
Part of what made this movie look amazing was our ability to access remote locations that many film crews wouldn't otherwise have access to. We were able to get really private locations in the woods as well as beautiful vistas that most people will never see because we were on property where we had a connection.
One of the downsides to this is that travel to the locations often took much longer than any producer would desire.
We had private locations, but it often took 30 to 45 minutes for crew to get to location from their hotel.
What the F^*k's a Communication?
Given the remote locations and distance from any population center, communication was often a problem.
We had to use radios with repeaters. Sometimes had to do radio relay. And very rarely had cell service.
There was one location where we had no cell service, and in order to get messages back and forth, I would have to send a PA with my personal cell phone to drive up a hill and communicate with base for me.
I gave them general instructions on what the goal was and allowed them to run with it.
Thankfully, we had really great crew members that we could trust to do this sort of thing.