Chain Gang

Writing the Short

Having always been a major fan of westerns, I was always going to make one myself. This is mainly my personal love letter to the movie, “I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.” Furthermore, it’s an expression of how I feel about the current prison system America has in place. The prison system isn’t meant to help or even rehabilitate prisoners in the US. Instead, they have always been a way to profit from violence and free manual labor. Being forced to work for days at a time, with little breaks in between, will break a man. Much like the two leads in the short. Beau, a victim of abuse, and Micah, the classic western outlaw, two victims of the same system, are at each other's throats because it’s all they know.

Directing the Short

Having only scheduled one day of shooting, I rented out a campsite at Lake Thunderbird. The lake offered a nice wooden backdrop and a quiet setting. Everything ran very smoothly. Everyone on set moved very fluidly. Without my crew, this would not have gone so easily, from Brennon on the boom, to James finding sticks and cutting logs for the fire. Probably the most important lesson. would easily have to always check on your equipment. We needed a lens adapter for our camera and lens, but somehow it wasn’t packed into our equipment. Put into someone else’s order instead. Luckily, I knew who, so I was able to get the adapter.