October 5, 2024
Chris talks with Producers Chris Sibley and Tyler Savage, whose new feature film, “Marfa Lights” is currently underway in Alpine and Marfa. What does it take to make a movie in the Big Bend? And it might not even be too late to jump on screen yourself! Listen to find out more!
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Transcript for “Feature Film Production in Alpine and the Big Bend”:
Chris Ruggia
Hello, welcome, and thank you for joining us again for Heart of the Big Bend.
This is a podcast and radio show coming to you every other week about visiting the beautiful Big Bend of Texas. Specifically, we will cover what’s happening in Alpine, an incredibly friendly small town nestled in a desert mountain valley at the heart of the Big Bend region. With easy day trips from Alpine, you can take in everything this amazing region has to offer.
I’m Chris Ruggia, Director of Tourism for the City of Alpine. And today we’re talking about movies and have two producers with us, Chris Sibley and Tyler Savage. Thanks guys for coming to talk to me.
Both
Thanks for having us.
Chris R
And, you know, I want to thank you as well for coming to town and making a movie that’s a, you know, little secondary appreciation for you.
Chris Sibley
Grateful to be here, yeah.
Chris R
So, Chris, you’ve, you’ve been here before?
Chris S
I like to say “born and reared.” As my grandma would like to comment, chickens are raised and children are reared. I’m originally from Alpine. It’s nice to have an excuse to come back to the hometown and work on something creative.
Chris R
When’s the last time you actually lived in Alpine?
Chris S
Gosh, it would have. Been oh, now it’s been a little while. It would’ve been 8th Grade, the freshman year I left.
Chris R
And you’re at least, like, 19 now.
Chris S
Laughing
Chris R
So, you guys are in town to work. And we’re here to talk about what you’re working on, which is?
Tyler Savage
We’re here filming a movie called “Marfa Light” that our writer, director Jamie Meyer, was inspired to write almost 12 years ago now when he and a few friends, including our production designer Jamie Lavelle, came out and they had an experience at the Marfa Lights viewing station that always stuck with him. And so I think in the back of his mind over several years was trying to sculpt a story. It was sort of a love letter to the region. That’s what we’re here hoping to do.
Chris S
And I’ll just piggyback off that. It’s a coming-of-age drama about a solar power salesman from the big city. A bright eyed young upstanding guy who is trying to sell solar panels. But when he finds out that the solar panels that have been installed are faulty, it becomes a house of falling cards. Figuring out how to navigate the local community that he grows to love.
Chris R
Cool. And where are you at in in the process? I mean, you guys are here kind of for the haul and you’re well underway.
Chris S
It started last year, I would say, when all of us came together to location scout. We actually planned this around October last year and we planned to shoot this year so that we could get a sense of the space and the temperature and what the clouds are doing. We have a really talented director of photography, Antonio Cisneros from San Antonio, and so he knows Texas well. But you know this region does different things at different times.
Tyler S
And then to piggyback on that, Jamie Meyer and I met while working for Terrence Malick in Austin. A lot of those films we worked on were driven by a lot of natural light, not a typical studio approach. So you try to work around the weather and what the sun is doing at that time, which is why it was so cool to be out here at the same time of year – a year in advance to make sure that we were planning the shoot correctly.
Chris R
Right, right. You get a feeling what is it? How North is the sun? What time at night is it going to be? Where is it in the sky?
Chris S
The moon too. The new moon versus full moon. We have a lot of night work. Given the name of the film being Marfa Light, there’s a lot of night work that’s coming into play and actually affecting our schedule.
Tyler S
It may. It makes scheduling an interesting challenge because we are trying to take advantage of when it’s on a full moon. We’re able to actually use the moonlight for exposure. And so, versus when it’s a full moon, obviously your visibility of the stars is a little bit minimized. We’re literally looking at lunar cycles and planning everything accordingly, which is a fun challenge and should lead to the unique looking film.
Chris R
So, you shoot all the people when the moon’s out, and then you shoot up at the sky when the moon’s not there.
Tyler S
Exactly
Chris S
And to get back to your original question, it’s been about a year since we started the planning on this, which for me personally is fun because it gave us an opportunity to come spend time in the Big Bend in Alpine and Marfa and Marathon, go visit friends, go to the galleries, go to all the wonderful things that are fun to do in West TX a year ahead of time. And then for the film, on the planning side to have a year advance in terms of brain trust going.
Tyler S
Yeah, that’s an incredible luxury that you don’t normally get on independent film. And that was something that our writer/director Jamie really had his heart set on from the beginning. Was giving us all enough time to pull together the right team to find Chris and our other fellow producer Javier Gonzalez, and to just sort of organically pull the team together. Where sometimes you find it being a little bit more of a fire drill in indie film because limited resources. And you sometimes might not have answers to the questions until a week or two out that we’ve had answers to for months on end. We’re trying to create a nice, calm, calibrated sense of collaboration before we’re actually in production.
Chris S
Just to kind of to put a final point on that, we’re very fortunate in that, because I’m from the area; I have parents that still live here, Liz in Hiram Sibley that, you know, I’ve been revitalizing Murphy St. and run a gallery.
Chris R
And a lot of the art in the alleyway. Artwork spearheaded by your mom.
Chris S
Then also the Montessori school, they still help organize and run that. Having those kinds of personal connections to the area has really made this even smoother and more fun.
Tyler S
Even and more than we could have possibly anticipated. And the whole production has a debt of gratitude to the whole Sibley family and the entire community of Alpine. I mean, honestly, it’s been a big warm hug since we got here. It’s nice, you know, I’m based in Los Angeles and have made films in four or five different states, but it’s a very different feeling when you’re coming to a place where people really are welcoming you. And that’s, that’s been the energy the whole time.
Chris R
Well, that’s good to hear.
Chris S
So, can I do a couple plugs really quickly? I just have to thank some sponsors, some local sponsors, for the movie: Cedar Coffee and Supply right behind Front Street books. They’ve given us some gifts for our crew and cast, the Ritchie, Joe Crow Coffee, Vise coffee, Rue…
Chris R
Your coffee needs are largely covered
Tyler S
We need to be thoroughly Caffeinated
Chris S
Well, well, and that’s the thing, Cow Dog came through as well. So that it’s been really nice that again, the community’s been so welcoming and we couldn’t be happier. Oh, Tejas Tonic, they’re sponsoring us too. And it looks like we might have Meanwhile Brewing, which is in Austin, but they’re a Texas company. I also just wanted to mention, although we’re based in Alpine, we have a lot of great sponsors from Marfa as well. And Marfa Spirit Co is one of our visiting sponsors in the film, but also the Crowley Theater.
Tyler S
We’ve just been getting a lot of support and that’s not always the case, so we’re very grateful for that. It’s excellent.
Chris R
Well, yeah, everybody gets excited, you know, and something’s coming through now. The subject was local to this area. One of your producers is local to this area. I know you, Chris, and your family are immense assets, but in terms of deciding specifically how you’re going to approach finding locations and things like that. You said earlier some of it will actually be finished up in California. How do you arrive at decisions like that? Where do we where do we go physically to make this thing?
Tyler S
I think again, a lot of it came from our writer/director Jamie’s early instincts about the region. He’s been here. He’s an East Coaster originally, but he and I both lived in in Austin for, you know, 3-5 years around the same time up until about 2014 and have come back many times. He’s now living in Austin again. He came to us with a pretty clear sense of the looks that he wanted for the film. And as Chris kind of briefly described the story: this young kind of bright-eyed solar technician, he’s coming out from California. So, the beginning and the end of the movie are in California. But the bulk of our days, about 20 out of 25 shooting days are all here in the region.
Chris S
And in terms of physically discovering those locations, a lot of it was us driving around. I have to also plug Big Bend Film Commission and the website because there’s a great locations resource on there.
Chris R
Right. That’s “shootbigbend.com.” Yeah, if anybody’s if anybody’s writing a script and wants inspiration for desert or Big Bend locations or want to save some money as you’re scouting.
Chris S
Huge resource. You can actually just put in what you’re looking for and there’s a search engine that gives you, you know, 20 options with photographs that you can then pinpoint where they are on the map. That was really, really useful for us I think in the early days of scouting
Chris R
Good to hear! The area’s not a stranger to film production. You know, there’ve been a few over the years, I first think of Giant. That’s the big one way in the past. That was a famously filmed in the Marfa area on a ranch outside of Marfa. The Paisano hotel has its claims to fame and a little history room of the movie, I think it’s always on rotation, you know, playing in that little room in the Paisano. That’s the big one.
And then since then, there’s Fandango from 85, the early Kevin Costner film has lots of locations here and a group of fans come out either every year or, it might be every other year now, and they tour those locations and there’s up to 80 people who are caravanning around. There’s the Sonic in Alpine.
I think there’s one other one in Alpine. They stop at the, the site of the Giant filming, that was a backdrop though of course the old Riata timbers are all gone now, but then they wind up down on the Riverroad with the Dom Rock where they had the champagne. There’s that pilgrimage that happens every year. And then, more recently, we had There Will Be Blood which was a big one, and in between that the Larry McMurtrie, the Lonesome Dove sequel. Dead Man’s Walk I think was filmed like mid 90s.
Chris S
And then Marfa girl as well.
Tyler S
There’s been two of now and there is some talk about them coming out to do a third one as well.
Chris R
Yeah, I want to shout out Far Marfa as well, Corey Van Dyke’s. It’s really quirky, charming and has that feeling of Marfa at that time – at least that he was making it – in the late 90s. So, given all that, it’s happened before, it’s happening again. But, from your experience, what’s different, what’s hard and what’s easy and what’s good and what’s bad?
Tyler S
How long do you have and we have? I mean, well, I’ll start. I’m sure we both have plenty of things to say on this one. I do think there’s something very singular about the landscape, you know what I mean? So, I’m sure there’s plenty of westerns and desert landscapes that have been shot at other parts of the country. And being from California, we have beautiful desert there, but there’s nothing quite like this region. And I think that it is just inherently cinematic. And that’s what has drawn people here, for things like Giant, you know, for over 75 years now.
Obviously, there are certain logistical complications being in a more secluded or you know, being away from a larger city when it comes to crew hires and equipment and that sort of thing. But it is very thoroughly balanced out by the welcoming attitude that we’ve been met with here and these vistas and the world that you could try to recreate in another place, but when it’s really right here, you point your camera in any direction and you’re going to get something cinematic and that is something that you know, the production value of that really can’t be overstated.
Chris S
Yeah, I definitely agree. And I think the term I like to say is “desolate beauty.” So, it’s just that desolate beauty and it’s far out.
Tyler S
And it’s timeless, too. It’s like when you’re talking about these things that are often period pieces, you know, there’s a beauty to the fact that the landscape hasn’t changed so much, which is obviously not the case for most places. Austin chief among them.
Chris R
So, in terms of what you need, to accomplish this task, what did you need to bring and what were you able to assemble once you got here?
Chris S
So yeah, I wanted to also to mention just the point of accommodation, just with the fact that we have 50 odd crew members and cast that will be out here and wandering around Alpine and Marfa and Marathon and Fort Davis, where do they stay? And, luckily, there’s great infrastructure here, better than most small towns, I would say. And so, it’s been really between Airbnb, hotels, some of these friendly folks, we’ve been able to house people.
But the gear consideration is a big one. In terms of sourcing what we need to bring with us. We’re renting stuff from Austin. We have box trucks coming from LA, we’ve got a drone guy coming out from LA. We have some stuff coming from El Paso. So, it’s this patchwork of connecting the 3D Tetris that is getting everything here and making sure we’ve got what we need to run.
Chris R
Whereas, in more production hub type places, that stuff’s down the street?
Chris S
Correct
Tyler S
Yeah. It’s like if you if you were, you know, on something in Los Angeles, New York or even some of the newer hubs like Atlanta, if you needed a piece of equipment last minute, you could get it that same day or pick it up the next day. Whereas here it requires a lot more forethought.
Chris R
Absolutely. So, you had mentioned the number of people coming in. And of course to the local listeners, we want to emphasize the fact that there’s dollars coming into the local economy. You know there are a lot of things you need to bring in, but you’re also taking advantage of the local businesses. So, while you’re here, certainly, the lodging industry gets a lot of room nights out of a feature. That’s why Visit Alpine’s enthusiastic about them.
Chris S
Yeah, Visit Alpine has helped us put together some gift care packages, so have to give them a thank you.
Chris R
And for other film makers who might be thinking about it. We, dependent on appropriations, Alpine has a lodging rebate for when film or even photo shoots when production happens in the region, but hotel nights in Alpine happen, then 15% of that bill can get rebated back to the production, assuming that the City Council…
Chris S
And that’s been a huge part of balancing our budget sheet and everything we are taking advantage of a portion of that in in our shoot and it’s actually means that we get to have an extra couple days out here.
Chris R
Great to hear.
Tyler S
And to that same point about that question with infrastructure, with any film, independent or not, it’s a question of where the resources are going. So, the fact that we’re able to save a little bit on lodging here, but maybe there’s a little bit more in terms of transportation costs. Things start evening out because, just getting approvals to shoot in certain locations is much harder in a film hub than in a place like this. So, I think that it’s really, it’s been wholly to our benefit.
Chris R
You mentioned Dow Dog and coffee, so one thinks of catering as something that a film production really needs to consider. So how have you approached that?
Chris S
Oh, critical. Most indie producers will say that your film is made or broken by the food. And if people are coming out here to work on a project they believe in, that they’re often more passionate about than just what they’re getting paid for, right. And we put a lot of effort and time into, into setting that up properly. And we’re working with Sky Island Culinary. Stephen Wood and Elizabeth there, they are going to be doing our full catering for the run of show and they’re fantastic. I grew up knowing them and I’ve always just enjoyed their food over the years. It’s really nice.
Chris R
Yeah, and so if anybody remembers the Saddle Club, Stephen was running that kitchen when that was open. And they’ve more recently been serving up epic fries at Alcove Social, the same building, on occasion.
Tyler S
We were just there the other night and they were doing poke bowls and sushi. It was just incredible!
Chris R
Another aspect of local involvement that we’ve seen recently on social media has been the call for people to be on screen as well. So, how’s that process going?
Tyler S
We were very fortunate to land an incredible casting director, Vicki Boone and Liz Kelly, who’ve been working as a team on this. They’re Austin based and Jamie Meyer and I had experience with them working with Terrence Malick, a decade ago now, and Vicki worked with Richard Linklater a lot and does a lot of the big TV shows out of Austin, but it’s also from Texas. And this had a deep affection for the region and for Alpine and for Marfa. So, they took a lot of the heavy lifting on that.
We cast, they think about 5 or 6 key roles went out broadly, and we’re bringing some people in from Los Angeles and other larger cities. But the bulk of the cast has been found here in the region. And it’s been very cool to see who’s been coming in on some of these casting tapes. And, as of this week, we’re locked in on most of those roles.
Chris S
Oh yeah. And there are more background opportunities if people are interested, just find us.
Chris R
And how will somebody listening to the radio or catching the podcast, what should they do if the timing’s right?
Tyler S
It’s Marfabackgroundcasting@gmail.com I believe.
Chris S
And the run of show is October 16th to November 10th (2024), so if you’re available and interested in that time range, it would be worthwhile to e-mail us your resume and, preferably a little one minute video saying who you are, where you’re from, why you like the region and any other tidbits you might be.
Tyler S
And you could also find Chris Sibley or me, Tyler Savage on Instagram or Facebook or anything. And feel free to reach out to us directly as well. Yeah, so it’s been, it’s been exciting and we’ve got about I think 20 to 25 roles that we’ve really been casting locally. So, it’s considerable.
Chris R
And you said you had like 600?
Tyler S
Almost 600 submissions I think total. So it was, it was an abundance of riches as far as everybody that was coming in. And there’s this sort of naturalism in this type of filmmaking that we try to do. So, you want to work in some non-actors and people that really feel from the region rather than doing things feel like a facsimile of what it’s really like to be out here. You want to actually feel like you’re in the place.
Chris S
Well, and that brings up another point I wanted to mention earlier is that Jamie, our director has been very adamant about the authenticity of this project and, and in terms of having a small footprint, but also honoring in the space for what it is and not trying to recreate it. So, I think that the casting of this and finding so many authentic locals has been a huge part of the goal of this project.
Chris R
So, you were mentioning the night shooting, and of course there’s the Marfa Lights viewing center if you’re out looking at the Marfa lights and it’s a night time thing. And we’re in the center of the largest area of protected night skies on the planet, the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve. So, I imagine we could say that our dark Sky’s a character in a sense.
Tyler S
Absolutely. I mean, we’ve been out here for a couple weeks now and Chris has been very helpful with this and our and our cinematographer is very obsessed with what we can do as far as photographing that night sky. And they’ve been doing some tests with these very high speed lenses, not to get too technical, but yeah, there are things that, again, living in Los Angeles, I don’t think I see 5 to 8% of the sky that you guys have on a given night. It’s pretty majestic. And we’re making the most.
Chris R
So technically, I mean, I remember like Barry Lyndon when that movie came out. And there’s all the little candlelit stuff. So that was on film. But you guys are, I’m assuming this is…
Chris S
Digital, yeah, we’re shooting digital. It’s very modernized. We’re using Sony.
Chris R
And does that make it easier to work with those super low light?
Chris S
Oh yes, absolutely, certainly. And again, without getting too technical, we’re using some of the fastest lenses available for cinema cameras and, and, and using utilizing the moon as a main light source on occasion, with some fill lights, of course. When you, when you drive by and we’ve got 5-10 K’s out in the desert and we’re actually lighting up the space. We apologize ahead of time for that, for any lights.
Chris R
As long as you turn them off when you’re done, I think it’ll be alright
Tyler S
Exactly. And we’re we do have some rough, you know, some very long overnights. There’s a lot of these night scenes in the film, but not in any way that should disrupt anybody. And I think it’s also an extension of what Chris was saying about the authenticity of the region in the faces. You know, we want to capture the sky and this landscape as it exists. Not to implement VFX and, and try to cheat things, but to actually do our best job to capture what we see with our eyes.
Chris R
Right. Well, you know, thanks you guys for coming out to do this!
Chris S
Certainly, it’s such a pleasure, you know, if you ever want to do it again, we’ll make ourselves available, right? Maybe after we finish the film?
Tyler S
Maybe when we wrap, we’ll have some more, more stories to share. This has been this has been great. And again, Chris, thank you for calling us in and taking the time.
Chris R
Oh, it’s my pleasure. And I know that the whole local community is really interested in what you’re working on and, and I’m sure a lot of them would like to participate and would send emails to Marfabackgroundcasting@gmail.com and shoot that little selfie video so they can.
Chris S
Or you can reach out direct directly to me on Instagram @Christopher_Sibley.
Tyler S
And also right now there’s only about 8 or 10 of us here in town, but that’s about to balloon to about 30 in the next couple weeks. So, you’ll be seeing a lot of us, you know, between Alpine City Place and Amigos and the Ritchey and Cedar. So, you know, we’ll probably be around and feel free to come and engage us. We’d love to talk to you.
Chris R
Oh, you know, one thing we haven’t talked about is the visiting cast a little bit. So, a lot of people are going to want to know, oh, is there anybody I’ve heard of? Is there anybody that a celebrity chasing mind would like to think about?
Chris S
Yeah. So, I think one of the our biggest is Steve Earle will be out here for four days and he’ll be playing. He’s our guitar picking luthier. Yeah, so we have.
Chris R
And how many shows will he do at the Ritchey while he’s here?
Tyler S
Oh, if we’re lucky, we’ll see. But we’re, we’re just grateful to get him out here. But he loves the region. And I know he’s played some shows in Marfa and probably here in Alpine as well, and obviously a bit of a Texas legend. We’re grateful to have him. And then we’ve got some other familiar faces, Mary Lynn Rashkup, who was on 24 and a number of big network TV shows and started in a show called Mr. Show that we’re all obsessed with. And then a guy named Eric Balfour is coming out whose credits go back 25 years.
Chris S
Yeah, the first vampire and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Tyler S
That’s right, that’s his claim to fame
Chris S
6 feet under.
Tyler S
And then for our lead and some of the other roles we we’ve been trying intentionally to find some fresh faces that don’t have too many associations with them. Kind of in line with that authenticity and naturalism we’ve been talking about.
Chris R
Yeah, cool. Well, welcome to them. Welcome to you guys and the rest of the crew who’ll be coming out over the next week or so it sounds like. We wish you all well. If there’s anything, I’m sure I’m speaking to the entire community, that we can do to help smooth things out as you’re, as you’re working. We’re happy to help.
Tyler S
And just the thanks again to the community for being as welcoming as you guys all have been so far. It’s been a pleasure to be here. And you know, as somebody who’s been on a bunch of different types of movie sets. I mean, this is exactly what you hope for, is to have a community that feels supportive and welcoming and, and that’s been the energy since we got here.
Chris S
Yeah, and just to expand upon that, it’s so nice to be home in my hometown and, and working with locals and to have an excuse to see everyone again. So, thank you all for having us. And, and we’ll do our best to respect the space and, and like Tyler said, come up and say hello to us if you see us on the street.
Chris R
So and so when you come back for the Alpine premiere, we’ll do that follow up.
Tyler S
Absolutely, we look forward to it!
Chris R
Thanks again for coming in and thanks to all of you for listening so assiduously to every single episode of Heart of the Big Bend because I know you don’t miss a single one.
You can get more information about the show at visitalpinetx.com/podcast or search for Heart of the Big Bend on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, most other podcast apps, and for everyone catching the show on the local broadcast on KALP/KVLF Radio here in Alpine.
Thank you so much. And we’ll be back in two Fridays.
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Hope you liked what you heard and that you’ll find the time to experience all that the Big Bend has to offer.
See you soon, partner.