Dusty Wallace, the Roanoke blogger behind Dusty on Movies, has written an entry about visiting the set of Restitution, an indy Western being shot in the New River Valley after Blacksburg native and New York film student Matthew Pickett successfully raised $6,000 in funding through Kickstarter.

Perhaps my favorite part of this entertaining blog entry is Wallace’s description of the many takes involved in capturing a single scene of action for the camera:

 

• Take 1 – Before the scene even begins an actor entering left accidentally fires his gun as he unholsters it.
• Take 2 – Everything is fine until the end. But the final gunfire is mute because the gun wasn’t reloaded fully after the previous misfire.
• Take 3 – Someone starts up an ATV ruining the sound.
• Take 4 – One actor attempts to kneel over a dead girl but misjudges his footing, kicking mud up her nose and falling partially on top of her.
• Take 5 – The actors perform flawlessly, the sound wasn’t rolling.
• Take 6 – Everything is perfect, except for that slight imbalance in the camera dolly.
• Take 7 – A cowboy runs into frame from the left, his hat falls off.
• Take 8 – Not so bad, give me a few more like that.
• Take 9 – But wasn’t she supposed to walk from the other direction? Screw it, we’ll flip it in post-production.