August 19, 2009
Worked this morning on two color studies for big Art Issue cover painting. Got some decent effects and left at eight to drive out to Pioneer Living History Museum.

Met Jeff Hildebrandt from the Westerns Channel and a video crew of six to tape a new batch of True West Moments. Started in the desert east of the museum and whipped out the first three bumpers in an hour, then changed locations to the Pioneer Church area. By then it was really starting to get hot, but we forged on, getting two more in the can. The biggest problems on these kinds of shoots is, in order of irritation: airplane noise, wind noise, faulty equipment and faulty talent. I am charge of the last part and it took me at least three or four takes on each bit (and I'm reading off a teleprompter!).

We broke for lunch at around noon and ate in the Pioneer Cafe, five feet from where Kathy and I were married in 1979) and then went back at it at about 1:30. As we stood in the middle of the street and waited for a steadycam monitor problem to solve itself, I asked the AD, Jen, how hot she thought it was out. She guessed "110?" and I said, "No, silly woman, that is how hot it is over there (pointing to the shade). It's probably at least 125 degrees where we are standing in the middle of the street." She didn't even laugh, nor did I. It was that oppressively hot.

I remembered back to when Robert Redford and Michael J. Pollard came to town and made the ultimate biker movie Little Fauss And Big Halsy(1970) and they filmed in Phoenix—in August. Legend says, a camera lens melted during the shoot and Hollywood, as far as I know, has never been back to shoot in the Valley in August.

Wrapped at 2:30 with a Doc Holliday bumper that I nailed on the first take (funny what you can accomplish when you are really miserable and want to go home). We are meeting again tomorrow at a different location to film a water trough bit and two others, one with cover boy Joey Dillon and the other with our other cover boy, Lee Anderson. Going to be hotter than hell.

"At least it's a dry hell."
—Old Dead Vaquero Saying