Eric Kissack Tickles Our Funny Bones In 'The Gunfighter' - The Scout Interview

Where did this idea come from - had you been thinking about directing a spoof Western specifically?

How did the script progress? Was it always imagined as a short, or did the form develop through the writing process?
 
I'll answer these two questions together. The idea of the audible narrator in a Western saloon sprang fully formed from the genius head of my friend and writer, Kevin Tenglin. He wrote a short story featuring a gunfighter who walks into a saloon and quickly has his secrets revealed to everyone in the bar. I read it, loved it, and immediately knew it would make a great short film. Together, the two of us spent about a month expanding it a bit, adding more characters, more jokes and giving it a bit more of a beginning, middle and end. We wanted it to feel like a tiny three-act film. We did a read-through with the actors pretty close to the shoot, trimmed out a few extraneous lines and then shot it!
 
The set is amazing and pretty extensive, judging by the opening shot, I'm guessing you didn't build it from scratch though?...
 
The set is part of the Melody Ranch in Santa Clarita, CA. It's an entire Western town in pristine condition. It's amazing. It's also where they shot Deadwood and parts of Django Unchained. Since building the set would have been prohibitively expensive, we checked out pretty much every Western set in town and nothing came close to the Melody Ranch.

The actors do a great job of maintaining tone whilst getting laughs. How was the casting process?
 
We worked with two incredible casting directors, Susan Deming and Dorien Davies. It was a pretty traditional casting process... we posted the script online, requested videos, called in our top candidates and had them read for us. We managed to get some amazing people simply because people really responded to the script. Plus it didn't hurt that it's insanely fun to dress up as a cowboy and hang out in an old Western saloon for a couple of days. We intentionally didn't cast the voice of the narrator until after the short was shot and edited. We put in a temp voice and then sent it out to a couple of "dream" actors. I always knew that I wanted Nick Offerman from the beginning and I was overjoyed when he loved the short and agreed to play the narrator.
 


How was the shoot? Any issues on set?
 
The shoot was exhilarating and exhausting. We had way too much to do in way too little time. The only issue was an excess of ambition. It would have been great to have another day on the set but we couldn't afford it. So we were scrambling to get everything that we wanted. There was also a brief encounter with the fire marshall but my intrepid producer, Sarah Platt, worked her Svengali magic and POOF he was gone. Pretty neat trick, that.
 
How did 'the voice' work on set? Was there playback for the actors to respond to or was there someone off camera delivering the lines?
 
Our incredible 1st AD (can you tell that I loved my crew?), Christopher Northup, read the lines for the narrator on set. He's worked as an actor in the past so his timing was pretty much spot on.
 
Speaking of 'the voice', is he actually as bloodthirsty as he seems, or more of a practical joker?
 
Are you referring to the character or the actor? The character is bitter and angry and bored and totally bloodthirsty. The actor is a delightful man, a true joy to be around, a frickin national treasure.
 


What was the effect you were going for? Was this intended as a pure comedy or are you poking fun at something more serious, like all of the morally unsavoury things that some people might be hiding...
 
I'd say it was 90% comedy and 10% message. That's usually the breakdown that I go for. Message-wise, I've always thought it was important to point out the dangers of complete and total honesty. I mean, obviously, in an ideal world we wouldn't do things that we're ashamed of. But that world seems vanishingly distant so in the meantime, let's all just learn to accept a little judicious truth-concealing (lying). I also enjoyed pointing out the hypocrisy of any of the rousing speeches in classic Westerns... it's a bit rich when it's coming in a context of a time and place that embraced sexism, racism and violence so explicitly.
 
You worked as an editor on a number of Hollywood/Blockbuster films before making your own shorts, how did working on such large-scale productions influence your own work?
 
More ways than I can count, really. Perhaps the biggest thing, and I hope this doesn't sound cheesy, is that it made me a professional. I've worked around so many insanely talented people who take their job so seriously that I knew I wanted to create a work environment where people felt like they could do their job well and be respected for it. You'd be surprised how often that simple thing doesn't exist on a lot of sets.
 
Also, working with some of the comedy greats... Sacha Baron Cohen, Ben Stiller, Adam McKay, Jay Roach... gave me a real appreciation for the psychology of comedy. There's actually a real science to why people laugh or why they don't laugh and a lot of that has to do with editing. That background has helped me immensely as a filmmaker.
 
Did you always see yourself working in the comedy genre or did you fall into it?
 
I absolutely fell into it. I've always loved comedy but I've also always loved dramas, thrillers, science fiction, Westerns. But my first jobs in the business were in comedy and that's where I stayed. I'm not complaining. It's a gift to be able to laugh at work every day.
 


Do you think that coming from an editor's background, you have a different approach to filmmaking? Are you thinking of the edit during the shoot?
 
I wouldn't say "different"... perhaps just enhanced. I'm always thinking of the edit during the shoot and that helps me shoot quickly and efficiently. I've directed a lot of low-budget projects and, inevitably, you run out of time so having the ability to hone in on exactly what shots I need to get and which ones are expendable is invaluable. I also know not to make the mistake that a lot of young directors make which is to shortchange the editing process. The editing process is a marathon... it can be long and grueling but the longer you can stay engaged in it, the better your film will be.
 
What do you enjoy more – directing or editing?!
 
Directing. I love editing, I really do, but I thrive on set. Working with actors, finding clever ways to place and move the camera and, yes, working with editors who make the whole thing come together... there's no better job in the world.
 
What's up next for you?
 
I expect that I'll continue to ping pong from editing to directing for the next little while. I'm just finishing up the edit on Horrible Bosses 2 right now and I'm writing a feature script that I hope to direct early next year.