LOOKBOOK + PRODUCTION GUIDE MARCH 2014

FISHTAIL

FISHTAIL IS A PORTRAIT OF THE MODERN COWBOY.

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A FILM SET ON THE FISHTAIL BASIN RANCH - A 2000 ACRE FREE RANGE CATTLE RANCH IN MONTANA.

A COHESION OF THE WESTERN AMERICAN ART WORLD AND CINEMA.

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FISHTAIL revolves around the rugged lifestyle of two cowboys on the Fishtail Basin Ranch in Montana. Capturing an authentic snapshot of America’s rustic West, the story follows the cowboys during calving season, the month when cows on the ranch give birth. Featuring the songs and iconic voice of Harry Dean Stanton, FISHTAIL is written by Andrew Renzi and Tylee Abbott and directed by Andrew Renzi.

SYNOPSIS

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Building on a recently completed commission of paintings designed to capture the lives of Modern American cowboys working in Montana, Western American Art Specialist, Tylee Abbott, teamed up with friend and filmmaker Andrew Renzi to collaborate on a film based portrayal of the Modern Ameri-can West. Abbott, himself a descendant of Western genre painter, William Ranney, has long held in the highest respect the rich tradition of Western American Art. Ranney is celebrated as an early American Genre artist, hav-ing painted accounts of cowboys, trap-pers, and pioneers. Works such as “Advice on the Prairie” represent pe-riod visions of the American West and document the mythology with which modern Americans have become so familiar. Abbott and Director, Andrew Renzi, set out to the ranch to re-appropriate the traditions of Western American Art onto the film medium. A portrait of Ranchers and their fami-lies existing on the same unspoiled

landscapes that we have romanticized throughout film and art history. Shooting during calving sea-son, the month when the cows on the ranch give birth, Fishtail provides an ethereal window into the life-cycle of animals and individuals living an in-creasingly rare western ideal. Abbott and Renzi have always admired the work of Western Ameri-can Artists like William Ranney, as well as the documentary filmmak-ers Frederick Wiseman and Albert Maysles, and their ability to adhere to an observational style that allows for breath and subjectivity, without overt bias or an onslaught of traditionally delivered information. Similarly, in narrative filmmaking and in the work of celebrated landscape painter Thom-as Moran, Abbott and Renzi have al-ways been enamored by the aesthetic styles of art and film that romanticize the expansive American landscape, as seen in Moran’s “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone” or in films such as Once Upon a Time in the West, Jeremiah Johnson, and Days of Heaven.

Through this film, we are hop-ing to implement the painterly and cinematographic sensibilities that we appreciate in fine art and film, with a purely observational exploration of a way of life that can only be captured through the documentary medium. In our lives we seek routine, and in that routine our passion and our lives take shape. Through the observation of specific routines, we are hoping that the viewer will be struck with their own interpretations about the way we live and the natural world we inhabit.

THE FILM

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The Fishtail Basin Ranch spans flatlands to mountains, a Montana sky so vast and unobstructed that you don’t even need to look up to see the starry night. The images are captured using textured and gritty Super 16mm wide screen meditations of the landscape, mixed with long lens and shallow depth of field portraits of our characters to truly capture the juxtaposition of the location’s grandeur and the intimacy and familiarity our characters have with this way of life. Aside from the camera, lenses, and film, the crew made use only of the ranching resources (tractors, ATVs, trucks, and even helicopters) to get sweeping aerial footage,

dynamic driving shots, and dramatic angles that would otherwise only have been possible with a large scale film package.

STYLE

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ART:

Thomas MoranWilliam Ranney

FILM:

Days of HeavenUmberto D.Killer of SheepBoxing GymOnce Upon a Time in the West

REFERENCES

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WE SET OUT TO CAPTURE A GENUINE SLICE OF AMERICANA.

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DIRECTOR&WRITER

ANDREW RENZI

Andrew Renzi’s narrative feature debut, Franny, will wrap principlephotography in 2014, starring Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning, Theo James, and Clarke Peters. Franny was selected to the 2013 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and is the recipient of a Cinereach Writer’s Grant. Andrew’s second short film, Karaoke! premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and was the recipient of the Panavision Future Filmmaker Award presented by CO3. Andrew’s first short film, The Fort, premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and went on to play festivals around the world. Andrew is writing the Janis Joplin biopic, JANIS, with Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene).

Previously, Andrew worked in various producing capacities on the feature films, Afterschool (Cannes 2008), Two Gates of Sleep (Cannes 2010), Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be the Same (SXSW 2009), and Sympathy for Delicious (Sundance Special Jury Prize 2010). Andrew attended Brown University where he studied Literary Arts, focusing on playwriting and screenwriting. Andrew has produced and directed music videos for various artists, including Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, hip hop artist Mobb Deep, Blondfire, and the DJ duo Zeds Dead.

Andrew is currently based in NYC.

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PRODUCER&WRITER

Born in Pennsylvania, but exposed to the Western United States at an early age, William “Tylee” Abbott has developed a fascination with the culture of the American West. Grounded in his family history, Tylee is named for his ancestor the Western American genre painter, William Tylee Ranney, Tylee grew up immersed in the culture he loves on his family’s working cattle ranch in Montana, The Fishtail Basin Ranch. When he isn’t working on the ranch, or spending time in the outdoors, Tylee works in the American Art world, sharing his passion for the art that documents the cultures he loves.Following his passion for art from London, where he received a Masters at Sotheby’s

Institute, back to Montana, and finally to New York City, Tylee has worked in a range of art related positions from gallery director to magazine contributing editor to private art advisor. Tylee currently lives in New York City and works for an international arts organizations as a specialist in American and Western American Art. He continues to spend as much time as possible in the environs of his family’s ranch in Montana.Tylee continues to be dedicated to sharing his passion for the American West, the natural world, and art with others.

WILLIAM TYLEE ABBOTT

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PRODUCERBRETT POTTER

Brett Potter is co-founder of Calavera USA, a New York-basedproduction company. As a narrative producer, he’s shown features and shorts at festivals all over the world including Sundance, Cannes and SXSW. As a commercial producer, his work has been featured on MTV, MSNBC, Pitchfork, SPIN and various cable television outlets. His recent credits include Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sundance 2011), The Fort (Sundance 2012), Burma (SXSW Special Jury Prize 2013) and The Places Where We Lived (SXSW 2013 and Best Animation @ AFI.In 2013, Brett was selected for the Creative Producing Fellowship at the Sundance Institute. In 2013, he co-produced Andrew Renzi’s new

film Franny starring Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning and Theo James. Most recently, he premiered two new short films at Sundance - Master Muscles by Efren Hernandez and Yearbook by Bernardo Britto, which garnered a Jury Prize in Animation at the festival. Brett grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana.

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NARRATION&MUSIC

HARRY DEAN STANTON

Harry Dean Stanton is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton has appeared in indie and cult films (Two-Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter, Escape from New York, Repo Man), as well as many mainstream Hollywood productions, including Cool Hand Luke, The Godfather Part II, Alien, Red Dawn, Pretty in Pink, Stephen King’s Christine and The Green Mile. He has been a favorite actor of Sam Peckinpah, John Milius, David Lynch, and Monte Hellman, and is also close friends with Francis Ford Coppola. Stanton’s career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as Paris, Texas, Kelly’s Heroes, Dillinger, Alien, Repo

Man, Pretty In Pink, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, The Green Mile and The Pledge. In the late 2000s, he played a recurring role in the HBO television series Big Love.

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PHOTOGRAPHEDBY

JOE ANDERSON

Joe Anderson is a Brooklyn-based cinematographer hailing from Salt Lake City. Joe attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts focusing on cinematography. A long time alum of the Sundance Film Festival, his first short appeared there at age 16. He has since collaborated on over 12 films that premiered at Sundance. Joe has worked with directors such as Andrew Renzi, Antonio Campos, Mike Birbiglia, Jody Lee Lipes and Toby Halbrooks. His first feature Simon Killer, premiered at Sundance and screened at the London, AFI and Rotterdam Film festivals among others.

Joe is currently shooting Franny starring Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning, Theo James, and Clarke Peters.

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COMPOSERSSAUNDER JURRIAANS &DANNY BENSI

Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans are 2 contemporary film composers working together in New York. Danny is an internationally-raised musician who studied the cello and received a degree in music. Saunder is a guitarist and vocalist heralding from the indy/grunge rock music scene in Seattle. For several years, they played in bands touring extensively in N. America and Europe where they even opened for Pearl Jam. in 2010, they were approached to score their first project “Two Gates Of Sleep” dir Alistair Banks Griffin which premiered in Cannes. The film demanded a unique sounding orchestral score that soon had other directors reaching out. From

Johnny Greenwood-esque Avant-Garde Classical music to sweeping epic orchestral scores to Rock music and everything in between, the composer duo have been approached to score an array of award-winning edgy films and documentaries including “Martha Marcy May Marlene” dir Sean Durkin, “Simon Killer” dir Antonio Campos, “The One I Love” dir Charlie McDowell, ‘Bluebird” dir Lance Edmands, and “Enemy” dir Denis Villeneuve (starring Jake Gyllenhaal) which recently won the award for best Musical Score at the Canadian Screen Awards.

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EDITORDEAN C. MARCIAL

Dean C. Marcial co-founded Calavera with Brett Potter and Grant Curatola in 2008 at NYU’s Kanbar Institute of Film. His first short film, The God Phone, won Best World Short at the 2012 Little Rock FIlm Festival. As a director, editor, producer, and cinematographer, his work has screened internationally at festivals and aggregated on MTV, Pitchfork, and Style.com. In commercial production, he has worked with clients such as Nike, Warner Music Group, and Atlantic Records. In 2013 he won the Best Editing Award at the Berlin Fashion Film Festival for his work on APC’s “Odyssey” branded short, which he also produced and photographed.

Most recently he edited Bryan Reisberg’s feature debut Big Significant Things, premiering at the 2014 SXSW Film Festival, and co-produced two shorts that premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Master Muscles and Yearbook, which won the Special Jury Prize for Animation. Dean was born in Manila, Philippines and grew up in New York. Currently Dean is editing, Franny, a feature film starring Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning, Theo James, and Clarke Peters.

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ANDREW RENZIe: andrew.renzi@gmail.com

WILLIAM TYLEE ABBOTTe: tyleeabbott@gmail.comt: +001 484 354-5128

BRETT POTTERe: bp@calavera.ust: +001 317 850-3624

CONTACT

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ALL WORDS AND IDEAS©2013 THE BRANDYWINE/WILLIAM ABBOTT FINE ART

IMAGES TAKEN ON LOCATION

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