Читать книгу Finding the Missed Path. The Art of Restarting Horses онлайн

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Because Rusty’s tasks were things he already did pretty well, we spent the majority of the pre-production training time with some of the other horses whose tasks were going to be a little more involved. As a result, when it came time for Rusty’s performance, we had only actually gone over the things he was to do a couple of times, and that was almost two weeks prior to the day of his performance.

As was often the case during the filming, what the script called for and what the director actually wanted were two different things, and as it turned out, that was the case on the day we filmed Rusty. As I mentioned, according to the script, Rusty’s first scene was to carry John through the desert with John hunched over in the saddle, acting as if he’d been shot. What the director actually called for was for Rusty to carry John to a specific spot in the desert, stop, and then stand perfectly still while John fell out of the saddle onto the ground.

Because we hadn’t rehearsed any of that, I had to quickly get on Rusty before the scene was to be filmed, ride him out to the spot the director chose for his “mark” and teach him how to be okay with someone hanging on his side while grasping his neck, and then falling to the ground. We had less than five minutes to work it out before the cameras rolled.