For the week of June 5 - 11, 2002

Movie made old fashioned way—

Cheaply with friends, family

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By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

Ketchum resident Branson Veal led a pretty exciting life working in film production in New York and Los Angeles before moving to the valley three years ago.

Director Branson Veal, center, directs Doug Robens (back to camera) before a shot in the Ski View Lodge office on Saturday afternoon. In this scene Roben’s character has just arrived in Ketchum after driving across country from New Hampshire. Express photo by Dana DuGan

But slow down? Get real. In that short time he got married, had a baby, started an ad agency—dharmaDesign—and is in the process of producing and directing a short movie, "The Mulligan," that he co-wrote.

Veal shot the independent film last weekend in various locations in the Wood River Valley.

It features several local actors, including Hailey resident Doug Robens as its protagonist, and Nina Jonas, Jeff Jameson, Tom Monge, Phil Poynter, Lissa Poynter Veal, James Young, Don Rhinehart, and a "bunch of Hailey girls."

All of the actors and much of the crew worked gratis, Veal said. He hired crew locally and from Salt Lake City and Boise.

"A lot of local people have come together," he said.

Veal calls his story, which was co-written by Boisean ad man John Liebenthal, "darkly humorous." It concerns a man who abandoned his family and then returns to Ketchum after a long absence.

Veal and his crew shot over the weekend at breakneck speed at the Bear Claw Trading Post on Highway 75, north of Shoshone, Timmerman Hill at the intersection of Highway 75 and U.S. 20, the Red Elephant Saloon in Hailey, the Ski View Lodge in Ketchum and various street locations.

Veal said that while the film has been privately financed, he is seeking financial contributors to help with post-production.

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.