A Joel McCrea Shootout Part 3 (The Alabama Hills Series)

(GPS: N36 35.995 W118 07.490)
(AKA The Shark Fin Hike Part 3)

Alright, the finale of this location and the hike. I think of all of the locations and hikes I have shown over the years, this is the one I have ended up delaying the most for many reasons. It is a little out of the way compared to other spots in the Alabama Hills I like to go to. Do not get me wrong, you can drive pretty close to this and do a short walk to it.. However, I tend to like to park in one spot in the Alabama Hills and hike around. I will get to some of the issues I had in editing the video together, but let me continue where I left off in the last blog.

After the major cowboy versus cowboy battle, our main bad guy flees off into the rocks. Joel McCrea chases him down. He hides behind these rocks for cover.

 This shot was interesting to me in that the camera man had to be down really low. Possibly, he was on he belly holding the camera up to get this shot. I did not do that, but I did have to lean over in a very painful way. It was a difficult shot to get because of that issue. I am glad I got it though and is one of my favorite pictures of the bunch.

 After exchanging some gun shots back and forth. Both of our characters try to sneak up on each other here. Our bad guy sneaks up only to find Joel is not there anymore. Where could he be?

 I mention this in the video that part of the trick is to make the viewer think this area is big enough so that a lot of sneaking around can be done. While I was there I did not think that really could be done. IMO, you can not really get away with sneaking around without the other person knowing like they did in the movie.

 In the movie, Joel sneaks around and clearly has the advantage. Our bad guy knows he is caught, but Joel sets up the honorable gunfight duel with both guys putting their guns away. Joel basically says, "Sure you want to do this?" Of course, our bad guy draws first, but is beaten in the draw. Fortunately for him, Joel shot him in the arm and he will live.

 This is the perspective looking at Joel. They go back and forth here between the two creating tension in the movie.

That covers the main parts I wanted to do for this blog. I want you to see the video since I spent much more time on it than any other video I have done. Let me explain the process for this one:

So some years ago I scouted the area, took pictures and video, went back a few times, dealt with some bad windy weather on one trip, did some pre-editing on the computer, did not like some of the footage, figured out how I would deal with the sun, went back, and finally got the footage I liked. A few months later I started working on the project on Sony Vegas. I put it all together with tons of cuts and edits to emulate how it was done in Cattle Empire. Then tried to render the footage and all sorts of weird things started to happen. It would not fully render the video and stop. It would put "ghost" images into the footage that never made sense to me. I tried it on an alternative computer that is much faster, and the same thing happened. After me staying up almost twenty four hours without sleep because the thing was driving me crazy, I figured out how to put it into parts that would work for a final render.

I hope you enjoy it. Bonus points for you that watch it multiple times to stop and match up every single rock used in the movie. LOL!

A Joel McCrea Shootout (Youtube Video)

The music used from Incompetech.com is called Stay the Course and Bittersweet.

A Joel McCrea Shootout Part 2 (The Alabama Hills Series)

(GPS: N36 35.995 W118 07.490)
(AKA The Shark Fin Hike Part 3)

Happy Leap Year Day! Lol!

This is the second part the Joel McCrea Shootout. Again, this gets a little confusing because I need three blogs to do this location, yet all three are the final part of the Shark Fin Hike series. If it does not make sense to you, then do not worry about it too much and just follow along.

In Cattle Empire, the bad cowboys attack Joel McCrea's cowboys. During this scene there are a lot of quick edits back and forth. I cut out all of that here, but I do show some of that in the video. Eventually, Joel and company get the upper hand when the group that Joel sent to set up the flanking attack charges. Which leads to this shot as the bad guys basically give up.

I mention this in the video that it appears that they shot this movie in the afternoon. I typically like to get to the Alabama Hills early in the morning. In this area, that is an issue because the sun hovers right into the direction of the camera when I am there in the morning. I learned my lesson on this, and the last time time I was there made sure to bring an umbrella to block some of the sunlight.  

 In the movie, our main villain does not give up and runs off into the following group of rocks.

 This is where the fun really starts to begin. Hopefully, you can match up some of the main rocks here with the above picture.

 At the start of this our main bad guy hides behind the following rock and takes a few shots at Joel McCrea

 In the following picture we have the perspective of Joel McCrea looking at the rock our bad guy is hiding behind.

Tomorrow I will wrap this up by showing Joel McCrea's perspective, where they try to outwit each other, and the final gunfight position.

A Joel McCrea Shootout (Youtube Video)

The music used from Incompetech.com is called Stay the Course and Bittersweet.

A Joel McCrea Shootout Part 1 (The Alabama Hills Series)

(GPS: N36 35.995 W118 07.490)

(AKA The Shark Fin Hike Part 3)

This begins the climax of what I have been building to in the past few blogs. This is the third and ending part of The Shark Fin Hike series, but this particular location itself will take a few blogs for me to present everything. I'll probably have to re-edit these as I try to finish it up.

Over a decade ago I was watching the movie Cattle Empire (1958) with Joel McCrea. I did not really care for this movie very much. A lot of westerns use a variations of the same stories over and over. How they are executed though is the key. In the case of Cattle Empire it is the type of movie I would watch once because of Joel McCrea, but never watch again. However, they did one thing at the end for the climax of the movie that I really liked.

I told myself at the time that I would have to hunt down the location and do something for it on this blog. It was not a priority compared to other things I wanted to get done. I'll get to some of the obstacles in the next blog or two as to why it took me so long. Let us get started on the actual location.

 The movie starts on a town set, but it gradually has outdoor scenes for the cattle drive scenes. At the end, two opposing groups of cowboys fight it out here. The above rock formation was taken from the Cattle Empire movie. It has been seen in lots of movies in the background, but in this movie it is featured.

The bad guys show up on both sides of the above rock formation. Before that happens, Joel McCrea and his cowboys head to the following gully.

 This is our gully that they come to.

 When they arrive Joel's cowboys hide behind it. He eventually sends part of his cowboys off further to the west to set up what is a flanking attack from the side.

 This is another shot of the gully that will give you you some idea of how they used it here.

 I'll continue this in the next blog.

A Joel McCrea Shootout (Youtube Video)

The music used from Incompetech.com is called Stay the Course and Bittersweet.