D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
August 2009
Hollywood on the Gila
Fledgling Silver City filmmakers Ray Lopeman and Jim Essick, both in their 70s, try their hands at a full-length Western, Long Gun New Mexico.
By Jeff Berg
In terms of life experiences, Ray Lopeman and Jim Essick don't have too much in common, but they are the best of friends, love movies, and attend the same LDS church in Silver City. Lopeman, 77, and Essick, 72, have both had many adventures over the years, and have recently added a new chapter to their varied experiences: They have made a full-length feature film, Long Gun New Mexico.
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Jim Essick (left), film editor Monica
Davies and Ray Lopeman (right, at rail) filming scenes from Long Gun
New Mexico in Pinos Altos. |
It took them a while to achieve their new careers, but both seem solidly entrenched in the movie business now. Both will be in Mesilla on August 29 at 10 a.m. for an exclusive screening of Long Gun at the Fountain Theatre.
The locally made Western is actually Essick's second foray into film production. When he got his first whim to do a motion picture, he went out and hired what he thought was a "professional" crew. He recalls, "In 2006, I hired a 'director' from ENMU and some crew, and gave them a screenplay and story I had written, and too late, I found out that the 'director' didn't know a thing. After a few months I fired him."
By then, most, if not all, of the crew had quit.
Essick, not to be denied his chance at an Academy Award, decided, as many of us do, if you want something done right, do it yourself. So, he went and bought his own equipment, took some classes at WNMU and set about doing the principal filming for his screenplay, a short "horror-comedy" movie with the colorful title of The New Mexico Weed Whacker Massacre.
"I was having troubles with the VA at the time I wrote it," Essick recalls, smiling slightly diabolically, "and I wondered, if I had the chance, how I would get even. . . ."
Thus, the birth of the Voices New Mexico Film Production Company, which has also done some short training and promotional films for groups such as the NAACP.
Weed Whacker Massacre has a running time of 45 minutes, and tells the story of a man who gets revenge on anyone who crosses, cheats or screws around with him, by stalking them and offing them with — obviously — a weed whacker. Essick explains his choice of weaponry: "You can go to any garage sale in the county and someone will have a second-hand weed whacker for sale."
A blend of dark comedy, mild tension and general silliness, the film, by Essick's and Lopeman's own admission, is not very good. When one watches it, it is easy to dissect (yes, a pun) its flaws. But, on the other hand, two things become clear: Everyone involved appears to be having fun (even the murder "victims"), and these two lifelong learners, with nearly 150 years of life experience between them, went out and DID it — something few of us can say.
"I really like the story and want to remake it as we get more experience," Essick says.
Lopeman agrees, and appears to have some ideas on how to do it. Maybe a sequel with riding mowers is in the offing.
Essick and Lopeman's unlikely but binding friendship is worth a movie in itself.
Born in Cleveland, Essick served nearly 30 years in the military. He also lived in Baltimore, where he was the county manager and once worked under then-Governor and future Vice President Spiro Agnew. Big-city life didn't suit Essick's wife, however, who set a 10-year time limit for their stint in Baltimore.
Essick served in the Navy for eight years and in the Army and Army Reserve for another 20. He has been in the American Legion for more than 30 years. He was actually called up for active duty for Operation Desert Storm, at the age of 59, even though he had served during wartime previously.
"I was called up on Jan. 2, 1991, and did report to Fort Leonard Wood (Missouri) and was marked 'fit for service,'" Essick says. "I was transferred to Fort Gordon, in Georgia, as a platoon sergeant. My total service during this period was 176 days. During my service I jumped out of the back of a two-and-a-half-ton truck (aka 'deuce and a half') and broke the cartilage in both knees. A M*A*S*H unit operated on my right knee and this is why they (still) both hurt. I was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for this duty."
Essick had also been injured while serving in Korea. "My left shoulder was dislocated while serving aboard a destroyer which was caught in a typhoon during the Korean War," he says, adding, "I was 19 in one war and 59 during the other."
The Baltimore bargain with his wife was a deal he kept, and by 1972, the Essicks were living in Silver City, where he was in charge of the library at WNMU. As time went on, he found himself being assigned additional jobs, including being the head of the university's Audio Visual Department. He later became the building and stage manager for the campus auditorium, and also for Light Hall. He supervised as many as eight different performances a month at times, giving him a taste of showbiz.
He has also made a foray into the world of fiction writing. His science-fiction novel, Gatemaster, debuted on Amazon.com in July, and he's pondering a possible movie adaptation.
Ray Lopeman's biography is equally as diverse, except he can include a number of high-speed adventures on his resume.
"I was born on a ranch in Kansas, and I've lived in 22 states," he says. "I stayed on that ranch through my teenage years and then we moved to another in Colorado."
Like Essick, Lopeman served in two branches of the military, the Navy for two years and then later in the US Marine Corps as a medic. He likewise saw action in the Korean conflict of the 1950s.
Since then, he has done the following, never stopping once to catch his breath: worked as a fireman in Denver, been on the rodeo circuit, owned ranches in several states, operated a successful business in California, became a certified diver, lived on a yacht for three years, was a commercial pilot, and was elected county commissioner in Kane County, Utah. There he built and operated a very successful western-movie town, near Kanab, Utah, called Frontier Movie Town. More than 300 films and television episodes have been shot in the Kanab area over the years, and Lopeman mentions Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales as one of the bigger titles that was shot in the area, but before he opened his Frontier Town site.
Originally he had moved to the Kanab area to "retire" (unlikely), and to raise a few horses. But that was not to be, and he soon found himself caught up in numerous activities.
Lopeman rattles off a few more of his activities, including racing motorcycles, collecting and dealing in antiques and guns, breaking horses, operating a traveling Wild West show that featured realistic gunfights, and being a member of an Old West gunfighters chapter that won the national championship two years in a row. Currently, Lopeman maintains a membership in SASS, the Single Action Shooting Society.
"I like anything with speed," he comments nonchalantly, adding with a shrug, "I've broken 31 bones."
And then there was his acting and stuntman career.
"I was running an air conditioning business near San Diego, when someone asked me to pose for a mural that was being painted," Lopeman relates. Apparently that helped put him into the movie business. "I thought this could be fun, and I was then asked to do a commercial for Nikon."
That brought him in touch with an agent, but he didn't quit his day job, maintaining a position for a wholesale supplier for over 20 years.
Lopeman's ruddy good looks and classic cowboy-type face brought him close to being the real Marlboro man, as he was one of five finalists for that still widely remembered advertising campaign.
"Later, I met (actors) Clint Walker (who remains a close friend) and Jocko Mahoney (Tarzan), and started doing some stunts, including a turn in the film Return of Grizzly Adams."
In 1984, Lopeman left his day job, and went to Utah with his wife, found a house, remodeled it, and, well, you know some of the rest of the Utah story.
He finally arrived in Silver City in 2006 while on a road trip, looking for a new place to live, after buying and selling still another ranch and again "retiring."
Jim Essick, meanwhile, was also proving a reluctant retiree. But retirement did give him time to pursue a love of the movies that dates back to the silent film era. He vividly recalls seeing one of silent film's biggest stars, Buster Keaton, in one of his most notable movies, The General. Essick points out various scenes that awed him then and still command his respect. He was also a fan of Dracula, noting, "I want to do a Dracula movie, too."
He enrolled at WNMU, where he met and learned from David James Baker, a filmmaker and a visiting professor of media arts in the Department of Expressive Arts.
Baker says Essick brought a whole new dimension to his classes. "Academics tend to prefer the younger lot who don't really challenge what we teach. In my view, lifelong learners like Jim Essick are a godsend to everyone in the classroom," Baker says. "He's survived three wars. He's traveled all over the world. He brings all of those experiences into the classroom. And if that's not enough, he goes out of his way to help much younger students with technical and material support. Some days I felt the need to sit down and shut up so Jim could tell the whole class something really important. He always brought profound lessons into the classroom — like the human cost of war. That's not something I can tell a 20-year-old about very well.
"One of my favorite classroom experiences is Jim Essick dancing in the middle of the room to the 'Loco-Motion,' wearing glow sticks while another student filmed him," Baker adds. "From that day forward, I make sure students know I allow dancing in the classroom. I always wanted to encourage that, but until Jim Essick walked into the room I wasn't sure how."
Between Essick's classes and experience in filmmaking and Lopeman's previous forays into acting, it was only natural for the two men to team up. Though the resulting feature film, Long Gun New Mexico, isn't likely to win an Oscar or even screen much beyond the Land of Enchantment, the producers are determined to get it marketed via Amazon.com and into a few movie houses around the area.
Both are big fans of the Western genre. Lopeman lists Lonesome Dove and westerns that feature Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda and, of course, The Duke among his favorites. Essick has a bit more esoteric tastes, and offers up Dead for a Dollar as his favorite oat burner.
The 80-minute Long Gun features Lopeman as a retired (for "real" this time) sheriff who is hunting down five men who murdered his family and burned his home. Lopeman plays the sheriff to good effect, and there are some excellent camera shots and good use of natural light by Essick.
In class, Baker notes, "Jim often brought images of paintings by the great masters of the Renaissance as examples of the effects of lighting on drama." And it shows.
The film does tend to ramble a bit, but good writing by Essick offers a bit of a surprise ending.
As in any ultra-low-budget film, one can easily pick out mistakes (someone pointed out to Lopeman that the canteen he uses in one scene is far too "modern"). But it is important, on every level, to remember that this is a new career for the two men, and most of the cast and crew, and that everyone involved was doing it for free.
A bonus was the response by the community. The film was shot in and around Silver City, with a bit of work done in the Deming area, at Gary Maxwell's Western movie town site there. Some shooting was also done on the Double E Ranch near Gila.
Essick says, "We put out a call for people to be in a posse scene, and 40 people showed up! I told them I can't use that many people, but everyone was okay with it, even those we couldn't use."
With a laugh, he also recalls the startled response by some of the cast when a few cows stampeded toward them. "That really got them going."
At press time, Lopeman and Essick were working to get the DVD of Long Gun ready to sell on Amazon.com, where Weed Whacker Massacre is already available.
But, not satisfied with sitting on their hind ends hoping for money to roll in from DVD sales, Lopeman and Essick have started working on their second feature, another western, with the working title of Blood Feud. Essick has written the screenplay and this time, Lopeman is directing, as well as starring.
Lopeman smiles gently under his perfectly trimmed mustache. "I think it was Abraham Lincoln that said, 'If there is no vision in life, people perish.'" His eyes sparkle and he smiles just a bit more, adding, "You've gotta have fun in life."
Long Gun New Mexico will screen one time only on Saturday, August 29, at Mesilla's Fountain Theatre, at 10 a.m. Lopeman and Essick will be in attendance, perhaps with some cast and crew. Admission is $4. For more information, leave a message at 524–8287.
For more information on Voices New Mexico films, see www.voicesnewmexico.com
Senior Writer Jeff Berg, like half the rest of the world,
is writing a screenplay.
It is based on a Tom Russell song, "The Sky Above, the Mud Below"
— and it's a western!