Photo added March, 14, 2005
Rick Janzen page added to TheLetterheads.com
http://www.theletterheads.com/lhparts/openrange.html
Posted by Mike Jackson on September 07, 2003
Dan SawatzkyHi again,
I just returned from taking my two boys to see Open Range. It was good the second time, too. I really studied that sign by the doorway into the doctor's house. I am convinced it is a flat panel with a raised mahogany frame. The lettering is gold leaf and the background has black glass smalts. You can see the glass texture in the first scene at the house, and again a little later in the movie when Costner and Duvall are standing outside with the lightning flashing. I couldn't see any wood texture at all in the background as you would see if it were sandblasted.
I did notice two other "issues" however. I'd have to check the old Sears catalogs to see when they developed the barbed wire we are familiar with today. There was one short scene with it. Also, at the end of the movie in the garden, there was a clothes line above Costner and Benning with a bunch of the spring loaded style clothes pins. I would have expected to see the old style pines with the round head and two legs in 1880.
If anyone else gets to watch the show, keep a keen eye out for the background texture in the Doctor's office. For the people reading this post out of context, scroll down to the thread about Costner's Open Range movie. This post will make a little more sense.
Mike Jackson
The film was made in Alberta, Canada.
I talked with the fellow who made the signs yesterday. His name is Rick and he owns a company called Streamline. I worked with him a couple years back on two projects in Calgary. Rick and his brother so mostly film work although they do tackle other unusual projects from time to time.
Rick called me on another matter but we chatted a bit and I asked him some questions about the work done for this movie.
The design work was done in LA. Rick delt with Cosner a fair amount, and enjoyed working for him emmensely. He mentioned working with another fellow (art director??) as well, and found him tougher to deal with.
Rick and his brother worked for 4 months on the project... "out in the hills" as well as in his studio.
The doctor's sign was indeed smalts, with a raised border.
-dan
Mike Jackson - Thanks Dan
Hi Dan,
Thanks for filling in the missing link here. He'd probably get a kick out of reading the comments. That would probably be a pretty fun job, at least on the surface. The big negative working on a project like that is they want and expect it quicker than it is normally possible.
Around here, movie companies pay well, pay quickly, and have auditors that come around and make certain all was well after the fact. From what I have been told, the movie commissions want to stay on good terms with the towns and states so there is no ill will once a shoot is wrapped up.
The scenery was absolutely beautiful in the movie. I kept looking for trout rising in the streams, especially when you see all the insects flying around in a few scenes.
Thanks again,
Mike Jackson
Raymond Chapman
Jeanne and I went to see Open Range on Friday. The doctor's sign didn't appear to be dimensional other than the raised frame.
Wasn't the date 1886? Also, where was this supposed to have taken place? Was it Colorado?
My only question about the signs is, in that small a town, obviously a long ways into the west, would they have had a sign painter of that caliber to produce those signs? They were all good and fit the period, but in most of the historical pictures I've seen of the west the signs were very crude, even those made by the town sign painter.
All in all, it was a great movie...even with all the killing. When it comes out on tape I'll buy it and pay more attention to the details.
Only Mike Jackson would be looking at clothes pins during the romantic parts. But I think he's right.
Kent Smith
Mike JacksonI am sure Mike is right about the clothespins as there is a story in our family about my grandmother being enamered with the spring type when they moved to Denver in 1923. Still a very new thing then? There were catalogue houses where you could order fancy signs. The Hotel De Paris in Georgetown, CO had a glass sign ordered from NY in the 1860's which Dad restored 100 years later. There are many other examples in the mining towns around here. Many doctors ordered their shingles from some outfit in Pennsylvania, I think Serber had some examples of those too. One could order signs from Sear and Wards and remember that Rawson and Evans and Western Sandblast were catalogue houses as well. I haven't seen the movie but I always look at such things and miss some of the dialog and action. Judi hestiates to go to live performances because I am always critical of props, lights and set movements.
Hi Raymond and Kent,
I think the setting was somewhere in Colorado. They mentioned the town of Gunnison getting washed away by a big storm. I don't know if there really is a town with the same name...something like Ft. Hampton but that doesn't sound quite right either. I didn't notice the clothes pins on the first viewing, and probably wouldn't have the second time except I saw a line behind Costner's head when he was in the garden. That made me wonder whether it was a telegraph line or phone line they neglected to remove. The entire town set was probably built from ground up, so I doubt that could have slipped by. When the shot was expanded, I then could tell it was a clothes line with clothes pins.
I have quite a few old books on western towns and I didn't find the lettering that much out of the norm for a larger town like that. The stable guy mentioned he had been around since it was an army fort up until until the current state of the town, so there would have been plenty of time for the signs to fade and for several sign painters to flow through the town painting all the signs. There were a LOT of signs in the town, but I guess there wasn't a sign code! Along with the reality of western towns, we are also conditioned to expect a certain look by all the 50's western TV shows. There was probably a blend of the two.
The doctor sign was by far the highest quality sign in the town, even compared to the other signs on his property, so as Kent said above, it would have probably been ordered from out of town or brought with him on his trip west. The historical director of the show seems to have understood that concept and included it. I didn't see any letterstyles out of character from my historical books either. No helvetica and no vinyl.
My kids seemed to like the movie even though it lacked the current wave of flying karate kicking action stunts they see daily. I found it interesting that they isolated the very first shot of the gunfight, the shotgun blast, and the townspeople taking care of the last bit of business. People who have already seen it know which scenes I am talking about, without ruining it for the others.
Happy viewing,
Mike Jackson
Denver Chapter of the Letterheads