Director’s Chair: Filming in Oklahoma

AN OKLAHOMA FILM DIRECTOR talks about the advantages of filming in Oklahoma
- Sterlin Harjo

It’s hard to communicate the excitement I get from shooting films in Oklahoma… in that, I have nothing to compare it to. I’ve never shot a film anywhere else. I began filming music videos for my friend, Jeff Johnston’s band, when we were in college at OU. We usually shot the videos in his house during parties.

I was a sophomore when I attempted to shoot my first feature film called LAST TRAIN. LAST TRAIN was a story about a Greek American who tries to get to his Grandfather’s funeral in Chicago to put two drachma coins on his eyes. On his way, the Greek-American man meets a hooker with a heart of gold, who joins him on his journey. The two decide that they need more money so they take a job with a farmer to get some extra cash. The farmer turns out to be a nut and makes their lives hell.

It was a no budget film so, needless to say, they never made it out of Oklahoma. It was a weird script that I planned to shoot with the help of my friends on weekends over a period of six months. We shot most of it around Holdenville, my hometown. Food was the one thing I remember most about this experience, because the only thing we ate during that six-month period was deep-fried pizza pockets from the local gas station, real healthy.

Now looking back at the footage, there’s not a shot in hell we could’ve made that film come together. I really didn’t know what I was doing, but the best way to learn is to just do it… even if you fail. The night before, we asked the owner if we could shoot there. He gave us the go ahead, and assured us that the days were not that busy in the bar- it was crucial that it be quiet in the bar for us to record dialogue.

When we arrived, there were about fifteen people walking around the bar hammering things into the wall and making loud noises in general. It seems that the owner forgot to tell us there was a wedding scheduled at the bar later that night and a wedding crew needed to decorate. Ironically, the other owner of the bar was also an ordained minister and would be performing the wedding.

There was no keeping that crew quiet and the scene was ruined… a small price to pay for matrimony, I guess. Later, I thought that we should have just filmed the wedding, because I was sure it was a lot more interesting than the film we were trying to make.

Since then, I’ve made films in Oklahoma with better results. After a few short- films, I made another feature called, FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND in Holdenville and here in Tulsa. The film reaped a few awards such as Outstanding Performance for Tamara Podemski at Sundance 2007, Best Director at AIFI Festival 2007 in San Francisco, Best Actor for Cody Lightning at AIFI Festival 2007 and Best Film at Imaginative Film Festival 2007 in Toronto. It was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

"The great thing about filming Four Sheets to the Wind was that Tulsans were so helpful to us during the shoot."

The great thing about filming Four Sheets to the Wind was that Tulsans were so helpful to us during the shoot. We shot at Double Shot Coffee, 818, the old Eclipse and numerous other locations around town. I love Tulsa and Oklahoma, and I love shooting here. Of course I want more film productions to come to the State, but at the same time, I feel like it’s our little secret. I just finished shooting a new film called, Barking Water. It is a road movie that was shot from northern Oklahoma to the southeastern part of the state. We used the diverse landscape of the state as our backdrop to the film. The changing landscape of the flat plains to the green hills provided an Oklahoma aesthetic that cannot be manufactured on any Hollywood set… and there is less traffic.