FOUR LAKES — Hollywood and the usual entourage of actors, crew and equipment descended upon local watering hole The Bullhead tavern last week to film the indie movie “All Those Small Things,” starring James Faulkner, perhaps best know for his role as Randyll Tarly, the evil father of main character, Samwell Tarly, in “Game of Thrones.”
Written and directed by Spokane filmmaker and screenwriter Andrew Hyatt, the plot involves long-time British game show host Jonathan Robbins, who loses a friend as he nears the end of his career and begins reflecting on the meaning of his life. When Robbins receives a letter from an American fan he travels to the Pacific Northwest in search of answers, according to the film’s independent producer Cory Pyke.
This is the second time Hyatt and Faulkner have teamed up. Faulkner also played the leading role in Hyatt’s 2018 movie “Paul, Apostle of Christ.”
Bullhead co-owners and life-long friends Michael Ehrgott and Doug Wethington closed the bar on Nov. 3, when filming began. Both are working in some capacity as crewmembers.
Wethington, with multiple hand-held radios hanging off the pockets of his jeans, and who worked four seasons as a crewmember with Spokane production company North by Northwest on Z Nation, was serving as transportation coordinator for the All Those Small Things crew.
He said he’d been working hard to get the bar into movie scenes. It will also be featured in a locally filmed movie scheduled to be released the summer of 2020 called “Blue Waters,” a story of an attorney who finds herself an assassin’s target who becomes romantically involved with a detective.
Filming on Wednesday, Nov. 13, at the Bullhead was the final day of 10 filming days at the bar for the 35-40 members of the All Those Small Things cast and crew. Another 12 days are planned in and around Spokane, Pyke said, plus three days in London to complete the film.
Spokane production company North By Northwest, of the zombie apocalypse series “Z Nation” fame, provided much of the local crew and equipment for the film.
The $1.7 million movie is financed in part by Rebel Kat Productions, a Seattle company owned by the films executive producers Nike Imour and Rebecca Petriello with help from Washington Filmworks, a non-profit that uses its $3.5 million annual budget provided by the Washington State Legislature to help promote and fund movies filmed in the Evergreen State.
The program has been around since 2007 and has helped fund 120 projects, according to Washington Film Commissioner Amy Lillard, and is responsible for $134 million in direct spending in the state economy, while providing some 21,000 jobs for local cast and crew members. Filmworks helped fund the Z Nation series, as well as the movie “Captain Fantastic” that earned actor Viggo Mortensen an Academy Award nomination.
All Those Small Things is the fifth project Washington Filmworks has funded this year, according to Lillard.
The movie is a feature film debut for Imour and Petriello who started out as a Seattle theater company before venturing into film.
Pyke wasn’t yet sure about the films debut date but was hoping for a film festival run — any one of the major six, such as Sundance, South by Southwest, Toronto Film Festival, Telluride or Cannes — before a release to general audiences.
Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].
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