"Following the story of Ricky “Ringo” Stillwater, we see a young woman gain the confidence, with the unrelenting support of her mother, to show her face as Ringo, the famed, previously unknown, Bounty hunter. Ringo had been hiding the fact that she was the top Bounty Hunter in the area by simply killing all her targets and bringing them directly to her mother, Sheriff Stillwater, for the payout. When Alonzo Taylor comes into town demanding the whereabouts of his younger brother, who Ringo already collected, Alonzo uses Ricky as a negotiating hostage. Fully equipped for any trouble coming her way, Ricky needs a push to show how ready she is."
#Director William Bonnell (
@willbonnell ) takes us behind the scenes of #Ringo premiering at the LA Short Film Fest this week.
"I love Western films—the stories of the law vs. the lawless and sometimes those in between. From a sharp shooting bandit in a poncho to an ex-Civil War soldier and bounty hunter, the new and the old all share commonality in one thing... there’s the good, the bad, and sure enough, there’s the ugly. In my opinion, the familiar archetype of the damsel in distress is overplayed and frankly dull (Especially when researching older Western films and TV for the script). The same thing happens; the heavy rides into town, to the chagrin of our lead, and takes the pretty girl captive. The handsome devil heroically saves the damsel overplaying her distress... in a white hat—the end. I wanted to bend that trope a bit and mislead the audience.
Originally, I wanted to shoot the film with Panavision 16mm cameras, yet we needed help budgeting for the amount of film we were planning to use. With the New Filmmaker Program, Aaron Saffa helped us immensely. He was able to get us two #Panavised Alexa Minis to speed up our on-location shooting. We only ended up shooting a day and a half. It was an incredible experience that I would highly recommend."
