{"id":3886,"date":"2020-02-04T13:02:24","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T20:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/?p=3886"},"modified":"2020-02-13T14:02:55","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T21:02:55","slug":"40th-film-anniversary-behind-the-scenes-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/40th-film-anniversary-behind-the-scenes-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"40th film anniversary. Behind the scenes part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cowboys and Indians magazine<\/a> did a nice series of articles about the making of “The Black Stallion”.<\/p>\n

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Stop by the shop!!<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Black Stallion\u2019s Accidental Screenwriter<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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BY Elizabeth Kaye McCall <\/span><\/p>\n

November 25, 2019<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Jeanne Rosenberg stumbled into co-writing her first screenplay and it set the stage for a movie career.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Film critic Leonard Maltin joked that Jeanne Rosenberg was an \u201caccidental screenwriter\u201d when he introduced her at TCM Classic Film Festival\u2019s screening of The Black Stallion<\/em> in Hollywood last year.<\/p>\n

A graduate of USC Film School [now USC School of Cinematic Arts], Rosenberg had planned on a documentary film career, until a script analysis she wrote on her favorite childhood book, The Black Stallion<\/em>, changed everything.<\/p>\n

After graduation, she learned the movie was in the making with Carroll Ballard directing. A horse lover from her earliest memory, Rosenberg was determined to wrangle a meeting with Ballard when the film was in preproduction in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called and said, \u2018I\u2019m coming your way. Maybe I\u2019ll just stop in. Do you mind?\u2019 I was flying from Los Angeles to the Midwest. They were in Toronto,\u201d Rosenberg says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were supposed to meet for coffee one morning. He was late. I was making notes on a napkin. He showed up, grabbed the napkin out of my hand, and kept the notes.\u201d Then came a life-changing phone call: \u201cCarroll would like you to come back. We need help on the script.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was total chaos when I arrived. Melissa Mathison [who would later write ET: The Extra-Terrestrial<\/em>] got off another plane,\u201d says Rosenberg, \u201cWe met and became this writing team as <\/em>we were about to shoot. Carroll hadn\u2019t committed to a screenplay. All the actors were there. Everyone! Carroll liked to keep everything open and see what developed. He was driving everyone crazy, of course,\u201d Rosenberg says laughing.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere were times when we would actually write in the evenings and hand pages to Carroll ahead of time. But usually we were right there [on set] hunkered somewhere in the grass, or in a chair, ripping off pages and throwing them at Mickey Rooney, who would scowl and scowl and then do it. We were writing on set virtually moments before the cameras rolled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosenberg remembers talking with Carroll about the scene where young Alec, played by Kelly Reno, first sees retired jockey and racehorse trainer Henry Dailey (Mickey Rooney, in a role that would earn him an Oscar nomination) in the big barn.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarroll wanted something dramatic. Honestly, I didn\u2019t know that much about narrative filmmaking at that point and I write this scene where Henry\u2019s lurking through the barn, through the shadows, but when it\u2019s the reveal he has a gun in his hand. I show it to Carroll and he goes, \u2018No, no, no!!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The rewrite worked: \u201cInstead of the gun,\u201d Rosenberg says, \u201cHenry has shaving cream all over his face. It was scary and then, here is this cantankerous, maybe dangerous guy, with shaving cream all over his face!\u201d<\/p>\n

A true equestrian, who owns and competes on reining horses, Rosenberg flashes back to when shooting began on 7.7.77, a date emblazoned on her mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shot the second part of the movie first. I was in Toronto,\u201d she explains. \u201cPart of my job on set was really to protect the horse relationship. I kept reminding Carroll that no one can get close to The Black except for Alec. No one else can lead The Black. I know we lost that a little later in the story, but I was constantly reminding him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, her equine education expanded. \u201cI\u2019d never seen liberty work before. I had never seen a trainer stand and raise his arms and get the horse to rear on cue, to go from A to B, and go to a mark. It was extraordinary. It really took my mind somewhere else, made me see whole new possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

And she got schooled in patience and frustration. \u201cCarroll kept refusing to let us write the island sequence. Of course, we did it anyway,\u201d Rosenberg says. \u201cI did not go overseas. Melissa was there. I know it was really hard and really gorgeous. A tough shoot, the kind of shoot that Carroll Ballard loves, out there in the elements with a much smaller crew. Everyone pitching in to carry gear \u2014 here, there, and over rocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was an extraordinary visual experience captured on film. \u201cThat\u2019s what Carroll wanted to make. He has an amazing eye and is quite a storyteller.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many angles \u2014 high angles and low angles and tracking shots \u2014 so many things that are so<\/em> much easier now. Just send the drone out or put the camera on the cable. It was so hard then and they did it so well.\u201d<\/p>\n

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More about The Black Stallion<\/h3>\n

The Black Stallion: A Heartwarming Epic For The Ages<\/a><\/p>\n

The Black Stallion at 40 With Stunt Coordinator Glenn Randall<\/a><\/p>\n

The Black Stallion\u2019s Secret Weapon<\/a><\/p>\n

The Black Stallion at 40 With\u00a0Production Assistant Tim Farley<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cowboys and Indians magazine did a nice series of articles about the making of “The Black Stallion”. Stop by the shop!!   The Black Stallion\u2019s Accidental Screenwriter BY Elizabeth Kaye McCall November 25, 2019 Jeanne Rosenberg stumbled into co-writing her first screenplay and it set the stage for a movie career. Film critic Leonard Maltin …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,637,1],"tags":[567,281,278,67,463,71,531,469,89,462,461,50],"class_list":["post-3886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","category-movie","category-uncategorized","tag-black-stallion","tag-bucephalus","tag-carroll-ballard","tag-cass-ole","tag-clarence-muse","tag-corky-randall","tag-francis-ford-coppola","tag-fred-roos","tag-kelly-reno","tag-mickey-rooney","tag-terri-garr","tag-walter-farley"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3886"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3888,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3886\/revisions\/3888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}