Spring Hunters (another daydream of a short film)

This is a quiet film, set principally in the outskirts of Escalante, Utah.

[A group of four hunters load guns and large camo bags into a truck, then hitch a trailer, with the Wasatch Mountains in the background. Shot in flashes of a few seconds each.]

[Switch to a shot of the hunters driving down the freeway, shoot brief flashes through barren rural Utah, with long shots dwelling on the switchback rock canyons at sunset just north of Boulder. The hunters are seen speaking, laughing, and silently looking. Final shot is outside the truck, showing the hunters' truck driving past the troubled youth camp outside Escalante, with the camp sign unobtrusively set in the upper left corner of the frame, as the hunters drive in from the right and drive out of the frame at the left.]

[Switch to hunters unhitching the trailer, then frying dinner in a pan and eating. Screen goes black.]

[An electric light comes on, and a hunter gets up and starts the coffee machine. The other hunters get up and all hunters start to put on camouflage, speaking quietly to each other, nodding and shaking their heads, smiling and grimacing. Hunters finish dressing covered head to toe with camo, with camouflage masks even covering their faces. Scene ends showing guns being withdrawn from gun cases and loaded. Entire scene shot in the dark of early morning, with only dim electric lights creating small areas of light.]

[Camera follows hunters from behind as they walk through juniper and sage brush then down a hill and across a stubble field before sitting down in front of Russian olive trees. With hunters settled, take long shots of the field from the hunters' perspective, and focusing on the pre-dawn of the mouth of Escalante Canyon. Suddenly the camera jerks back to the field and the scene goes black as two shotgun shots nearly simultaneously explode.]