(Arizona's Superstition Mountains; home of the Lost Dutchman Mine legend.)
The Dutchman Project
The story of the Lost Dutchman Mine is probably the best-known American treasure legend of all time. Over the past 60 plus years literally dozens of books, maps, and personal narratives have been published about Jacob Waltz's lost gold in Arizona's Superstition Mountains.
Treasure Hunting
Now a team of independent (indie) filmmakers from Los Angeles is looking to take on the legend of the Lost Dutchman from their own unique perspective using the silver screen as their artistic medium. This indie film endeavor is called The Dutchman Project and is headed up by writer/director Tara Anaise Samat and producers Jennifer Harrington, Tamara Blaich, and Megan Peterson.
Here's what Tara has to say about The Dutchman Project:
"I grew up in Arizona and throughout my childhood I heard stories about The Lost Dutchman Mine. Located in the Superstition Mountains, with people going missing every year in search of what is rumored to be the richest gold mine in the Southwest, possibly the world, the legend of the mine kind of gets the mind of a child going. Cut to 2004 when Tara and I were graduating from film school and trying to find a story that inspired us to take on as our first script and I mentioned the mine."
"A lover of conspiracy theory and the supernatural, Tara was hooked. We have been working on various iterations of this story since then and finally we decided that instead of writing a $75 million dollar special effects heavy spec script that no studio would ever let us direct ourselves, we decided we needed to go back to our roots. Both of us love getting the crap scared out of us by a good movie, and as experienced documentary/reality producers we think the genre suits our sensibility and plays to our strengths. Add to that our master's degrees in film production and you have the whole package. So here we are."
Indie Filmmakers Provide Alternatives
I don't know about all of you out there, but I personally don't think too highly of the Hollywood film-producing monolith that seems hell bent on force feeding us outlandishly expensive remakes of older movies that were much better as originals or big-screen adaptations of the comic books we once read as children. By the same token, much of Hollywood's creative spirit appears to have been trampled underfoot as big-time producers, directors, and yes...actors too, have sold out for the almighty dollar in nearly each and every instance.
This is where indie filmmakers step in. They provide all of us with alternatives that may be short on grandiose production elements, big car chases, or top-name actors but that are long on story, character, and artistic creativity. The Lost Dutchman Mine treasure legend was tailor made for an indie film approach.
If you'd like to learn more about The Dutchman Project you can visit this link (and I urge you to do so):
http://www.indiegogo.com/thedutchmanproject
I myself am a big fan of indie films and support them whenever I can. Indie filmmakers depend on people like you and me to help fund their efforts, so if you have a few bucks to spare, why not make a donation as I did?
Good hunting out there...
If you liked this post, you may want to read: "Bumblebee's Lost Gold"
(c) Jim Rocha (J.R.) 2012
Questions? E-mail me at jr872vt90@yahoo.com
