The story behind the making of THE BACK COUNTRY is almost as dramatic as the story within the movie itself. For it is a story about tenaciously  pursuing  a life long dream at an age when most people  have already resigned to themselves    that   such    dreams  were    never  meant  to   be.   It   is   a   story  about  what  can be accomplished through hard work, perseverance and a commitment to excellence. Ultimately, it is a story about refusing to quit especially during the bleakest of moments when the dream seemed destined to remain only a dream.
   Interestingly, the person who would become the driving  force behind the movie, Vincent Raymond, originally had no plans to to be involved in the production at all as he was already working on a screenplay  that he was hoping to direct someday. The persons actually responsible for getting the project going were Raymond's brother-in-law Beau Hilliard, an aspiring screenwriter and Raleigh Wilson, a veteran Hollywood stuntman, rodeo star, actor and former Marlboro Man who was also seeking to direct his first feature. 
    The original plan called for shooting the movie in a wilderness  area of  the  Oregon Cascades. Hilliard would write the script and conduct the first round of actor auditions in Portland while Wilson provided the majority of  the funding as well as a small production crew culled from his Hollywood contacts. 
       But  fate would soon intervene as Wilson was called to work on Steven Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS, leaving the director slot vacant and only Hilliard's much smaller contribution to fund the picture. Raymond however, was impressed  with the quality of the actors Hilliard had assembled as well as his ability to secure a horse pack team and several scenic locations.  Raymond encouraged Hilliard to direct the movie himself while he came on board as a c0-producer and camera operator and provided 50% of the production funds.* Hilliard agreed and over the next few months they made several trips to scout locations. At this point Hilliard felt that Raymond, who had acted in several low-budget productions and had studied acting at the University of Oregon, was more suited to be the director, an offer Raymond eagerly accepted. 
*-Hilliard eventually pulled out the project during the post production phase and Raymond's share of the funding eventually exceeded 70% of the total cost to date. 
   
The dream had been set in motion - sort of. Although both men were willing to dream big, they were nonetheless all too well aware that as first-time movie producers who were relying on mostly first-time actors, that such inexperience heavily stacked the odds  against them. Even more concerning  than this  lack of  experience was their lack of a production crew, (with the exception of Hilliard operating the boom mike), and their lack of money (less than 15% of what Wilson had originally planned on spending). The lack of cash meant they would have to rely on unpaid actors who were unlikely to stick around for very long, especially since most of the cast had full-time jobs and had little time to devote to project. On top of all of this, the producers wanted to mostly shoot in outdoor distant locations ranging from Seattle to central Oregon, a very ambitious undertaking for a movie with such a tiny budget.
   Taking all of this into consideration, Raymond and Hilliard  decided that a more realistic goal was  to  make  a  high quality short film/demo reel that everyone could use to showcase their talents for future audition purposes. Although the actors were somewhat disappointed by the co-producers decision to scale back from a feature length movie, the majority of them chose to remain involved with the project.
   But as they began shooting in January of 2006, it became immediately apparent that even achieving that limited goal was going to be very difficult if not impossible. The most apparent problem of all, one that would plague the production throughout, was  the inability to schedule shoots because of conflicting schedules due to their jobs.  The only answer the two co-producers had to overcoming this never-ending problem was extreme patience, as they were often forced to go several weeks and even months without shooting. In fact the movie required a total of forty-eight shooting days, (typical for a big studio picture but high for a small indie) but it took nearly four and a half years to shoot those forty-eight days. 
    Another issue early on was what genre to decide on. Hilliard's rough draft script was a light comedy-adventure but Raymond, who secretly still held faint hope for a feature length picture, felt they should go with a more serious and realistic drama-adventure. Raymond convinced Hilliard of his view by pointing out that comedy was one of the most difficult genres to pull off and that they already had enough obstacles working against them. Ironically, given both producers' penchants for writing screenplays,  the most pressing obstacle they faced was their lack of a final shooting script. Unfortunately, Hilliard and Raymond were under the same time constraints as their actors were. To save time, Raymond chose to write a scene by scene outline that specified only the location, the time of day and some of the key dialogue, with plans of filling in the details along the way. Raymond knew writing the script this way went against all filmmaking conventions but, this method allowed him to improvise more or as he put it, "Let the story tell itself." Also, knowing who his actors were in advance proved to be advantageous as well as it allowed him to write each character in a manner that utilized each actor's specific speech patterns and personalities, all of which lent itself to more natural performances. 
     Another major obstacle the producers had to deal with was the weather which played havoc with the distant mountain shoots, as forecasts for no  rain (or snow) proved to be overly optimistic. The unexpected inclement weather cut short several shoots, which frustrated the cast members who had made the long trips with little to show for it, and forced the cancellation of at least three other shoots after weeks of finally managing to schedule everyone.  The only partial solution to this dilemma was to shoot closer to home. The trade-off was having  to  give  up  some very scenic  locations  that they had scouted earlier, locations that Raymond and Hilliard felt would have greatly added to the overall cinematic look. 
     By early 2007, Raymond was confident that he had worked out a story, if still only in outline form, from which a feature length picture could be made. More importantly, a year's worth of sporadic shooting had yielded enough quality footage to convince Raymond and  Hilliard that they might actually have the makings of a real movie on their hands. The task now was to convince their actors, some of whom were clearly losing interest, to hang in there. Fortunately the two lead actors, Joshua Rengert and Chloe Francis, were not among those losing interest and needed little convincing to keep going. According to Raymond, Francis especially felt that they had invested too much time and effort to not see the project through to the end and to her credit, she never wavered from that view.  
     There was one actor however, who was playing the key  role of the main villian, who did want out and became increasingly more difficult to work with. So difficult in fact, that the director began to consider replacing him. But with no suitable replacement readily available, Raymond decided he would have to tolerate the actor's behavior because they were too far along into the production to take such a drastic measure.
    Ironically the co-producers instead ended up losing the services of Rengert for three months when the actor was cast in a paying role as the star of SELFLESS, another Portland indie production with a budget nearly sixty times larger than THE BACK COUNTRY. Before departing however,  Rengert did  put the co-producers biggest fears to rest by  promising to return to finish out his part.
    With  Rengert gone, Raymond focused on shooting the few scenes that did not involve him. One of those was with actress Kit Koenig, the only cast member who had acted in a big Hollywood studio film, the oddly titled THUMBSUCKER whose cast included  Vincent D'Onfrio and Benjamin Bratt of LAW & ORDER, Keanu Reeves (THE MATRIX)  and  Vince  Vaughn (THE WEDDING CRASHERS). Koenig's part  as originally written by Hilliard though was quite small, consisting of only a few lines. Raymond however, was so impressed with Koenig's audition tape that he quickly set out to make her part much bigger, writing several emotionally difficult scenes, confident that she could pull them off. Raymond's faith in Koenig's talent was well rewarded as she delivered a very powerful performance in her key scene, so powerful in fact that it left both Raymond and Hilliard feeling that it would be the most memorable scene of the movie. As Raymond put it, "She was really something in that scene so much so that we were much more optimistic about the prospects for our movie. It was a real lift and was exactly what we both needed after so many obstacles and disappointments."
     Another major positive development,  one the director saw as a real 'game changer', was his discovery of a music licensing company based in New York that had their own orchestra recordings of public domain classical music that was available for licensing at a very reasonable price. Music so good that Raymond ended up spending nearly half of the movie's overall budget on obtaining it.   In spite of its micro budget, the movie would now have a soundtrack that would rival that of much larger Hollywood productions and would elevate the stature of movie all on its own. Things we definitely looking up.
    With about 80% of the movie shot by the end of October 2007, Raymond and Hilliard both felt very confident  that they would be able to wrap up principal photography by the following fall even though they were shooting only once every few weeks. But that confidence, especially Raymond's,  would soon be severely tested.
   The first test came with the sudden passing of Raymond's father in November of 2007. The news devastated the director, leaving him, as he put it, "With a huge void in my life." A void so large in fact that it took Raymond several months before he could summon any real desire to go back to work on the movie. 
    When he finally did return to the set in the spring of 2008 he found  his "difficult actor" was now in full rebellion, cancelling several shoots at the very last minute while challenging the director's every decision on the set the few times  that he did show up. By mid-June, having accomplished very little shooting, Raymond realized the situation was so bad that he had no choice now but to replace him. The situation became only more dire when Rengert, who had a family to support, told Raymond and Hilliard that he was going to be starting a new job soon and would no longer be available after July. If that weren't enough, Francis informed the co-producers that she was pregnant and would have to be done by the end of August. Suddenly things had gone from good to bad to worse. How was he going to find another actor capable of playing the villain in the short time before Rengert's departure? It all just seemed too much. The emotional roller coaster that had characterized the production for the most part had hit a new low as, for the first time, both Raymond and Hilliard began to believe that the obstacles they now faced might be too great to overcome. They had given it their best shot, but it now looked liked their efforts over the past three years weren't going to be enough. Their movie dream truly  appeared to be over.
   As that depressing thought began to sink in as he lay awake at night, Raymond, a former football  player and a great admirer of legendary Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi, recalled one of his famous quotes - THE HARDER YOU WORK, THE HARDER IT IS TO SURRENDER. Raymond thought about how hard he had worked on the movie and decided he wasn't ready to surrender just yet. But he was running out of time. He had to come up with a solution and fast.
    Fortunately he didn't have to look any farther than the deli across the street from his apartment to find the answer.  His name was Brandon Vann.
    Vann often made the pizzas that Raymond would occasionally order and the director had long thought that Vann had a menacing quality that would make him an ideal movie villain. Still, Raymond knew putting a non-actor in a such a key role was a very drastic measure but he was desperate. He asked Vann to do a screen test audition, which they did the next day. The audition went well enough that the director moved swiftly to officially replace his difficult actor, who for all intents and purposes, had already bailed.                 
   Raymond gave Vann a one-week crash course in film acting and was pleased with the way Vann followed his direction. But Raymond was still very concerned because he would have to start Vann off with the climatic final scenes with Rengert since this would be Rengert's very last shoot no matter what. "It certainly wasn't how I wanted to break Brandon in," said the director, "but I had no choice if I was going to get them both in the same shots, which was imperative. Fortunately Brandon overcame an early bout of nerves and gave a very impressive performance, all things considered."
   Rengert was also impressed by Vann, so much so that he congratulated Raymond on his new find before wishing him good luck and departing the set for the last time.
   That night as Raymond viewed Vann's work he could barely contain his excitement. What he had sensed on the set  was now confirmed on the screen. "Right away it was obvious that Brandon had a genuine screen presence and that he was not only going to be a sufficient replacement, he was going to be a superior one and that the movie was going to be much better for it." The roller coaster was moving up once again.
   The downside to changing actors of course, was that all the scenes involving the characters of Hagen, Martin and Trip would have to be re-shot, which meant they would have to make the long 260-mile round trips to central Oregon again during October in order to match  the footage they had shot with Rengert and Francis. 
   Another problem arose when the actor who was playing the part of Trip decided he did not want to go through another round of re-shoots. Raymond, thinking what worked once might work again,  decided to dip into the deli's acting pool once again, and ended up replacing him with Vann's friend Victor Bolin, who also turned out to be a better fit for the role.
    From this point on Raymond would be directing the non-actors in the cast and he knew he would now have to micro-manage their performances, something he would never dream of doing with professional actors. Still, the shooting went sluggishly, with many line flubs  that  forced  numerous re-takes.  The director had hoped to finish shooting by the end of October before the rainy season began, but the mistake prone nature of the production negated that and the shooting would have to continue into 2009.   With only outdoor scenes left to finish, they would  take the winter off and resume shooting the following summer with a goal of wrapping up by October of 2009.
   Raymond realized if they were going to meet that goal he would have to find a way to dramatically cut down on the mistakes. His solution was two-fold. One was to rehearse his actors until he was sure they had their parts down pat. The second technique was to a shoot a wide master then break most of the scenes down into a series of over the shoulder medium shots which made it  easy  dub over any line flubs in post production if necessary. Raymond's new methods worked well enough that they were able to complete all the remaining scenes by the end of October 2009.
   Perhaps the biggest advantage Raymond and Hilliard had over a typical big  budget production was that they weren't burning through money on an hourly basis. Having purchased their own equipment several years earlier, the old business axiom "time is money" did not apply to them, at least not in the usual sense. They were free to take their time to experiment, to learn from their mistakes and fix them.  In fact, nearly one third of the scenes that ended up in the movie were re-shoots, with the original scenes basically serving the purpose of rehearsals. As Raymond put it, "A few people may have felt some of the first shoots were a waste of time since they didn't make it into the movie,  but  part of the process of making something good, whether it's a meal, a car or a movie, is to first be able to recognize when the creation  is not good, in order to fix it. "
  After studying the footage of 2009, the director felt that several scenes, although adequate, could still be improved on. Borrowing once more from Vince Lombardi*, Raymond was able to get his actors to agree to reshoot the scenes by convincing them that they still had an opportunity to improve their performances which would make for a better movie and ultimately wasn't that what they wanted?   Unanimously agreeing with his logic, they obliged and the re-shoots went smoothly. Just as important, they were a notable improvement over the original scenes. Satisfied with results, the director was able to call it a wrap in August of 2010. The  production phase was finally over - some four and a half years after it had begun.                                                       
* Lombardi's quote was "Although perfection is unattainable, by pursuing pefection we can catch excellence." 
 
  A feature length motion picture goes through five stages during it's creation: Development, Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production and Distribution. A typical Hollywood movie will usually take between one and three years to go through these stages, while a low-budget independent movie may take anywhere from three to seven years to go through this process.    Raymond & Hilliard had survived the production phase. For Hilliard, there was little to do now other than critique the director's editing. But for Raymond, who had very little editing experience, or any other post-production experience for that matter, the real work of creating a legitimate movie out of over thirty hours of raw footage was just beginning. Not only was the task ahead monumental, it was wrought with all kinds of potential pitfalls. In fact the  post-production process  would present him with so many formidable obstacles to overcome that the emotional  roller coaster  ride to the bottom, and the hopeless feeling that accompanied it, would only become more frequent and more intense during this phase. Indeed, it would test Raymond's determination and perseverance to the hilt. 
   Fortunately, his Christian faith and its tenets on the power of prayer, along with a few post-production "miracles" and yes, several more Lombardi inspirational quotes, would help Raymond stay the course and eventually get through the tough times during the post production process. Still, it was a process that would take Raymond nearly six more years to complete since he worked full-time at his regular job the entire time. "Some of the cast, as well as some of my friends and family would often ask me why it was taking so long to finish. I would respond by  asking  them if they ever noticed just how many names there are in the ending credits of a movie, then tell them I was having to do many of those tasks by myself and in my spare time at that. Of course I wish it hadn't taken so long, and I would never want to make a movie this way again, but even if this movie never shows a profit,  I'll have no regrets. Disappointment yes, but no regrets. After all, I know in my heart I gave it my best shot and as a result I was able to fulfill a life-long dream by making a movie that, while certainly no masterpiece, I'm at least proud of.  How can I possibly regret that?" Of course Raymond is all too aware the dream won't be one hundred percent complete until he can get his movie in front of a paying audience of movie goers that finds his work a worthwhile investment of their time and money. Unfortunately after the lock downs, the motion picture business at taken a very hard hit, and it remains to be seen how many theaters will survive. Historically, it has always been difficult for an independent movie maker to get their movie in a theater. If there are fewer theaters available that will only make it more difficult. And should Raymond overcome the odds again and succeed in getting The Back Country into theaters the question still remains whether movie goers will be willing to even go back into theaters any time soon. As of this writing, (July 2021) with most theaters operating as they before the lock downs, the movie  attendance numbers according to Box-Office Mojo, have not been very promising. But  that is another chapter for another time in a still unfolding story.