By LORI COPE | East Texas Edition

Trinity Films, an award-winning television and theatrical documentary company based in Austin, took on the project to shoot the large format film “A Ride Around the World.” Here, the Titan Crane (right), a 19,000-pound camera vehicle is used to capture the day in the life of a cowboy on the Four Sixes Ranch near Guthrie. The vehicle carries a crane arm, which itself has 7,000 pounds of mercury within it that can be pumped from one end to the other to instantly adjust balance.   — Photo courtesy of Trinity Films

June 15, 2006 - A “spectacular global journey” of the cowboy is now showing on giant screens across Texas. “Ride Around the World: A Cowboy Adventure” is a journey through four continents that follows the development of horse-and-cattle culture from its earliest stages.

The 40-minute film was made in March 2004 through November 2005, and opened at many Texas locations in late May and early June. “The historical perspective is juxtaposed with various scenes from a working ranch in today’s West Texas – the Four Sixes,” noted Betsy Christian, spokesperson for Trinity Films, an Austin-based company. The film is distributed by Giant Screen Films and is presented by Ford.

When scouting the United States for the U.S. section of the film, the Four Sixes stood out, Christian explained. “And, they were actually enthusiastic about us shooting there. We asssured them that we would disrupt their work completely, ask them to do things over and over again for no apparent reason, and generally be a huge nuisance. But they persisted. Perhaps they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.”

Four Sixes Ranch headquarters are at the edge of Guthrie, in the Texas’ Rolling Plains. The ranch, established by Samuel Burk Burnett in the early 1870s, continues to be the primary economic mainstay of King County. Today’s ranch consists of over 200,000 acres, and is well-known for its quality horses and cattle.

Four Sixes Ranch cowgirl Dawn awaits instruction from the film crew. The filmmakers told the ranch staff their work would totally be disrupted during the shooting, but the ranch agreed anyway. Dawn, along with another ranch cowgirl Aleshia, plus Mike, the ranch’s 45-year-old foreman, Boots, a 73-year-old cowboy, and Jake, 21, are also featured in the U.S. portion of the film, “A Ride Around the World.” — Photo courtesy of Trinity Films

The film’s producers and crew came to know the ranch’s staff well. “Most amazing about the meal times was that, after just a few days of production, cowboys and filmmakers, with little common background, became fast friends,” Christian reported. Filming took place at the Four Sixes during early morning and late afternoon hours, for the best light.

The spokesperson also noted that shooting a large format film is a “strange combination of documentary and feature filming, with a healthy dose of landscape photography thrown in.”

The filmmakers studied the cowboys and the work they did to create the stories and scenes to give viewers a “day in the life” perspective. They focused on the different ways of training and caring for horses, a cattle drive, branding and vaccinating calves, and roping a stray bull.

The film also captures rarely seen locations in Morocco, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Canada to depict how the “horse and cattle culture spread from its earliest beginnings to every corner of the New World,” according to a Trinity Films news release.

The film was created for the giant screens, part of the IMAX® system. Christian explained that “large format films are different than feature films and all open in different cities on different dates and play for longer periods of time.”

The production is led by producer/writer/director Harry Lynch, senior producer Jeff Fraley, and producer Brady Dial. International horseman, writer, and historian Jasper Winn served as story consultant and researcher.

“Ride Around the World” opened June 3 at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, and will play for several months. (Show dates and times at the museum can be found online at www.TheStoryofTexas.com; and searching other IMAX theatres will provide dates and times at other locations throughout the state.)