Valerie Cassity - Special to the Sun

Local filmmaker Chuck Barbee unveiled the rough cut of his documentary 'Wild West Country,' last week to many of the people and organizations that helped make the long awaited project possible. The theater was completely full at each of the four showings, a testament to the community support the project has gathered since Barbee began it two and one-half years ago.

'Wild West Country,' which Barbee plans to be a six-episode series about the history of the Kern Valley based on the books of historian Bob Powers, has been a long time dream of Barbee’s. As a child, he grew up coming to the Kern Valley with his family to hunt and fish, and in his teen years, his family moved to the area. Barbee graduated from Kern Valley High School in 1959, and then moved to pursue a career in Hollywood. After a successful 40-year career as a cameraman in the film industry, Barbee retired and began working on his own project to showcase the unique history of the valley. 'I never left the Kern Valley in my heart; it was always my desire to come back here, and five years ago, I did,' said Barbee.

Residents and local reenactors line up outside Reel Cinema in Wofford Heights for a premier of ‘Wild West Country’ Friday.

Shortly after he returned to the valley, Barbee’s brother, Stewart, gave him the Bob Powers books, and he was immediately hooked on the idea of bringing them to life on film. From the beginning Barbee says he was amazed and touched by the amount of support and assistance he has received from the community in every conceivable way. Bob Powers’ wife, Marge, gave Barbee all of Bob’s research materials, which included diaries, newspapers, bits of miscellaneous information, and, most importantly, boxes of photographs. Linda James Clark offered to help with the project, and set to work organizing the photos by family or region, and later Mike Gallagher and others began scanning the photos, which are now completely indexed and archived and available online.

Barbee acknowledged that the project would not have been possible without the generous grant from the Josh Gordon and Roberta Piazza Gordon Charitable Fund, which allowed him to work full-time on 'Wild West Country.' He thanked many others who made the project possible. Tom and Debbie Teofilo allowed Barbee to use The LODGE at PAINTED ROCK, located near Keyesville, to shoot scenes for the series; they also purchased a high-definition camera and donated it to Barbee for the project.

One strategy Barbee used in making 'Wild West Country' was to utilize student assistants through a filmmaking class he offered for four semesters at Cerro Coso College to help complete portions of the project. The students, in turn, received hands-on experience in filmmaking, and two have even gone on to win awards for their own projects. 'This is an experiment, and like any experiment you don’t know when you begin if it is going to work,' said Barbee. 'I think it’s working pretty darn good.'

'Wild West Country' itself rivals documentaries seen on PBS and the History Channel, which are two venues Barbee plans to explore for distribution. The format combines live interviews with descendants of Kern Valley settler families with reenactments and authentic photos to tell the story of the history of this area. The first episode focuses on the white settlement into the Kern Valley, including Joseph Walker’s expedition, which 'found' the Kern Valley; the origin of James Station; the establishment of Keyesville and Petersburg; and it even gives a demonstration of how miners extracted gold from these hills in the 1800s. The episode ends with the establishment of Whiskey Flat, which is where Barbee plans the next installment to pick up.

Everyone who worked on the project, from the students who assisted the production to the reenactors and narrators spoke of what a joy it was to work with Barbee. 'I’ve worked on a lot of film sets, and this was the happiest, most relaxed one I’ve ever been on,' said Jay Corlew, reenactor and owner of Silver City Ghost Town.

Mike Woodward, who served as both a reenactor and one of the narrators, echoed those sentiments. 'The experience has in a word been overwhelming. I had the opportunity to work with so many wonderful reenactors and a great director. To have things work out they way they did had to be divine intervention,' said Woodward. 'I’m humbled by my opportunity to work with Chuck and to put onto film what Bob Powers spent a lifetime putting into books.'

'Wild West Country' will be available to the public in either television or DVD form in about six months to a year, Barbee hopes, at which time he anticipates the second episode will be completed. He still has some editing to do, and there are scenes he wants to add. At the Sunday airing, Barbee asked for anyone who had an oxen team to contact him, as one final scene he would like to include requires oxen to complete. A cowboy in the back offered to talk to a friend of his about it, and Barbee was amazed that once again, the community had come through to provide what was needed to complete this large endeavor. 'In my 40-year career, I’ve never had a project where I just wished for something and was patient and it appeared,' marveled Barbee, 'I think Bob Powers is guiding this project.'