Over the course of two meetings, Brant Hadfield proved to be a gracious host. Accomplished in both film and television, he is a man of many skills: A pilot who first soloed on his 16th birthday, licensed on his 17th; news photographer and editor; stints shooting a feature on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman; shooting and editing The Great Race for Speed Channel for 3 years; shooting and editing news stories for a CBS affiliate in Peoria and the ABC affiliate in St. Louis. He frequently worked with skeletal crews or none at all, and got most of his training on the job, through a lot of personal research, and determination. Raised in Chesterfield, he graduated from Valparaiso University and began his film career shooting Porter County Cops in Indiana. He founded Motionpath Productions in 2006. His transition to film came from a suggestion from a friend that he should quit working for others. She suggested he buy a camera and do his own thing, for the sake of art, instead of using his talent for making others money. All that background ultimately led to The Battle of Island Mound. We began with his short film, The Last Legend.
Neil McDonald: How did The Last Legend develop?
Brant Hadfield: I didn’t even own a camera until 2009, when my friend suggested I start doing my own projects. With that, I got a Letus 35mm adapter, which allowed for greater artistic expression through depth of field. I was doing some test shots at Kuhs Farm, north of Spanish Lake, which led me to want to develop a story around that footage. Principal shooting was that summer. That place literally has changed my life. A good friend of mine inherited the property, and wanted to share the property with people she knew. The light there is incredible. The sun sends light through these 100 year old windows in this barn, and the light in there bounces around off the patina of the old wood. There’s just no studio that can reproduce that.
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