Filming Sheep for Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain © 2005 Focus Features.

Patrick Goldstein with the Los Angeles Times reports on an amusing story about filming sheep for Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain:

While shooting Brokeback Mountain near Calgary, Alberta, director Ang Lee spent hours one day attempting a sequence with sheep drinking from a babbling brook.

As the day wore on, co-writer and producer Diana Ossana got on the phone with novelist Larry McMurtry — who had collaborated on the script with her.

McMurtry, a native Texan, knew just what Ossana was thinking:

‘‘Hasn’t anyone told him sheep won’t drink from a brook? They’ll only drink from still water."

Lee eventually gave up on the shot.

The article discusses McMurty's role on the film and his past experience. It can be found at this link.