WITNESSING HISTORY, LLC is now producing its most ambitious documentary DVD yet, a two-hour production entitled Daniel Boone and the Opening of the American West. Daniel Boone will trace the life of the famed frontiersman from his birth near Reading, Pennsylvania in 1734, through his years in Kentucky and to his death at Femme Osage, Missouri in 1820. A vast number of Boone documents, portraiture and imagery is being collected for use in the production. Action scenes of Boone’s early explorations of Kentucky, his first attempt at settlement, the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, the opening of the Wilderness Road, the Revolutionary War in Kentucky and the Ohio Valley (including the sieges of Boonesboro, Ruddle’s Station and Bryan’s Station and the disastrous Battle of Blue Licks), and Boone’s later life as a surveyor, tavern keeper and even a legislator in Virginia are scheduled to be filmed using more than forty actors, including Scott New, who portrays Daniel Boone. The production will be studded with magnificent scenes filmed in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, as Boone would have seen them, the traces, caves, springs, rivers, creeks, hills, and even dwellings, churches and churchyards. Action scenes are scheduled to be filmed along the Kentucky River near Boonesboro, the recreated Martin’s Station in Southwest Virginia, Pilot Knob in Powell County, Kentucky and a host of other sites.
Four hours of battle scenes with Shawnee Indians were filmed on Saturday, September 24 2011 as were scenes of Otter Creek, the Kentucky River at Boonesboro, Old Providence Church and Boone’s Station. Scenes of the defenses of Boonesboro, Bryan’s Station and Ruddle’s Station, along with scenes of Boone’s first attempt at settlement in 1774 and the death of his son, James, were filmed at the site of Martin’s Station in the Wilderness Road State Park near Ewing, Virginia from dawn to 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 12. In addition, scenes of John Finley’s first meeting with Boone and the first exploration of Kentucky by Boone and Finley’s party in 1769 were also filmed, along with scenes of life in the frontier forts and stations during the early years of Kentucky’s settlement. The footage of the fighting from the blockhouses of the forts is positively gripping; all of the footage is so life-like that the viewer believes he/she is witnessing the events as they unfolded.
Scenes of Daniel Boone as a tavern keeper in Limestone, Kentucky and as a member of the Virginia Legislature were filmed in Frankfort, Kentucky in February 2012. A week later, scenes were filmed of the Kentucky River pallisades during a snowfall. Also filmed was the pioneer burial ground in Harrodsburg and at the gravesites of Daniel and Rebecca Boone in Frankfort.
On March 31 our camera crew filmed the pallisades of the Kentucky River between Madison and Jessamine Counties while aboard a pontoon boat. We reached the site of Tapp’s Cave, one of three caves known to have been occupied by Boone during his solitary explorations in 1770 and 1771. The cave was filmed, as were all the approaches to it. Filming is being scheduled for the Hickman Creek cave and a cave in Mercer County, as well as the mouth of the Dix River in late May.
At Martin’s Station near Ewing, Virginia on May 12 scenes of the British and Indian attacks upon forts at Boonesboro, Bryan’s Station and Ruddle’s Station were filmed, as were scenes of Boone with John Finley on Braddock’s expedition, Boone being captured by the Indians and then being with them prior to the siege of Boonesboro, Boone and his hunting party on what became known as Lulbegrud Creek and Boone in the Kentucky canebreaks. More scenes of Boone’s life and exploits in the settlement of Kentucky will be filmed at Pilot Knob in Powell County in June of 2012.
Daniel Boone and the Opening of the American West is scheduled for completion and premier broadcast on KET in the late fall of 2012. Updates and still pictures will be posted as the production progresses. Sponsors include the Filson Historical Society, the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Richmond and Madison County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Visitors Bureaus of the ten other counties surrounding Lexington. Other corporations and institutions will be announcing their sponsorship soon. Thomas P. Dupree, Sr., is an Executive Producer.
Go here to see photos from the November 12 and here for the May 12 shoots at Martin’s Station.