Corral (film)
| Corral | |
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DVD cover art
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| Directed by | Colin Low |
| Produced by | Tom Daly |
| Written by |
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| Starring | Wallace Jensen |
| Music by |
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| Cinematography | Wolf Koenig |
| Edited by | Tom Daly |
| Distributed by | National Film Board of Canada |
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Release date
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Running time
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11 minutes, 32 seconds |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
Corral is a 1954 short film documentary made by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), as part of the postwar Canada Carries On series. The film was directed by Colin Low and produced by Tom Daly. Corral featured cinematography by Wolf Koenig with Eldon Rathburn composing the film score.
With the aid of a trained dog, a cowboy (Wallace Jensen) in southwestern Alberta, has located and rounded up a large herd of wild horses. Driving the mustangs into a corral at the Cochrane Ranch, he begins the process of "breaking" each horse. The process is a familiar one for cowboys that requires years of experience and a knowledge of handling horses.
Selecting one wild horse that is marked with a white streak on its face, the cowboy lassoes the horse and cinches the rope to a large stump, gradually pulling the animal closer to him. Once the wild horse gets used to his hands near the head, ears and neck, the cowboy ties a rope halter on its head. The next step is to introduce a loose halter, fitted without a bridle and bit and finally, a blanket and saddle on the half-broken steed.
The cowboy mounts the rearing, high-spirited mustang, and driving through the open corral, rides rapidly at break-neck speed across the Alberta Rocky Mountain Foothills, until his mount is finally able to get used to his rider. The cowboy reins in the charging steed, slowing the gait to a trot, finally heading back to the ranch.
Filmmaker Colin Low got the idea for the film after attending a cattle auction in 1952 with his father, who had worked as a foreman at the Cochrane Ranch, in what is now Cochrane, Alberta. The following summer, Low asked NFB colleague Wolf Koenig, an ex-farm boy, if he would like to come to Alberta to make a film about a cowboy. Koenig was in the NFB Animation Department, with film becoming his first live-action production using a new Arriflex cinema camera fitted with a gyro stabilizer.
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Wikipedia