Pioneer Florida Museum makes film history

The 19th century Overstreet House at Pioneer Florida Museum & Village aced the audition and got the casting call for its film debut.

For two nights, the Dade City museum hosted actors and about a dozen graduate students from the College of Motion Picture Arts at Florida State University.

The front porch at the Overstreet House will be the setting for a climactic showdown of retribution and revenge in “The Terrible Trio.”

The 12-minute live action short is the thesis film for Robert Eaton, director, screenplay co-writer, and FSU graduate student. His film will debut on campus at FSU, but Eaton anticipates also showing “The Terrible Trio” at small film festivals.

The actors and FSU film crew came to Dade City to shoot their movie on museum grounds after hours.

They blocked out scenes, ran cables, set up lighting, rehearsed and filmed scenes from late afternoon until past midnight on March 27 and March 28.

It is the first time that anyone can recall the museum, and Overstreet House, being featured in a movie.

The museum more often is a popular field trip for elementary students who like to end their day with a picnic on the grounds, said Stephanie Black, the museum’s executive director.

But, she added: “It’s thrilling to have a film crew take over at night.”

Black said she got an email from FSU asking for pictures of Overstreet House. Students then came down for a visit and an agreement was reached to allow filming.

In return, the museum will receive a copy of the film, a screen credit, and an invitation to the screening.

Eaton said Overstreet House competed with another local 1910 house.

But, Overstreet came closest to matching a 1870s “bachelor pad” for a character that Eaton describes as “the king of outlaws.”

The house had simplicity and one irresistible feature – a front porch.

The character, Ronaldo Rey, is of Mexican heritage, slick and intelligent, Eaton said.

Rey (which means king in Spanish) and a gang of corrupt lawmen rob a trio of misfits of gold, furs and a horse. The theft strips them of their livelihoods.

Eaton described his characters as atypical for a Western.

One is a former slave and a Mandingo fighter. Another is a Canadian fur trapper, and the last is Felicity Ford, the female protagonist and film lead. She is struggling to be a strong, independent woman in the Old West.

However, the exact locale of the story is deliberately ambiguous. It could be the Deep South, but then Eaton said the story could unfold somewhere between Florida and California.

The plot unfolds as the terrible trio bands together to reclaim their possessions and their destinies.

The film is a hybrid — including drama and comedy.

“It’s a little over the top and playing on clichés,” Eaton said.

When finished, FSU has ownership of the film. The school gives students a budget of $4,000, which Easton boosted to $10,000 through a private investor.

His actors were hired largely through taped auditions.

Caitlyn Sponheimer, who plays Felicity, started her career with modeling and commercial assignments. She also has done film and television.

“I always wanted to do a Western,” she said. “This is a strong female who rebels against the norms of the time. She’s not timid. She’s feisty.”

Demi Castro plays Rey. “He’s charming, very grandiose and verbose. Extremely confident.”

Castro lives in Orlando where he recently performed in the telenovela comedy, Destiny of Desire, at the Garden Theatre in Winter Haven. He also has movie and television credits, and helps other actors put together audition tapes at Class Act Studios, also in Orlando.

John Racioppo is a Canadian actor, living in New York. His character is Wayne Tuck, a fur trader, who Racioppo says is “a stranger in a strange land.”

He gets dropped into the middle of an unfamiliar world, and his attempts to adapt provide a lot of the film’s comedy, Racioppo said.

The third actor in the trio wasn’t available when a reporter from The Laker/Lutz News visited the set.

This is Eaton’s third film, after “Once Upon a Blood Moon” and “The Devil’s Luck.”

He co-wrote “The Terrible Trio,” with Carolina Garrigo, an FSU teaching assistant.

Eaton currently is in discussions to become a second unit director on the HBO series, Westworld. Other jobs on the same series are possible, too, Eaton said.

Whatever comes next, Eaton added, “I love telling stories. I don’t see myself leaving this.”

For information on FSU’s film program, visit Film.fsu.edu.

For information on the Pioneer Florida Museum & Village, visit PioneerFloridaMuseum.org.

Published April 12, 2017