Pipestone’s former Hiawatha Pageant grounds and historic downtown buildings and courthouse will provide the setting next August for a Civil War-era docudrama directed, produced and written by Wes Kruse of Superior, Wis.
“Rhythm and Courage” is the story of a Civil War drummer boy that weaves facts about real characters and events from the 105th Pennsylvania drum unit with fictional elements to create a film that, ultimately, is about courage, said Kruse, speaking from Superior, Wis. where he lives.
“A drummer boy’s role was to keep the momentum of pride and glory alive,” he said. “The drummer boys became the mouthpieces of the army. Orders were given, the drummer boy would drum it out; when to advance, when to retreat. There were 67 different drills they had to know — when to put out the lights, when to eat — and soldiers had to know the drummer calls also.”
The drummer boys eventually became enemy targets, Kruse said.
“While they were in battle the enemy would try to take out the boy because if you take out the communication, you take out the army,” he said.
Drummer boys were as young as nine-years-old, Kruse said, but, “generally, they were between 12 and 18, because then at that age they could pick up a gun and start fighting,” Kruse said. “But there are records of them in their 20s and the oldest one was in his 40s.”
Pipestone’s Civil War Days was the draw for Kruse. Held every two years, the weekend event hosts about 200 Civil War re-enactors who arrive from surrounding Midwestern states to play war on the Hiawatha Pageant grounds while an average 2,000 visitors watch the battles and skirmishes.
Kruse visited the site this past May.
“I loved it,” he said. “I loved the courthouse look, the battlefield, the Fort. We’re writing scenes into the movie because of all the cool things out there.”
Kruse’s tour guide during his May visit was Chuck Ness, the coordinator for Pipestone’s Civil War Days committee.
“We were pleased and honored that someone would want to include footage for a movie from our event,” Ness said.
Ness said that some of the re-enactors have been in major feature films, such as “Dances With Wolves” and “Gods and Generals,” but since the Pipestone event has never been filmed, he doesn’t know what to expect. The commanders of the re-enactors have been notified about the filming, he said, and have been told there will be no scripts or directing.
“He knows what our expectations are; in the middle of a battle you can’t go, ‘Cut!’” Ness said.
“We are shooting the battle scenes here,” Kruse said. “Whether we can involve the drummer boys off to the side — it’s all open. I can’t stop the battle; I have to respect that. And they don’t want the cameras to be seen because they want to keep it as authentic as possible. But there are places I can hide the cameras. And I don’t need to worry about sound because I’ll dub that in later.”
Though Kruse won’t be directing the re-enactors, he’ll request they don dress blues the night of the ball to march down Hiawatha Ave. just south of Main Street. He’s also hoping to enlist extras wearing period dress.
“This is where I want the community involved,” he said. “By the museum, two blocks there, would be absolutely perfect to line as many people in period dress as possible. Then the Civil War re-enactors will be led by the brigade of drummers. We’ll film the whole thing.”
Kruse said he’s hoping to crack the independent film circuit with “Rhythm and Courage,” which will be released in conjunction with the Civil War’s April 2011 sesquicentennial.
Kruse works as a cardiac monitor to pay the bills, but his passion lies with filmmaking, which he does out of his production studio, KLP Studios (www.klpstudios.net).
“I get inspired to write films and then I take the equipment and crew I have and we go and make a film,” he said.
The inspiration for “Rhythm and Courage” was a piece of band music a percussion instructor had written for a Wisconsin music camp. Kruse set out to find a Civil War angle after learning the songwriter had been thinking about the Civil War when he wrote the piece. The music plays a prominent role in the film, Kruse said, underlying all the scenes in different arrangements.
The drummer boy angle and the film’s main characters, the Craig brothers, developed from Kruse’s reading of Civil War-era letters soldiers wrote to family members.
“Rhythm and Courage” will be Kruse’s third movie. The first, “Can You See the Wind,” was a documentary that tracked three decades of an alcoholic’s path, ending with the road to recovery. The second, entitled, “Momma I’m Hungry,” was shot in Tanzania, Africa, another documentary that witnesses how microloans are changing the family and social structures of third-world villages.
