short film

ROLE : Director of Photography / Cinematographer

Kurt Martonik is 32. Everybody who knows him says he’s closer to 72. He works on the Spartan Forge app during the day, and before and after work he’s out in his shop. A couple hours in the morning before he leaves, three or four at night, and eight to ten hours a day on the weekends. Nobody’s making him do it, he just loves it. The shop is where the old guns come back to life. He shapes stocks out of slabs of wood, and right now there’s a shotgun in there that was probably made in the early 1900s getting ready for another hundred years. He’s also built up a library of gunsmithing books, some from the 1930s, that answers almost every question he has without going online. A lot of it goes back to Grandpa Cherry, who had a patent on turkey calls in the 80s and 90s and had Kurt building right next to him from the time he was six. Turkey calls, clocks, wooden guns with “Kurt” carved on the bottom (or a K and an upside down U, depending on the year). And then there’s the woods. Kurt hunts with the guns he restores, and he goes out there to be quiet and think. That’s where he figures most things out.

Directed by Thomas Clements

Produced by Rockin C Media

Edited by Matty Schmalz